who have slandered the Temperance reform as a work of the devil are confuted by every Temperance society and adherent. A common source of confusion and error lies in a want of discriminating between real and spurious effects. The faults of Temperance advocates and organizations (i. e. the faults of fallible men, taken as we find them) are charged upon the principle of abstinence, which is as unreasonable as it would be to charge all the sins of those who use intoxicating liquor upon the drink. What is plain to the candid observer is, the production of woeful evils by the influence of alcoholic beverages, and the cessation of these evils (except where they have become morbidly chronic) whenever these beverages are renounced.* 'To call evil good, and good evil,' does not alter the constitution of things, but it is a serious offence against the Divine law, and will be followed by a perversion of the moral sense in the offender himself.

CHAPTER XIII. VERSE 33.

Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

TO LEAVEN] Zumee, 'to ferment.' Yeast is albumen in a state of decay. The action of leaven in dough converts the saccharine particles into alcohol and carbonic acid gas, when the effort of the gas to escape (or rise by its levity), gives to the dough the porousness of light bread. But by pumping artificially made gas into the dough, as is now done under Dagleish's patent for aerated bread, the same effect is produced, and the waste of flour (about a twelfth part), always consequent upon the fermenting process, is avoided. This waste, taking into account the quantity of bread annually manufactured, is very great. The alcohol generated in common dough by fermentation is afterward expelled by the heat of baking. An attempt once made to collect the spirit thus evolved, entirely failed as a speculation, owing to the smallness of the quantity and the difficulty and expense of condensing the vapor; otherwise the alcohol might have been economized for scientific purposes.

IN THREE MEASURES OF MEAL] Eis aleurou sata tria, 'in three sata of flour (or meal). The word saton was the Greek form of the Hebrew seah, the third of an ephah, and was equal to 2% English gallons. Aleuron (from aleō, to grind) denoted the meal of any sort of grain separated from the husks.

TILL THE WHOLE was leavened] Heōs ou ezumōthee holon, 'until the whole (mass) was fermented.'

The Saviour here selects one characteristic of leaven to symbolize the penetrating and assimilating power of His heavenly influence. Such a simile does not modify the striking analogy between ferment and corruption in doctrine or life. When the Lord declared, I will come on thee as a thief,' the single point of comparison is never mistaken, as it often is in the text before us, where prejudice and appetite interpose their blinding influence.

The Report of the Committee on Intemperance of the English Ecclesiastical Province of Canterbury (1869), shows that in 1300 districts where the traffic in drink is suppressed by local power, drunkenness, crime, lunacy and idiotcy are all but nil, while pauperism is at a minimum. An enterprise which thus empties Satan's kingdom can hardly originate with hiın.

CHAPTER XIV. VERSES 6, 7.

6 But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. , Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask.

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These texts, compared with Mark vi. 20-26, make it very evident that during the excitement of a birthday revel Herod had lost his habitual caution, and given a rash and wicked promise to a beautiful but profligate woman, in obedience to which he sacrificed the life of a great preacher of the Reformation, to whom, in his sober senses, he had respectfully and gladly listened. In our comments on various passages of the Old Testament we have already illustrated the relations between intemperance and the unwise and cruel acts of kings and rulers. From the time of Alexander to the present day history is full of terrible examples of the disastrous political influences of drinking, one of the latest of which has been seen in the British Abyssinian war (1867-8), King Theodore, from being a prudent and amiable ruler, having been gradually transformed, by his drinking habits, into a sanguinary and capricious tyrant, altogether unamenable to the power of reason.

CHAPTER XV. VERSES 11, 16—20.

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11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. 16 And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding? Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? 18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.

20 These

This passage (with the corresponding one, Mark vii. 15, 18-23) has been strangely cited to prove that intoxicating liquors, as physical agents, cannot defile a man, seeing that all evil is from within, and not from without.

I. Those who reason after this fashion should, by virtue of the same premises, deny that any quantity of intoxicating liquor can defile the user; and that since no moral or immoral effect is connected with it, whether the quantity consumed be a glass or a gallon, a beaker or a barrel, matters nothing.

2. Were it granted that intemperance is a sin of the heart, like pride, covetousness, etc., yet the occasion of the sin being intimately connected with the use of strong-drink, abstinence from the drink may be highly expedient as a means of avoiding the sin.

3. Could it even be proved (contrary to all evidence and experience) that as a mental offence (the desire to get drunk), intemperance would be as frequent as it is now, were all intoxicating liquors banished,-the absence of the actual and overt offence would exempt the world from so much suffering, civil crime, and social calamity, that the exclusion of the drinks would be worthy of every effort to secure it.

4. The scope of the Saviour's teaching in this place is entirely distorted by the attempt to deduce from it the conclusion, that the use of intoxicating liquors is a

matter of moral indifference, and that intemperance originates in the heart. (1) The Lord is opposing that superstition of the Pharisees which attached a moral value to the ceremonial purifications and distinctions of food as clean and unclean; and He asserts, in contradiction to them, that moral evil is of the heart, and cannot depend upon what is eaten, and how it is partaken of-though, of course, either might illustrate the state of the heart in relation to a Divine precept. But certainly, to ignore natural influences by the authority of a text which sets up real as above ceremonial distinctions, is a case of clear perversion. (2) The Lord's remarks had no respect to the special nature and effects of intoxicants, such as the articles alcohol and chloroform, or the natural narcotics, opium and bhang; and it is little short of impiety to adduce His words in contravention of the well-known and indisputable influence of such things to excite a diseased craving [see Note on chap. iv. 7], the indulgence of which is productive of the most criminal results, inflaming every evil predisposition, and giving rise to thoughts, passions, blasphemies, and vicious actions, which but for them would have had no existence. It is not true, as every one knows, that it makes no moral difference to the world whether intoxicating liquors are used or disused; and to represent the Saviour as asserting what is contrary to universal knowledge is a fearful example of wresting the words of holiness and truth.

5. The very opposite conclusion to the one above offered may lawfully be drawn from the Saviour's argument; for if there be no virtue in mere ceremonialism, nor vice in the absence of it-if the state of the heart is the one matter of paramount importance,-how carefully ought the Christian to guard himself, as well as others, from all indulgence in those seductive drinks, which 'cause the heart to utter perverse things,'—which, unlike ordinary articles of food, act specifically upon the nervous system, and through it upon the whole man as a moral and spiritual being! Even if drink did nothing more than to lay the heart open to Satanic influences, how sedulously ought it to be shunned! *

CHAPTER XVI. VERSES 6, 11, 12.

6 Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. I How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? 12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

Beware of the LEAVEN] Prosechete apo tees zumees, 'hold yourselves from the ferment.' Prosecho, to have (or hold) to,' is generally used in the sense of applying the mind to a thing; but when, as in this case, it is followed by apo, 'from,' the verb expresses the concentration of the mind with a view to avoiding the object, and is then practically synonymous with apecho, to hold off from,' 'to abstain.'

V. 12. BUT OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE PHARISEES AND OF THE SADDUCEES] All' apo tees didachees tōn Pharisaiōn kai Saddoukaiōn, ‘but from the teaching of

Contrast the hardness and tenacity of many professing Christians on this subject-their insensibility to the circumstances of the case, and consequent duty-with the conscientious declaration of a late distinguished physician, that the danger attendant upon the use of alcoholics had frequently prevented him from prescribing them, even as medicines.

the Pharisees and Sadducees.' Didachee (from didaskō, to teach) frequently denotes, as here, the thing taught = the doctrine.

Evil doctrine is compared by the Lord to leaven, from its tendency to corrupt the mind, by the false principles injected and the irreligious conduct in which it issues. The Pharisees made rabbinical tradition paramount to the plainest precepts and spirit of the Mosaic law, ‘judgment, justice, and mercy'; and the Sadducees, by their skepticism, struck at the root of all spiritual devotion. Such 'leaven' could not be too earnestly and completely excluded if faith and righteousness, acceptable to the holy God, were to flourish and abound.

CHAPTER XVI. VERSE 24.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

[See also Mark viii. 34, and Luke ix. 23.]

Christian self-denial embraces-(1) The denial of all propensities entirely vicious. (2) The denial of all sensuous pleasures which needlessly expose to moral danger. (3) The denial of all gratifications which would disqualify for the adequate performance of all Christian duties. These acts are said to be the denial of a man's self, because they are the denial of those appetencies which are strongest in the unrenewed nature. Let it not be supposed, however, that Christian self-denial is self-mortification in the blind ascetic sense, or an effort at self-annihilation in the Buddhist sense. On the contrary, Christian self-denial tolerates an enjoyment of all innocent (and in the best sense natural) sources of pleasure, while it qualifies for a participation in the happiness of the spiritual life. It is, in short, the subjection of the inferior nature in order that the superior nature may be more fully developed; and any pain and constraint attendant at first on the practice of this self-denial will not only be recompensed by the joy it brings, but will in due time be greatly diminished by the force of habit, and by the spontaneous preference of things that are pure and good. The question whether self-denial should be practised in regard to intoxicating liquors is of vast importance. They are mostly used on account of the sensuous pleasure they impart a pleasure inevitably associated with more or less of moral peril;-and their promiscuous use is constantly prolific in misery and sin of every description. Would the Church and the world be better without them? would my individual state and capacity for usefulness be improved by abstinence?'— are inquiries which every professing follower of Christ is under obligation to put to himself; and if, having answered them in the affirmative, he refuses to follow up conscience by a corresponding conduct, he may be said, without a breach of Christian charity, to fall short so far of the standard presented in this passage. The Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect model of self-denial, for He never refused to sacrifice mere taste or liking for the sake of spiritual good, whether of Himself or others; and therein 'He has left us an example, that we should follow His steps.'

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CHAPTER XVIII. VERSES 7-9.

Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence

cometh! 8 Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. 9 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

V. 7. OFFENCES] Ta skandala, ‘stumbling-blocks '= causes of moral offence or wrong-doing.

The two 'woes' of verse 7 are to be distinguished. There is woe to the world,' from or by the causes of stumbling which are in it; and there is pleen ouai, 'woe besides' ('more woe,' or greater woe) to the man by whom stumbling comes. It is bad for men to stumble; it is worse for those who cause them to do so. The tempter is not exonerated because the victim was able to resist, nor will he be acquitted by urging (if truly) that he did not tempt for temptation's sake, or out of pure malignity. The application of this solemn passage to the whole system of making, providing, and vending intoxicating liquors must be apparent on reflection. Who is ignorant of the dangerous nature of those drinks? and who, if cognizant of their nature, cannot but know that by recommending and circulating them he may be at any moment setting a stumbling-block in the way of others? The traffic in intoxicating liquors is specially open to condemnation, since the direct object of the vender is pecuniary gain; and his observation must prove to him that their promiscuous sale is attended with woeful consequences to the physical, social, and moral welfare of society. That the State should license him to traffic in such liquors is itself a scandal, but the fact is not a plea which will avail him in the Supreme Court of Justice and Equity.

[Verses 8 and 9 are substantially similar to Matt. v. 29, 30, on which see Notes.]

CHAPTER XXI. VERSE 33.

Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.

HOUSEHOLDER] Oikodespotees, house-ruler.'

A VINEYARD] Ampelōna, the accusative of ampelōn, 'a vineyard,' from ampe los, 'a vine'; but the derivation of this last is obscure. Very doubtful is that which refers it to emam, and peelos, 'clay,' also an Ionic equivalent for oinos, 'wine'; so that ampelos = ‘that which contains wine.' Another conjecture points to ampi (Eolic for amphi), 'round,' and helisso, to twirl,' 'to bend'; whence helix, ‘a tendril.' This etymology of ampelos would correspond to that of the Hebrew gèphèn, ‘a twig,' applied to the vine as the principal flexile plant.

Hedged it round about] Phragmon auto perietheeke, 'and placed round it an enclosure' (fence or hedge).

AND DIGGED A WINEPRESS IN IT] Kai ōruxen en autō leenon, 'and digged in it a press.' Leenos is supposed to have come from loō, 'to contain '; so that the lecnos (Doric, lanos) was the place which contained the grapes preparatory to treading [Hence ho Leenaios, 'the Leenian,' was one of the names of Bacchus ;