admixture of any thing else. Beaten and stirred up with mustard-seed for several days, it becomes a paste of whitish color, which, mixed with water, forms a cooling drink like our ginger, molasses, and water. 9. SIMPLE BOILED MUST, OR NARDENK. Simple grape juice, without the addition of any earth to neutralize the acidity, is boiled from four to five hours, so as to reduce it to one FOURTH of the quantity put in. The grapes usually chosen are the species naturally sour, or such as will not ripen. After the boiling, for preserving it cool and that it may be less liable to ferment, it is put into earthen instead of wooden vessels, closely tied over with skin to exclude the air. Its color is dark, its taste an agreeable sour-sweet; and it is turbid, vegetable gluten being suspended in it, even when it has been standing for a long time. It ordinarily has not a particle of intoxicating quality, being used freely by both Mohamedans and Christians. Some which I have had on hand for two years has undergone no change; still, when not sufficiently boiled, if exposed to the air and heat, it undergoes a degree of fermentation, and becomes exhilarating and perhaps intoxicating. Nardenk is used as a syrup for a beverage, one part of the syrup to from six to fifteen parts of water. In the Bebek seminary it has been often used by the boys to eat with their bread, as in America we use molasses. It is sold by all the grocers of Constantinople at the same price, or cheaper, than wine. It is not all made from the grape, but some of it from apples, and some of it from pomegranate, whence it originally had its name. As there has been great search for an unfermented wine-a wine that would not intoxicate—as soon as I came upon the trace, two years since, of such an article as Nardenk, I most perseveringly followed it up, till I should find out what it was. For although, in the present use of language, an unfermented wine is an impossibility, yet here is a cooling grape-liquor not intoxicating; and which, in the manner of making and preserving it, seems to correspond with the recipes and descriptions of certain drinks included by some of the ancients under the appellation 'Wine.' 10. GRAPE SUGAR OR BOULAMA. This article is derived from the boiling of grape-juice to make grape molasses. The scum is ladled off into other boilers; again slightly boiled, cleansed with eggs and poured into barrels for use. It is used very extensively in all the villages south of the Sea of Marmora as an article of food in its simple state, very much as we use pure honey. It is almost the only sweetening used by a numerous class of confectioners. There are probably hundreds of shops occupied by the manufacturers of confectionery in Constantinople from this one article. This sugar is boiled with pounded sesame, or broken walnuts, or certain roots, or starch, and made into solid masses of confectionery or candy. Natives and strangers are very fond of eating it with bread at breakfasts and collations, but few strangers are aware of the fact that it is made of this univer. sal grape-juice. The Turks are most passionately fond of all confectioneries. 11. All the vinegar of these Eastern lands is made from this same bountiful grape, by pouring water on the juice and leaving it to ferment. Vinegar from sour wine would afford but a small portion of the amount needed in commerce. The Mohamedans have no objection to using vinegar, though it has fermented. 12. Raisin drink. Raisins are boiled for two or three hours to make a refreshing drink called 'sweet water' (khoshab).* It has no intoxicating quality, for the proportion of water is large, and it is drunk only when freshly made. 13. Raisin wine. This wine is always of domestic manufacture. Four parts of warm water by weight to one of raisins are left to soak two days. Then the * Literally, khash ob is boiled-water,' and shir ob 'sweet-water.' raisins are taken out, bruised and again put in till the fermentation has been sufficient. The result is a mild liquor of exhilarating qualities. It is called in Arabic Nebidh, in distinction from Khamr, the name for ordinary fermented wine.* 14. Wine. All that is now called wine in the East is intoxicating. The boiling of must, for the purpose of securing a wine that will keep better, should not be confounded with the boiling of the same must, for the purpose of making sugar and molasses. In the former case it is boiled perhaps half an hour, and not reduced one-twentieth in bulk. By drying the grapes in the sun, or by boiling the must, the wine is preserved sweeter than it would otherwise be; such wines are still intoxicating. The boiled wines of Mount Lebanon are stronger than the majority of the wines of France. The Greeks, in their modern language, call wine krasion or 'mixed,' instead of the more classical term oinos [wine]. Common resin is put in so as to make their common wines as nauseating to a stranger as a bitter dose of medicine. 15. BRANDY is distilled, either directly from [fermented] must of good or rotten grapes, from the mass of pulp and skins remaining after the juice has been pressed out, from the lees of wine, or from wine. It is called raki, or arrack, in the languages of the country. Each family in the interior distills his own raki, as they make their wine, in their houses. 16. THE LEAVES AND STOCKS OF THE VINE. The stock and roots are used for fuel. Ezek. xv. 4. The cuttings of the vine and of the leaves are used for manure to the vineyard, and the leaves for fodder. The leaves are also used for a vegetable, chopped meat and rice being rolled up together in single leaves, and boiled for the table. In what we have said, we have purposely avoided Biblical criticism and controversy, wishing simply, by a contribution of FACTS from an Observer in the East, to aid those in discussion of controverted points, who have more time and ability. Still we would suggest whether this array of facts on the utility of the grape-vine, will not sustain the idea that the greater part of the praises bestowed upon 'wine' as it is translated in our version, are bestowed upon the [fruit, or the] grape-juice as freshly expressed, without bringing into view the specific forms in which it may afterward be manufactured. The idea that tirosh is used in this general sense, and not in a specific one, easily presents itself, seeing that in nearly all the thirty-eight cases where the word occurs, it is in connection with corn and [yitzhar, ‘orchardfruit'] first-fruits or offerings; and the idea becomes more confirmed when we see how many, and important, are the general uses of the grape. III. An article in the Bibliotheca Sacra, for January, 1869, by Dr Laurie, lays great stress on the statements of some modern missionaries, that there is no UNintoxicating substance NOW CALLED 'WINE' in the East. The argument is of no value. (1) Because the various SUBSTANCES anciently called wine, are still plentiful Nebidh, as shown by Mr E. W. Lane, the great Arabic scholar and traveler, was originally the name of an unfermented wine. The Arabic word khumr, simply signifies 'turbid' or 'foaming,' which applies to the must in the wine vat, both in its fresh and fermenting state. Mr Lane says:"Nebeedh, a name now given to prohibited kinds of wine. Nebeedh prepared from raisins, is commonly sold in Arab towns under the name of Zebeeb. The prophet himself was in the habit of drinking wine of this kind. Other beverages to which the name has been applied are, like Zebeeb, no longer called by that name, while under the same appellation have been classed the different kinds of beer called boozeh." [These words seem corruptions of the Hebrew aneb and sabha.] in Syria, and, as we have seen, some are still called wine. (2) Because NAMES and language are undergoing perpetual modifications, and even transformations and inversions. For instance, sherap is now wine' in the East, but syrup in the West, and by the same trickery of words, can be proved to have no existence in the Orient. Nevertheless, there it is, with its new name. In India, toddi means palm-tree-juice, but in Scotland it has become a word for hot whisky-and-water. Homes records that krasion, which means 'mixed' merely, has supplanted the old scripture word oinos, 'wine.' (4) Because, instead of the primitive language, we have only the testimony, concerning words, of the mixed populations of the Syrian cities, which in other cases has led to erroneous conclusions, and must in this instance. The parties appealed to are often no more judges of the matter submitted to them, than a Londoner would be of old Saxon phrases to be found in the Yorkshire or Cumberland dialects. As Dr Beard says "It is among the native Aramæan population that the old traditions, knowledge, and NAMES are to be learnt"—not in towns where the language and habits are corrupted with a foreign population. (5) Because the objection equally applies to our own word 'wine,' where it demonstratively terminates in a falsity. Ten years back only a few philologists knew that wine, 100, 200, 300 and 1800 years ago, included 'unfermented wines,' but that fact is not the less certain, because modern usage and taste have changed. (6) Because a modern dictionary cannot destroy the former meaning of antique words, but ought to preserve their respective and successive senses by careful induction of historical usage. (See Prel. Dis. p. xiv.) The Bible is not written in technical language, and the Encyclopædia Americana (Boston, 1855) concedes that "the juice of grapes, when newly expressed, and before it has begun to ferment, is called must, and, in common language, sweet wine." And (7) Because the alleged fact is no fact at all. Peckmes, Nebidh, and Sakar, in various parts of the East, are still applied inclusively to unFERMENTED LIQUORS, as they were originally exclusively. The article in the Bibliotheca is unworthy of the scholarship of our day.* It begins with a false translation of Pliny and ends with placing its criticism upon the authority of Gesenius. But in this age, no criticism can be left to repose upon authority; evidence alone is valid. Every material objection in the article, however, will be found to have been anticipated in the Commentary itself. In fact, Dr Laurie assumes all his facts, and begs all his principles. The writer of the article in the Bibliotheca Sacra professes to be an abstainer, and even limits the use of wine medically to cases where prescribed by other than the patient himself. He describes wine also as dangerous, and prohibits its use by the young. He also concedes that there are traces of unfermented wine in classical history, especially as an article of luxury amongst the Romans. On other points, however, he is uncandid, uncritical, and inaccurate. He represents Dr Lees as having a teetotal bias in favor of interpreting tirosh as 'vine-fruit,' when in fact that bias, if it existed, would lead him to the theory that it was grape-juice, or 'new wine.' He conceals the fact also, that Gesenius, more than once, coincides with Dr Lees' view of the word. He conceals also the fact, that many eminent Hebrew scholars, such as Professor Murphy, of Belfast, and Dr Tayler Lewis, of Union College, repudiate as fanciful Gesenius' derivation of tiresh, as what 'takes possession of the head.' We regret that any body's head should have been possessed' by a notion that had no support whatever in the actual usage of the word. As to bias, it is much more evident on the side where, in addition to mere theory (which holds of both opinions) there is also the instinct of conservatism, the motive of self justification, and the bribery of appetite. The Rev. Evelyn Hodgson, of Exeter College, Oxford, frankiv confessed this in a recent controversy:-"A person coming to a discussion of this kind, would be likely to collect the meaning of words, as used in passages, that would favor my side, and he would be more likely to be biased than the advocate of the other side" (abstinence). Now, scholars of eminence (some of whom have an admitted bias against teetotalism) have largely adopted the views of Dr Lees concerning tirosh, such as Professor Eadie, in his Bible Cyclopædia,' Prof. Douglas, in Principal Fairbairn's Imperial Bible Dictionary,' the late Dr Kitto, in his History of Palestine,' and Mr Bastow, in his Bible Dictionary.' On the main point, indeed-the only one which really concerns the Temperance Cause-namely, the generic character of yayin-even the ablest critics upon Dr Lees have granted his position. Professors Eadie and Murphy admit that yayin does include grape juice within its comprehension, and Bevan, in Dr Smith's great Bible Dictionary,' says:-"IT MAY AT ONCE BE CONCEDED THAT THE HEBREW TERMS TRANSLATED WINE,' REFER OCCASIONALLY TO AN UNFERMENTED LIQUOR." INDEX. [The Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, etc.) refer to the paging down to the end of the A'Beckett, Sir W.-lines by, under the Absalom-his plot against Amnon, 86. to mental clearness and vigor, 143. Achluō and Achlus· - their supposed Eschylus-his use of neephalion and Ahasuerus - his sumptuous entertain- See - Alcibiades speech ascribed to, by | Apocrypha (The)—quoted (1 Macc. vi. Alcoholic fermentation-signs of, 136–7. Alexander the Great-his drunken mad- Alfieri-on vino, etc., xl. Alford, Dean-on avoidance of the occa- Amen-em-an-his letter to Penta-our on Amphictyon-the king of Attica, who Amphora—its size and shape, 81. - Apple-why supposed to be the forbid- Apsinthos (wormwood), 390. Aquinas, Thomas-on grape-juice having and being therefore properly used in Arabic Version of the Hebrew Bible- ance, 322. Arrows-drunk (drenched) with blood, Artaxerxes-his notice of Nehemiah's Ashantee its king's drink-offering of |