tains alcohol by nature, and even grapes have been known to intoxicate; and so the whole theory of the abstainer gives way." It is altogether erroneous to suppose that grapes, or grape-juice freshly expressed, have any taint of alcohol. Many years ago a careful chemist, at our solicitation, went through a very elaborate examination of the whole matter, and demonstrated that alcohol forms no part of grapes. The experiments were published in the public papers, and a reward of £50 offered by the British Temperance League "to any person who will extract any appreciable quantity of alcohol from grapes, ripe or rotten, provided the fruit has not been in any way meddled with by art." The intervention of man is always necessary to the placing of fruit in a condition to permit of the vinous fermentation. In the cases where bears, hogs, or men are inebriated with grapes, it is the result of gorging, whereby they turn their stomachs into a brewing vat; the fruit fermenting instead of digesting, and vapors, probably alcohol also, may be generated, which affect the head.* During 1867 some clergymen in Ulster were prematurely rejoicing over the reputed discovery of a trace of alcohol' in the passover wine prepared by Mr Wright, using the supposed fact as a glad reason for returning to the adulterated port which contains a maximum of spirit and only a trace of the fruit of the vine'! That chemist, however, at once proceeded to Belfast, and in the presence of the public experimentally demonstrated that his wine was not proved to contain even a trace.' Professor Hodges, and Dr H. Brown, who made the rash assertion, had deceived themselves. They had assumed that the chromic acid test would reveal the presence of no other substance besides alcohol in the wine, whereas the fruit aromas give the same reaction. Dr Hodges, who is a respectable chemist, admitted that an enormous quantity of the wine must be used in order to find an exhibitable quantity of alcohol! This passage in the history of controversy illustrates the justice of what Liebig observes, that "from the moment the imagination is allowed to solve questions left undecided by researches, investigation ceases-truth remains unascertained; and there is not only this negative evil, but in error we create a monster, envious, malignant, and obstinatewhich, when at length truth endeavors to make its way, crosses its path, combats, and strives to annihilate it." In this case, happily, the friends of light were stronger than the devotees of darkness, and the appeal to common sense was more successful than that to authority. That alcohol is not a product of growth-i. e. of those natural processes that perpetuate the forms of 'created things'—is a fact that at once negatives the preceding objection. Even some imperfectly informed abstainers have been too easy in their acceptance of pseudoscientific dogmas. Here is one specimen : See Dr Lees' 'History of Alcohol,' 1846, and 'Text-Book of Temperance,' for detail of experiments. 6. "The new products which result from fermentation are attributable rather to the life than the death principle." Now grape-sugar and albumen are plainly products resulting from the life of the vine. But by decomposition, which only ensues when these substances are parted from the vital organism, the albumen becomes yeast, and thereafter the alimentary sugar is resolved into the poison alcohol and carbonic acid. What life-principle produces this? The power of the living God!' True, but that power is as much present in death as in resurrection; in decay as in growth; in decomposing as in composing; in simple as in complex combinations; and what is common to 'creation' and 'destruction' cannot destroy the difference between them, which the objection attempts to do. Unfortunately, we have to deal with a school of complacent critics who have so much got the habit of teaching as to have forgotten that of learning, who will argue about sciences they do not understand; and it is almost impossible to excite in them a suspicion that they may be wrong. Otherwise, we might have hope in reproducing such language as the following from Professor Liebig: "It is contrary to all sober rules of research to regard the vital process of an animal or a plant as the cause of fermentation. The opinion that they take any share in the morbid process must be rejected as an hypothesis destitute of all support. In all fungi, analysis has detected the presence of sugar, which, during their vital process, is NOT resolved into alcohol and carbonic acid; but after their death, from the moment a change in their color and consistence is perceived, the vinous fermentation sets in. It is the very reverse of the vital process to which this effect must be ascribed. "FERMENTATION, PUTREFACTION, AND DECAY. These are processes of decomposition, and their ultimate results are to reconvert the elements of organic bodies into that state in which they exist before they participate in the process of Life, [whereby] complex organic atoms of the highest order are REDUCED into combinations of a lower order, into that state of combination of elements from which they sprang" (Letters on Chemistry, 2d series, 1845). It is from this point of view that we are enabled to perceive the symbolical fitness of the Biblical prohibitions of ferment, and its degenerated products, in all such ceremonies and sacrifices as typified Life, Purity, and Regeneration. It has been very beautifully observed by Professor Fraser, of Edinburgh, that "The Divine Ideas expressed in the laws of Nature are, through our physical discoveries, becoming, in the form of similar ideas in ourselves, a part of the experience of man. Every scientific discovery puts us more in sympathy with the Divine meaning. The antagonism of Faith and Science disappears, as each deepening insight into natural law is felt to bring our thoughts into nearer harmony to those Divine thoughts of which our otherwise strange surroundings in this world of sense are found to be the expression." A little reflection would show that on a point of daily morals so important as temperance and the use of inebriating beverages, one which in so many forms crosses the path and confounds the purposes of the Sacred Oracles, it is hardly credible that the most advanced examples of inspired wisdom, in lawgivers, prophets, and apostles, should antagonize alike the partial truth of the contemporary philosophy of paganism, the experience of successive ages, and the con clusions of modern Science forced upon the reluctant judgment of its disobedient priesthood. Yet the fact is undeniable, that, in spite of the opposition of the interested, the venality of the press, and the despotism of fashion, Providence has, during the last thirty years, compelled Science to lay her successive offerings upon the altar of Temperance. We can here only attempt an Epitome of the Evidence furnished by Observation, Statistics, and Science, but it shall be an historical consensus-drops, as it were, from 'a cloud of witnesses,'-in the language of divines and dramatists, physicians and philosophers: "Wine deceiveth him that drinketh it."-THE VULGATE, Hab. ii. 5. "How exceeding strong is wine! it causeth all men to err that drink it."— I ESDRAS iii. 18. "Water makes those who drink nothing else very ingenious, but wine obscures and clouds the mind."-EUBULUS, B.C. 375. "I admire those who desire no other beverage than water, avoiding wine as they do fire. Hence arise irregular desires and licentious conduct. The circulation is hastened. The body inflames the soul."-CLEMENT of Alexandria, A.D. 180. "O thou invisible Spirit of Wine, if thou hast no other name to be known by, I will call thee-Devil."-SHAKESPEARE. "The fumes of the Wine left him nothing of his more refined nature. All that was honorable or intellectual in his character had now completely ceded to all that was base and animal."-WILKIE COLLINS, Antonina, 1851. "Alcohol is a disturber of the system, and cannot be regarded as a food.... Alcohol neither warms nor sustains the body. Alcohol should be prescribed medicinally as carefully as any other poisonous agent."-Dr EDWARD SMITH, 1860. 66 The influence of alcohol upon the nervous system, and particularly upon the brain, is manifest by a progressive and constant series of symptoms, which, in different degrees of intensity, are reproduced in all individuals. These constitute a true poisoning; and this morbid state is exhibited under three phases:—(1) surexcitation; (2) perturbation; (3) abolition of the cerebro-spinal functions."-Dr MICHAEL LEVY, on Hygiene,' Paris, 1857. "Facts establish, from a physiological point of view, a line of demarcation between alcohol and foods. Alcohol is not a food. It acts in a feeble dose as an irritant; in a larger as a stupefiant."-Professors LALLEMAND and PERRIN, Paris, 1860. "Alcohol does not act as food; it does not nourish tissues. It cuts short the life of rapidly-growing cells, or causes them to live more slowly. The stunting which follows its exhibition to young animals is readily accounted for."-LIONEL S. BEALE, M.D., F. R.S., of King's College Hospital, 1863. 66 Experience and statistics, amongst operatives, soldiers, and middle-class civilians, in England, America, Germany, and India, establish the truth that, under the same circumstances, the percentage of sickness and mortality is twice as great amongst moderate drinkers as abstainers, and four times as great among drinkhards."-Dr LEES. "Alcohol is a mere drug; and although a constituent, is not the valuable one in wine."-ROBERT DRUITT, M.D., Report on Wine, 1866. "Finally, there are a number of substances, of which we are not able to prove that they are either used for the repair of the tissues, or transformed in the body so as to generate heat; in this class we place alcohol, chloroform, the æthers, various alkaloids, strychnia, morphia, and the vegetables which contain them." F. E. ANSTIE, M.D., 1864.* [For other testimonies see Note to Matt. iv. 7.] This author inconsistently contends, however, that alcohol is food, because it arrests waste! He begs his definition, which we entirely repudiate. Food is that which, first, acts innocently upon the body, and, secondly, acts usefully by making blood. Alcohol does neither. Scientific men should scorn mere tricks of defini tion, and adhere to facts. Now it seems to us, that so far from having, in any one particular, contradicted these truths, the Bible has most singularly confirmed, and, in words at least, anticipated them. History says " All nations who drank intoxicating wine, in all conditions of climate and culture, have erred through its use, and gone out of the way." Scripture responds-" Israel, God's chosen nation-her priests, her teachers, her princes and kings, drank wine in bowls, and were swallowed up of wine, wherefore they were sent into captivity." Experience says "The common and social use of intoxicants, alcoholic or otherwise, has a physical tendency to create an intemperate appetite, insatiate as the grave, making slaves of thousands." Scripture answers-"Wine deceiveth a lofty man, and enlargeth his desire as hell (Hab. ii. 5); it bringeth poverty and pain, sorrow and remorse upon him, yet he crieth, 'I will seek it yet again'" (Prov. xxiii. 35). Morality teaches-"Wine is dangerous-it slowly but surely ensnares and enslaves the Will. Terrible is the power of this tricksy spirit to allure; it causeth all men, of whatever rank, to err." Scripture re-echoes-" Wine is a mocker (latz); Wine is a defrauder (bogad). Woe to him that giveth his neighbor drink!" (Hab. ii. 15). Virtue exclaims-" Wine stimulates the sensual nature, and narcotizes the moral and spiritual: whence arise irregular desires." Scripture replies "Look not upon it, lest thine eyes look upon strange women, and thine heart go after perverse things." Experiment proves that "alcohol is a disturber of the brain, and decreases consciousness and the perception of light, and 'casts darkness over the soul (Eubulus). Scripture correspondingly commands-that "God's priests, while doing His work, shall drink no strong drink, lest they die";—and it further declares, that "while the drinking Jews rebelled and corrupted their ways, His Nazarites remained pure as snow." Physiology announces-that "the maximum strength of man can only be realized by abstinence from alcoholic wine, which cuts short the life of growing cells, and stunts the growth of young animals." Scripture records-that "when the strongest man was to be reared, an angel from heaven imposed the practice of abstinence upon both mother and child.” Science declares-that "intoxicating wine is not food; that alcohol is a mere drug; that it should be prescribed as carefully as any other poisonous agent; that, as a poison, it ranks with strychnine, opium, and tobacco." And Scripture finally anticipates all this, for, in text after text, such wine is not only described as acting like the poison of the serpent and the basilisk,' but actually called a POISON (Deut. xxxii. 33; Hos. vii. 5; Hab. ii. 15). When Christians are half as anxious to harmonize Bible teaching with Temperance truth, as with geology or astronomy, they will find ready to their hands a much ampler and far simpler apparatus of conciliation. One final illustration must suffice. According to Augustine, the Manicheans held that intoxicating wine (for they used grapes) was Fel principiis tenebrarum—the gall of the Prince of Darkness.' Now the Bible clearly speaks of a wine that is 'the poison of dragons,' and describes with the very signs of fermentation, a wine that biteth like a serpent.' Thus the idea of wine being a poison is not a mere modern notion. It can be shown, however, that it is the express and literal language of Inspiration; nay, more, that on the supposition that it was the Divine purpose to teach us that wine is poisonous by means of the Scripture, God has done so in the only possible way, i. e. by the use of the proper Hebrew word for 'poison.' If any one chooses to argue that the word has other possible meanings, less true and applicable to the case, we can only protest against eliminating the true and most fitting sense of the passage, and thus making the Bible into a 'nose of wax.' In the A. Version there are only two words translated poison, and one of these is so translated but once; in the margin 'a poisonful herb.' The texts prove that this word (rosh) really signifies some special herb of a bitter nature, like hyssop, hemlock, or the poppy. The other word is khamah,-the Hebrew term for 'poison' in general, connoting that inflaming property common to so many intoxicants. In the A. V., the word is actually translated poison' in six out of the eight instances in which it occurs as the name of a physical substance or property :— Deut. xxxii. 24. Deut. xxxii. 33. Psalm lviii. 4. Psalm cxl. 3. The poison of serpents of the dust. Job vi. 4. The poison drinketh up my spirit. It may be objected that the skin bottle Hagar carried with her is called khameth, and that this is the same word. Even granting that (of which there is no proof), no example occurs of the use of khameth for 'bottle,' from the time of Moses to that of the minor prophets. It was, then, quite obsolete in the days of the latter-had been so, apparently, for eight centuries,-and, moreover, there were four other words for 'bottle,' and four or five for cup, in regular use by the later Hebrews. To depart from the current and continuous meaning of khamah, as 'poison,' and identify it with a long obsolete word for kidskin 'bottle,' is a simple whim. Even then the idea returns, since * There is another word (root, mar,) signifying in one passage 'gall-bladder' or venom, but not 'poison' in our broad sense. + Dr McCaul, Professor of Hebrew in King's College, in his 'Examination of Bishop Colenso's Difficulties,' has the following concerning the Hebrew khamushim, to which the assailant of the Pentateuch, taking a leaf out of the book of the assailants of Abstinence, persisted in assigning the exclusive meaning of |