Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1876-01-13
THE GOOD WINE" OF CANA.
BY WILD BIRD.

| ~ vi GuO lCd6t 0dil "
the bridegroom, "Thou hast kept the
good wine until now" What was
the good wine of those days? How
was it made? How many kinds of
wine did they have? What wine did
they call the best? Let the ancients
answer these questions. Who but
the ancients themselves can tell about
ancient wines-how they were made,
and what they esteem the "good
wine?" We rejoice that they have
told us great deal about their wines,
and how they were made. To give
us light on this subject, we have Ho-
mer, Pliny, Horace, Virgil, Democrat.
us, Aristotle, Cato, Plutarch, Colum-
ella, Athenasius, Polybius, Theophras-
tus and others.
Plutarch, born A. D. 60 says that
wine from which all the gluten had
been filtered out would not ferment
and not infame the brain. Pliny
says "the most useful wine has all its
force, or strength, broken by the fill
ter" 1t is well known fact that
ape CduIlOb W I1Ctl LnC
gluten is taken out of it. And the
ancients prove themselves wiser than
we, in doing IT'D Smith, in his Greek
and Roman antiquities, says: GA
great nuantify &c -
manufactured by checking termenta-
ton" Horace bears the same testl-
mony, saying, that the wine thus
made was ''sweeter and more pleasant
to drink.
Horace and Theophrastus use
"strongest metaphorical language to
express how completely they wished
to deprive their valued wines of every
particle that could intoxicate. PIu-
tarch, Piiny and Columella say the
ancients also boiled some of their
wines to prevent fermentation; thus,
by dimishing the watery part, the
wine was sweeter, and they called it
"the imperishable wine which would
keep forever" Homer speaks of this
wine, calling it "sweet as honey" 1t
was diluted with water, twenty parts
when drank" Some of the ancients
sealed the mouths Of their leathern
cities with cement; some they put
in casks and buried in the earth;
some of their wines were kept in wa
ter-all to prevent ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
they might have "good wine" "not
affecting the nerves of mind" They
said sucA wines were good for the
sick, good for women, healthful for
all. But they spoke Of many other
| wines of that day, which produced
''h ldache, dropsy, madness, dysen-
terry and stomach complaints.
Aristotle, born 1884 B. c., says the
wine of Arcadia was SO thick that it
was necessary to scrape it from the
skin bottles in which it was contained,
and to Dissolve the scrapings in water.
Bible Commentary.
Columela, and other writers who
lived in the time of the Apostles, tell
us that Sin Italy and Greece 1t was
common to boil their wines" Pliny
speaks of wine 200 years old, and
thick as honey. Horace call it "like
nectar" and ''perfectly harmless, and
would not produce intoxication."
Now, considering all this testimony
which comes to US in the past,d we dc
right in saying that none but the ter
mented Juice was wine? When the
ancients also tell us that the infer
mented wine was "the good wine,
shall we dare to say that those water
pots at Cana were filed with ferment
ed wine? The practice Of boiling
wines is still alive. DR.. Bowring, IL
; his report on the commerce Of Syria
saws that "the habit of boiling wines
, is almost universal -Kitto.
Wines, although prepared in many
c ways, were often spoken of under tn
general name of 'wine,' just as, will
Z Us, many kinds of bread, 'salt-rising
bread, soda and acid bread; and bet
ter than ALL we have unleavene'
5 bread, that is the best preservativ
and restorative of health-yet it is a
called bread, from the dainty loa
from the hands of the careful house
wife, to the bareback in the soldier
knapsack. 1t is useless to say tina
none but the fermented juice of frult
should be called wine. The ancient
If called it wine. Archbishop Potte
e in his Grecian Antiquities, tell us I'd
le ancients called the boiled juice of tn
grape wine, and refers TO the test
mony of 'Democritus, a celebrate
philosopher, who travelled over tn
=. greater part of Europe, Asia an
L Africa, and who died Sol B. c.; alst
% !. to 'Palladius Greek physician II
also says 'the Lacednmonlans used
boil their wines upon the fire till
fifth part was consumed; then, aft
ID four years were expired, began
s. drink them
= Then after stndyinC Of all these Y