The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1891-11-20

VOW, LDlS was SOHeClIucS loF Ilcs SUNNI
times for limited term. Under this
vow, John the Baptist lived consistent
total abstainer. In brief, reformerss
then as now, existed who preferred to
redeem society from the as yet undeyel-
oped curse of drunkenness by the short
and easy method of forbidding all drink
ing. They had not, indeed, endeavored
to do this by legal prohibition to any
considerable extent; they did attempt to
do it by voluntary vows.
Now this was not the method of Jesus.
He lived in an age of total abstinence So
cieties and did not join them. He en-
phasized the distinction between his
method ond that of John the Baptist by
saying that John came neither eating
nor drinking; the Son of Man came eat
ing and drinking. He condemned drunk
enness, but never in single instance
lifted up his voice in condemnation of
drinking. On the contrary, he commence
ed his public ministry by making mira
Gle wine in considerable quantity, and
this apparently only to add to
the joyous festivities of a we'd
ding. He apparently used wine Gus
tomarily, if not habitually. When he
was about to die, he chose wine as the
symbol of his blood, shed for many for
the remission of sins, asked his Fathers
blessing on a cup containing wine, pass
ed it to his disciplse with the direction,
"Drink we all of it" and left this simple
service of the eating of bread and the
drinking of wine as legacy to be OBJ
served by his disciples in all future times
and apparently in all countries. with
the faith which l entertain concerning
Christ, cannot doubt that he did this
with full knowledge of the future, OF
the Interpretation which would be given
to his example and of the evils which
drunkenness was yet to bring upon other
nations and peoples than his own. With
this knowledge, he made wine by mira
Gle I; he drank wine publicly and before
all the world and he left as legacy
and example for his followers sacred
use of wine in the most solemn service of
his church.
1t is true that the attempt has been
made to break the force of this example
by supposing that there are mentioned in
the Bible two kinds of wine-a ferment-
ed and an unfermented and that Christ
made, used and blessed at the Last Sup
per an unfermented wine. But there is
abolutely no authority whatever for this
suggestion. 1t is pure invention, made
to reconcile the example of Christ with
modern theories as to wine drinking.
Crane jelly is not wine and the mustum
of the ancients was only kind of grape
Jelly. 1t did not go under the name OF
wine and never was COMPOUNDED with it.
There is absolutely nothing whatever in
the language of the New Testament to in
dictate that the wine mentioned in its
pages was anything else than the simple
fermented juice of the grape, the COM
mon drink of the country then as now
nothing to justify the groundless hypo-
thesis that any other kind of wine was
ever used by or known to the people.
The assertion that has been sometimes
made that fermented wine was not al
lowable in the Passover supper is equal
" groundless, having no other shadow
of foundation than the fact that leaven'
ed bread was forbidden, this not because
of the minute alcohol produced by leav-
en- or yeast, but because an un-leayened
bread was to remind Israel of the night
when they had not time to wait for the
bread to rise. This notion of two wines,
one fermented, the other unfermented
must be dismissed as pure invention,
unsupported by any facts, unsanctioned
by any scholarship. There was but one
known to the ancients-fermented grape
Juice. This was the wine Christ made
drank, blessed. There was no other used
in his time or known to his day.
To what conclusions, then, does Christ's
example lead those who believe in his
prescience and in the divine authority OF
, his life and teachings?
l. 1t throws no light whatever on the
proper use of distilled spirits; for distill
ed spirits did not exist in his day.
2. To conclude that because Christ
made wine by miracle at the marriage
in Cana of Galilee, therefore he would
identify himself with, or be Indifferent
to, the organized liquor trade in the
United States of to-day, with its myriad
saloons, each one the source of unnum'
bered and dreadful dramas of intellecTu'
al and moral wreck and ruin; or that be-
cause he drank light native wine in the
free and simple society and unstlmula
ting climate of Palestine, therefore ne
would by precept and example promote
the social drinking customs of the Unlt
en- States to-day, with its complex civlli
zation, it's highly-wrought nervous iife
and it's stimulating climate acting on al
over-nervous people, where wines arc
rarely free from added alcohol or othe'
; and perhaps worse authorizations, woulc
be to lump to conclusion between which
and the premise is very broad gulf.
8. But the example of Christ mades i
clear that fermented liquors cannot bt
treated as product of the devil, to bt
tabooed and driven out of existence; mol
, the making and drinking of pure wine
as sin, to be prohibited and condemned
at all times and under all circumstances
The Koran so regards it; the Bible does
not. This is the doctrine of Mohammed
not of Christ.
a. Abstinence from use of wine car
be maintained only on the two-fold
, ground: eIf thy right eye offend thee
pluck it out and cast it from thee i" ''Ii
were better that milestone were hanged
about thy neck, and thou vert cast into
the depths of the sea, than that thou
shouldst offend one of these little ones.'
In the present condition Of society, with
the perils which at present threaten it,
Ia. IL. 1.o.,n,. tra Go rrhat IL is with