The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-15


 did in the Old Testament times, and for about the same reasons. There was, indeed, a total abstinence socie- ty in the time of Christ, of which John the Baptist was the leader. But did John ever preach total abstinence
 to the crowds that came to hear him Did he ever even hint that he thought it was wrong for other people to drink wine? Now, I submit that, so fal as Christians are concerned there is only one supreme authority in mat ters of faith and morals, and that
 authority is Jesus Christ. In his life
 and teachings are summed up all the
 law and the prophets. He is the final
 and unfallible interpreter of the whole revelation of God. So that in discus
 sing the teachings of the Bible on the drink question, we shall simplify the
 matter by con1ning our attention to
 the life and teachings of the Master.
 l ask the prohibitionists, particularly
 the members of the Women's Chris
 tian Temperance Union, how they can
 substantiate their claim of biblical
 authority and endorsement when the
 Founder of the Christian religion was
 himself a user of the beverage which
 they tell us is poison and a curse
 to humanity. That Jesus drank wine
 words, T have come eating and
 drinking" And he contrasts his own habit in this matter with that of John
 the Baptist, who "came neither eat
 ing nor drinking" And because in
 the matter of eating and drinking, he lived like other men, and did not fol-
 low the abstemious rule of John, his
 enemies accused him of being a glut-
 ton and drunkard. Jesus had no quarrel with anyone who for any req son wished to abstain from wine. He never criticized the personal habits of his friend and co-laborer, John the Baptist. He allowed every man to eat and drink awhat he saw fit. As for himself he saw fit to drink wine and drank this beverage which the prohl- bitionists say is a poison and curse but on one occasion he used his di- vine power to make wine. I wonder whether any Methodist minister was ever known to preach from the text: When ,the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine," etc. If one of our twentieth century Methodist parsons had been at that wedding feast, and could have per- formed a miracle, he would have re- versed the order and turned all the wine into water. The story of the First Miracle at Cana is a sharp thorn in the flesh of the prohibitionists. Not only did Jesus drink wine and
 
 stituting the sacrement of the Holy Communion. Yes, on that solmen and mOmentouS occasion of the Last sup per, he handed the cup of wine to his disciples and bade them drink this beverage, which these modern prohibi- tionists say is a poison and a curse. The Master used this poison" as the symbol of his life blood, shed for the sins of the world. In the face of this overwhelming evidence against them and without the slightest shadow of evidence in their favor, these prohi- bitionist ministers have the nerve and effrontery to stand up in their pulpits with the open Bible before them, and preach prohibition in the name of Jes- Us Christ! Why, if Jesus were to re-
 urn to the earth, he would not be admitted to membership much less li- cersed to preach in those churches that have made total abstinence and pro- hibtion the. chief article ofrtheir creed. It is strange to what lengths of dis h ,nesty and of folly fanaticism will lead people.
 If alcoholic liquor is an evil thing today, why was it not an evil thing in the time of Christ? If wine is a poison now, was it not a poison then? And if it was an evil and poison then, why did Jesus use it? Why did he not abstain from it and warn oth- l Der of prohibitionists this question and most of them have beat around the bush and evaded the issue. The only plausible answer ever got ran like this: ''Times have changed since the days of Christ. Drunkenness was not the evil then that it is today. If Jes- us were living in the world now, he would join with us in our crusade against the rum traffic." That an- swer, while it sounds plausible, is very flimsy. It cannot stand scrutiny. Tn the first place, it does not explain why Jesus saw fit to drink poison" 1 Tn the second place, assuming that , there was not so much intemperance then as now, still there was some. There was certainly enough to fur nish a few horrible examples" And do the prohibitionists wish to imply that the moral standard of Jesus was SO low and his moral perception so dull that he was willing to wink at 1 this social evil of, intemperance just 1 because the evil was not "so great? 1 Besides, from the prohibition point of : view, the use as we'll as the abuse of i, alcoholic beverages is an evil so that the evil was certainly great enough ! n the time of Christ when practically 1 the whole nation-men, women and this poison" as daily l beverage. Again, Jesus must have ob- 1
 
 cation, during the three years of his 1 public ministry, for he mingled with l III classes of people and he made it | 1is special business to search out the l poor and weak and sinful. Now when | 1e saw what strong drink" was do- l ng in these few cases, why did he | not warn men that it was dangerous to | indulge in wine at all? Why did he ! lot point to these horrible examples 1 md say to the moderate drinkers in | he words of the prohibitionists, See | what you may come to if you continue 70 drink wine'?
 Whether drunkenness was as great i III evil in Christ's day as it is now, [ we have no means of finding out. From the many references to drunk ,nness in the New Testament, it is reasonable to infer that that evil was lot uncommon. However, the point is hat intemperance was to some ex- ent social evil in Christ's day and n his own country. And in many parts of the Roman Empire drunk nness was probably a far greater so- ,ial evil than it is in this country oday. So that Jesus was confronted with this same drink problem that we Ire confronted with now. And Jesus vas certainly just as anxious to get i'd of intemperance as are the modern Anti-Saloon League agitators. Yet, nxious as he was to rid society of his evil, he did not think that prohi- ition of the use of wine or even the ule of voluntary abstinence was the olution of the problem. It is easy o say "times have changed" But