HG13
£47(6)
THE
NEW CHRISTIANITY.
117
AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY AND TO ALL MEN
IN BEHALF OF
ITS LIFE OF CHARITY;
Pertaining to Diseases, their Origin and Cure; the Use of Intoxicants
as Beverages and for Sacramental Purposes; the Use of Tobacco
and Opium; the Pernicious and Destructive Habits of
Women, and the Abuse of Children; and the
Prevailing Cruel Treatment of Girls
and Young Women.
"The First [Essential] of Charity is to look to the Lord, and shun evils because
they are sins; which is done by Repentance.
"The Second [Essential] of Charity is to do good [works] because they are uses.'
Emanuel Swedenborg.
BY JOHN ELLIS, M. D.,
AUTHOR OF THE
19 แ
M.D.,
AVOIDABLE CAUSES OF DISEASE, "1 "L
DETERIORATION OF THE
SKEPTICISM AND DIVine revelATION, 19 THE WINE
QUESTION IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW DISPENSATION," ETC.
PURITAN STOCK,
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.
1887.
The Author has not obtained a
Copyright" on this book.
It is therefore free to all. He has written it with no expecta-
tion of making money; and he has had but one desire in pub-
lishing it, and that is to benefit his fellow-man. At the end
of this volume will be found a carefully prepared Index, by
the aid of which, together with the Table of Contents at its
commencement, the reader will be able to turn to any phase of
the questions discussed therein; and the Author thinks that
he will find that it has been clearly shown that every assump-
tion by which the prevailing evils are upheld has no founda-
tion in truth; and that every argument, especially in favor
of the use of intoxicants as beverages and fermented wine as
a communion wine, has been fully answered.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PREFACE
Qualifications of the Author-Has Endeavored to Avoid a
Controversial Spirit and to Consider Questions as to their
Merits-Care and Pains Taken-Science of Correspondences.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD, GOOD AND INJU-
RIOUS
Shifting from One Bad Habit to Another Intoxicating
Drinks and Crimes-Food and Drink, Good and Bad, page 30.
How to Distinguish Healthy Food from Poisonous, page 34. By
Its Action on the Body We can Know It.
CHAPTER II.
DISEASES FROM A SPIRITUAL OR MENTAL ORIGIN, OR FROM
FACULTIES OF
>>
THE PERVERSION OF THE PASSIONS AND
THE SOUL—EVIL USES
Origin and Cure of Diseases-Equilibrium, page 61. Methods
of Curing Spiritual and Natural Diseases, page 66. Natural
Methods Correspond to Spiritual Methods.
CHAPTER III.
THE CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION—ARE. THERE ANY
IMPURITIES IN MUST OR UNFERMENTED WINE?........
Germs of Ferment are from the Atmosphere-Leaven or Fer-
ment a Living Substance-Changes Wrought by Fermentation-
Are there any Impurities in Unfermented Grape-juice, page 84.
Unfounded Assumptions. Impurities are Never Found in Sweet,
Sound, Healthy Grapes.
PAGE
7
21
41
69
4
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
1
CHAPTER IV.
FERMENTED WINE AND ALL FLUIDS WHICH CONTAIN ALCOHOL
ARE POISONS....
Historical Sketch of Fermented Wine and Testimony of the
Ancients Testimony of the Medical Profession and Scientific
Investigations, page 97. Hereditary Results of Using Intoxi-
cants, page 101. The Moderation Fallacy, page 109.
CHAPTER V.
TWO KINDS OF WINE, ONE UNFERMENTED AND THE OTHER
FERMENTED, BOTH CALLED WINE IN ALL AGES.
Testimony of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, page 127.
timony of Ancient Writers as to Preserving Wines, page 131.
CHAPTER VI.
Tes-
ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS OF PRESERVING WINE SO
AS TO PREVENT FERMENTATION.
•
Preservation of Unfermented Wine by Heat, page 137. The
Writer's Observations Abroad, page 139. Present Custom of
Boiling Wine in Wine-growing Countries, page 143
CHAPTER VII.
PAGE
91
121
136
ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS OF PRESERVING UNFER-
MENTED WINE BY KEEPING IT COOL AND SETTLING IT, AND
BY THE USE OF SWEET OIL AND BY SULPHURIZATION.. 153
Experiments by the Writer, page 155. Preservation by Sul-
phurization, page 159. Filtering to Prevent Fermentation,
page 161. Preservation by the Use of Sweet Oil, page 162.
CHAPTER VIII.
TWO KINDS OF WINE RECOGNIZED IN THE BIBLE IN BOTH ITS
SPIRITUAL AND NATURAL SENSES...
169
page 175.
Wine in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English Languages,
The Result of an Inquiry on Yain, page 187.
CHAPTER IX.
COMMUNION WINE.
The Wine Used by the Lord and His Disciples in the Original
Institution of the Sacrament, page 195. Passover Wine-Testi-
mony as to Passover Wine-Sacramental Wine in the Early Chris-
tian Church, page 207. Duty to the Reclaimed, page 217. A
Practical Question, page 218. Duty of the Clergy, page 220.
191
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X.
COMMUNION WINE IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW DISPENSATION
-BLOOD OF GRAPES-CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES OF THE
EAST-ACTION OF RELIGIOUS BODIES. . . .
The Correspondence of Wine, of Leaven, and Leavened Wine
-The Blood of the Grape, and Sugar or Sweet, page 240. Chris-
tian Communities of the East on Communion Wine, page 247.
Action of Various Religious Bodies, page 252.
CHAPTER XI.
THE WINE OF CANA-NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES-GRAPE
CURE-NOBLE WINE AND WINE IN HEAVEN.
•
New Wine in Old Bottles, page 265. Grape Cure, page 270.
Grape Jelly, page 273.
page 274.
Noble Wine-New Wine Solidified,
5
PAGE
222
257
CHAPTER XII.
STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH,
PUNCH, AND THE PROHIBITION
CRAZE
281
•
Strong Drink may be Unfermented or Fermented-Vinegar,
page 287. A Religious Periodical on Punch and Prohibition,
page 288. Significant Statistics, page 298.
CHAPTER XIII.
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL DRUNKENNESS-DRUNKENNESS OF
NOAH-DRUNKENNESS IN VINE-GROWING AND BEER-
DRINKING COUNTRIES.
Testimony of Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter, page 309. Noah's
Drunkenness, page 312. Drinking in Switzerland, page 317.
Is Beer a Healthy Drink? page 319. Drinking in Germany,
page 322.
302
CHAPTER XIV.
THE COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG AND THE IN-
TERPRETATIONS THEREOF, AND FACTS WORTHY OF NO-
TICE BY ALL LOVERS OF THE TRUTH
•
Has Pure Fermented Substance a Good Correspondence, page
333. Fermented Substances Have Not a Good Correspondence-
Facts Worthy of Attention of all who Desire to Know the Truth,
page 356,
325
6
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV.
PROHIBITION-INSURANCE STATISTICS AND AVERAGES- -CHRIS-
TIAN NATIONS SENDING INTOXICANTS TO GENTILE NA-
TIONS-THE AFRICANS
The Law of Averages, page 366. Drunkards Made, page 370.
NARCOTICS-
CHAPTER XVI.
TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
Tobacco, page 386. A Deadly Poison which Enslaves Man,
Injures Health, Shortens Life, and Deteriorates, Nations-Coffee
and Tea, page 404.
CHAPTER XVII.
PERNICIOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
Tight Dressing, page 410. It is Almost Universal Among
Women-It is the Most Injurious Habit Known so far as Health
and the Physical Stamina of our Race is Concerned.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE ABUSE OF CHILDREN AND CRUELTY TO GIRLS AND YOUNG
WOMEN
PAGE
361
383
407
424
Exercise and De-
Idleness
Sunlight-Sunlight and Health, page 427.
velopment, page 429. Flour and Bread, page 431.
among Girls and Young Ladies and the Results, page 437.
CHAPTER XIX.
RELIGIOUS PERIODICALS—THE CLERGY-AND REFORMS.
Great Reform Movements Rarely Commence with the Clergy-
Reasons Why. Religious Periodicals and Reforms, page 450.
CHAPTER XX.
444
PHYSICIANS AND THE PREVAILING BAD HABITS-A DOCTOR OF
DIVINITY-HIGH LICENSE-REITERATED ASSUMPTIONS, ETC. 467
Physicians are often too Heedless and Negligent in Prescribing
Intoxicants and Narcotics-A Doctor of Divinity and His Un-
reasonable Talk, page 471. Old Assumptions Reiterated in 1887.
CHAPTER XXI.
FINAL APPEAL TO OUR BRETHREN AND SISTERS OF THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
•
487
Why Religious Teachers and Organizations Do Not Succeed at
this Day as They Should-A Call to Repentance Necessary.
PREFACE.
THE contents of this volume have been principally compiled
from the Author's previous works, viz., "The Avoidable Causes of
Disease" and "The Wine Question in the Light of the New Dis-
pensation." The latter volume resulted from a controversy ex-
tending over a period of six years with the editors and contrib-
utors of different religious periodicals, which commenced in
the periodicals by assaults upon the principles of total abstinence
by the advocates for intoxicants; and when the periodicals
refused to admit replies, these replies were printed by the author
in a pamphlet form, generally carefully repeating in their own
language the assumptions, arguments and ideas of his opponents
in full. These pamphlets have recently all been printed and
neatly bound in one volume. In his writings the author has
generally carefully withheld the names of the advocates for the use
of intoxicants; and in this volume he will not only do this, but
will also withhold the names of the religious periodicals which
advocate the use of intoxicating wine as a beverage and as com-
munion wine; and he does this principally for two reasons :
First, because he desires as far as practicable to avoid a personal
controversy with clergymen and with ministers who conduct
religious papers; and second, because he is satisfied that the day is
not far distant when many of our clergymen and the conductors of
our religious periodicals, who to-day advocate the use of intoxicants
as beverages and for communion purposes, will most sincerely
regret ever having done so; and the descendants and successors
of all will be chagrined to find in a printed volume positive evi-
dence that their forefathers and predecessors ever stood upon the
wrong side of this great practical question of life, so late as the
year 1887. In this volume, therefore, the writer has endeavored
to omit, as far as practicable, the controversial portions of his
writings, and to present the question solely upon its merits,
8
PREFACE.
QUALIFICATIONS OF THE AUTHOR OF THIS VOLUME.-As the
writer is an M.D., instead of a D.D., in a religious serial con-
ducted or edited by clergymen, we read as follows :
"As the author (Dr. Ellis) writes as one having knowledge
and authority, we naturally ask what qualifications he brings to
the inquiry.”
If it were neither immodest, disrespectful nor improper for
clergymen to thus publicly ask such a question in a religious
paper, in view of the fact that the writer has reached the age of
more than threescore years and ten, and has undoubtedly been
well known personally and by his writings, for more than a quar-
ter of a century, to some at least of the clergymen concerned
either in editing or conducting that serial, it may not be im-
modest nor improper, in view of the vast interests at stake and evils
which result from false teaching, for the writer to frankly reply to
the above question.
There is one qualification so necessary for a writer to possess
for a full and fair consideration of moral and spiritual questions,
that all other qualifications, however high in degree or necessary
in their nature, avail nothing without it. There must be not only
a sincere desire to find where the truth lies, but also a determina-
tion to follow that truth whithersoever it may lead. This is
especially the case in an inquiry like the present, where long-
established customs, pre-conceived ideas, hereditary inclinations,
and even acquired appetites, are involved. Without this qualifi-
cation, we all know that having eyes we may see not, and having
ears we may hear not. Before we can fairly begin to discern the
real falsity of views we may hold, we must, by hearkening to the
truth, have come into a state of doubt as to our opinions for the
truth only can show us our errors. The priests and scribes pos-
sessed every qualification except this one, for judging of the
Lord's claim; but for lack of this, while they listened to the
truths He spake, they closed their hearts against them, and list-
ened only that they might entangle Him in His words. Blinded
by their prejudices, seeing they would not see, and hearing they
would not hear.
No mere man, seer or prophet, has ever had a more clear
insight into the characteristics and peculiarities of the human
mind than Emanuel Swedenborg.
Thus Swedenborg says: "Those who are in falses, and espe-
cially those who are in evils, are said to be bound and in prison ;
not that they are in any bonds, but because they are not in
PREFACE.
9
freedom; those who are not in freedom being interiorly bound;
for those who have confirmed themselves in what is false are no
longer in freedom of choosing and accepting the truth, and those
who have much confirmed themselves therein are not in freedom
to see it, still less to acknowledge and believe it, for they are in
the persuasion that what is false is true, and what is true is false;
so powerful is this persuasion, that it takes away all freedom of
thinking anything else, consequently it holds the thought itself in
bonds and as it were in a prison. This I had much opportunity
of being convinced of, experimentally, from those in the other
life who have been in a persuasion of the false by confirmations
in themselves; they do not at all admit truths, but reflect or
strike them back again, and this with an obstinacy proportionate
to the degree of persuasion; especially when the false is grounded
in evil, or when evil has persuaded them.”
Again, Swedenborg says: "Man is able of himself to abstain
from evils, but he cannot of himself receive good; the reason why
man of himself abstains from evils is, because the Lord continually
flows-in into the will of man with that endeavor, and thereby puts
in him freedom to desist from evils, also to apply himself to good ;
the Lord likewise gives him the faculty of understanding truth,
but the reason why he does not understand is, because he is not
willing to understand, and this on account of evil which is of the
life; for the false defends evil, and truth condemns it.”—Arcana
Coelestia, 5096-8307.
When
The writer was born of parents who belonged to one of the
prevailing sects. He well remembers hearing his grandfather,
when an old man, after taking a glass of cider-brandy, exclaim :
"One of the good gifts of God, if taken with faith and prayer."
Until he was about eighteen years of age, his father set him an
example of using fermented cider and cider-brandy, in moderate
quantities; and he himself used these articles occasionally, as
other young men did. He was never baptized, or a member of any
church organization, until he was over thirty years of age.
about eighteen years old, in the dawning light of this New Age,
he saw the evil of drinking intoxicating drinks, and he resolved to
put this evil away from his life. That resolution, with the help
of the Lord, he has faithfully kept. Having seen the false views
which descended through his ancestors from the dark ages of the
Christian Church, and rejected them; and striven, as he thinks,
faithfully, to put away the inherited and acquired inclination from
his life, every unbiased Christian can see that he should be in
10
PREFACE.
freedom upon this subject, and that he has the first and by far the
most important qualification for judging correctly between truth
and error, as to the use of intoxicating drinks. And he will
further say that, in his own estimation, all things considered, no
man in the Christian Church has had better facilities for examin-
ing this subject; and no one has more critically, carefully and
faithfully examined it in all its various aspects for the last forty
years than has the present writer.
First, as a physician, his attention was early called to the con-
sideration of the question of prescribing intoxicating drinks in
cases of sickness; and during the first three years of his practice,
by careful observation, he satisfied himself that, as remedies, they
are rarely useful, generally unreliable and often very injurious;
and that, in almost if not in every instance, it is not difficult for
the intelligent and skillful physician to select much safer and
better remedies.
Again, as a Professor of the theory and practice of medicine in
medical colleges in Cleveland and New York, as a lecturer on
temperance, and as a writer on the Avoidable Causes of Disease,
and the Deterioration of the Puritan Stock, and finally in con-
ducting the controversy with the clergy on the wine question for
the last six years, the writer has had occasion to repeatedly and
persistently examine this question in all its various aspects.
And it is safe to say that no writer has ever had the co-operation
and assistance of a greater number of clergymen, physicians and
laymen than has the present writer, in the consideration of the
wine question. From those residing in the city of New York and
its vicinity, in the East and the West, the North and the South,
and in England, the writer has received many suggestions,
and he has been able thereby to make clear many points which
might otherwise have escaped his notice. And his numerous
opponents have brought to his notice many assumptions and
arguments in favor of the use of intoxicants, to which he has had
an opportunity of replying.
The writer, as will be seen farther on, has performed many ex-
periments in the preservation of wine unfermented, generally
strictly following the directions given by ancient writers. These
experiments any reader can readily repeat, and thus satisfy him-
self beyond the possibility of a doubt that unfermented wine does
exist, and that it is no new thing.
As the light and heat of this New Age descending from the
Lord began to enlighten the understandings and warm the hearts
PREFACE.
11
of people, a few earnest Christian men, as they looked around
upon the scenes of wretchedness, suffering, crime and death which
result from the use of fermented wine and other intoxicants, were
moved to inquire if all this could result from the use of a harm-
less, useful and necessary substance or fluid; and if it was not
possible that their ideas as to wine might be erroneous; in other
words, they were led to inquire if there are not actually two kinds
of wine, both called wine, the one good and the other bad. They
commenced a most careful and thorough examination of all the
passages in the Bible which refer to must, wine and strong drink
in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures; reviewing with the utmost
care their translations into the Latin, English and various other
languages. They also sought and carefully investigated the
writings of the ancients who wrote during and before the Apos-
tolic days, to ascertain the various methods of preparing and pre-
serving the juice of grapes, as well as to see what fluids were
called wine in those days; and the passages referring to wine, must
and strong drinks, they carefully translated into English. They
also searched carefully the writings of the early Christian fathers
for their testimony, and translated into English whatever they
found in them which had not been translated, and carefully revised
what had been. Not satisfied with all this, some of the above
writers visited once or more the Bible lands and carefully
examined the monuments, tombs and present customs and lan-
guages for any evidence which might throw light upon this
subject. In addition to the above, distinguished scientific and
medical men have, by careful experiments and observation, ex-
amined the process of fermentation, the changes which ensue in
the substance fermented, and the products which result, and the
effect of the chief product-alcohol-on man and animals when
they drink it.
As a result of these researches by earnest men, many volumes
have been written and published, giving to the world the results
of these investigations. Among the works alluded to above, there
is a large "Bible Commentary," written by two distinguished
scholars of Great Britain, devoted exclusively to the examination
of every passage in the Bible which refers to the juice of the grape,
wine, or strong drink, in the slightest degree.
The present writer has not been satisfied simply with the testi-
mony of dictionaries, although, as the reader will see, he has not
neglected the dictionaries; but he has gone to the writings alluded
to above, written by experts, and has diligently read all which have
12
PREFACE.
come within his reach, marking carefully with his pencil such
passages as he regarded as more or less specially important, which
he might want to use, and designating their relative importance
by distinct marks, so that at a glance he could find the passages
which he desired. It is thus that he has prepared himself to meet
his opponents upon the wine question, and has been able amid the
cares of a very busy life, to write the volumes hitherto sent forth
to the members of the Church, from which this present volume
has been chiefly compiled. Aside from the results of his own in-
vestigations, observations and reflections, he has endeavored to
select the choicest and the most appropriate passages to proclaim,
illustrate and explain the truth; so that the reader of his works
may have before him the essential facts and arguments, without
the necessity of reading so many volumes as he has read.
Having written this work on the Wine Question with so much
care, he cannot but feel that it should be read by every man and
woman in the Christian Church who cares for the welfare of the
Church, and its purity and good name among men; and by all
who care for the welfare of their children, families, neighbors, or
their own welfare both here and herçafter. A fearfully false doc-
trine in regard to wine and alcoholic drinks is abroad in the world,
attended by evils the most terrible and deadly; and the Church
can only be reformed and raised out of its present state of sleep
by the truth, and by its members and its young hearing or reading
the truth and living according to its light.
In the following pages the reader will find the Wine Question
considered in the light of the natural and medical sciences of this
day, the writings of the Ancients, especially of those who lived
near the beginning of the Christian era, the present customs and
the traditions prevailing in Southern Europe, Northern Africa and
Western Asia, and also in the light of the Sacred Scriptures in the
Hebrew and Greek languages, and as translated into the Latin,
English and other languages; and last but not least, in the light
of the Science of Correspondences.
་་
This volume has not been hastily written, for in it are embodied
the facts and arguments which have been confirmed by more than
half a century of observation at home and abroad, and the careful
reading of many volumes, together with the results of many
experiments. The writer has endeavored to meet fully and fairly
every assumption and argument which has, up to the present hour,
been advanced in favor of the use of the drunkard's cups by those
who believe in the use of intoxicants as beverages, and especially.
PREFACE.
13
who believe in the use of fermented wine as a communion wine.
The evidence, as the reader will see, is so overwhelming in favor
of the truth that there are to-day, and always have been from the
earliest historic periods, two kinds of wine, both called wine, one
good and the other bad, that it is difficult to understand how any
one who has neither acquired an appetite for intoxicants nor
strongly confirmed himself in the "one wine theory," can still
continue to advocate the use of fermented wine and other intoxi-
cants. How any Christian man who has examined this question
carefully, can look around him and see the fearful results which
follow the use of such drinks, and still continue to open his mouth
or write in a manner which will justify, if not encourage, their
use as beverages, and even in the most holy ordinances of the
Church, it is impossible to conceive. The truth is that men other-
wise of note, whose writings show that they have examined the
wine question with no special care, such as the importance of the
question demands, advocate their " one wine theory " and scout
the idea of there being any wine but fermented. They consequently
assume that fermented or leavened wine is the good wine of the
Word; and we are sorry to say that some of our religious periodicals
publish articles full of such false ideas, and they are sent broadcast
over our land—a polluting stream which should be diligently turned
from the door of every household where dwell the young, by every
parent who cares for the welfare of his or her children.
Why, kind parents, you need not go beyond the wine-drinkers
and drunkards whom you see in your neighborhood, and remem-
ber our Lord's words, “A good tree doth not bring forth evil
fruit;""by their fruits ye shall know them," to know for a cer-
tainty that fermented wine has no place in the human body, nor as
a communion wine. Look at the red congested face, watery eyes,
rum blossoms upon the nose and cheeks, the expressionless vacant
eyes, the angry look, the trembling hands, the reeling gait, the
congested and diseased brain, lungs, stomach and kidneys, or at the
drunken human form lying in the gutter; or again, look at the
drunkard, see his freedom destroyed and every passion perverted
and excited until the man speaks filthy, violent and angry words,
and does acts and commits crimes which he would never think of
doing when not under the influence of intoxicants; witness the
extent to which life is shortened among the drinkers of intoxicants,
even among moderate drinkers, and say if you can in conscience,
as a Christian man, that you think that fermented wine is a good
and orderly drink, suitable to be put upon the Lord's table, or to be
14
PREFACE.
put into the human stomach. Please remember that its use is
entirely unnecessary, at least during health, and that no results
bearing the slightest resemblance to the above, ever follow from
the use or even abuse of acknowledged healthy articles of food or
drink. We shall show by the Science of Correspondences that fer-
mented wine and other intoxicants have their origin or life through
hell, or human perversions; and that their use leads multitudes
down to hell, we can have little reason to doubt; for we are told
that "
no drunkards shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
The Lord is the Creator. The spiritual world from Him, is the
world of causes; the material world is the world of effects. All
natural things and processes must of necessity correspond to their
spiritual causes. This Science of Correspondences is a universal
science; it is the science of all sciences. In accordance with it
was the universe created, the world and all things that dwell
therein; and in accordance with it were the Sacred Scriptures
written; therefore the works of creation and Divine Revelation,
when both are correctly understood, can never conflict. For a
correct understanding of nature and natural phenomena and of
Divine Revelation, a knowledge of the Science of Correspondences
is all-important; for it is the letter that killeth or conflicteth, but
the spirit giveth life. In the earlier ages of the world this science
was understood by perception; but as men forsaking the Tree of
Life or the Lord began to be seduced by their sensual and selfish
appetites and passions, and to live evil lives, they gradually lost a
knowledge of this grand science; until at this day we can only see
the remnants of it in the hieroglyphics, mythology and idolatry
remaining among different nations, and the mysteries of Masonry,
and the few traces which remain in our present languages.
The Lord in great mercy has at this day revealed a knowledge
of this Science of Correspondences, by a thorough acquaintance with
which the works of creation can be understood, and the Sacred
Scriptures can be interpreted so that man can see and know that
the interpretation is correct. Emanuel Swedenborg, the man
through whom the Lord has made this new revelation, assures us
that the angels rejoiced greatly that it had pleased the Lord to
reveal a knowledge of correspondences so deeply concealed during
some thousands of years. "And they said it was done in order
that the Christian Church which is founded on the Word, and is
now at its end, may again revive and draw breath through heaven
from the Lord."-Conjugial Love, 532.
Even in distant Australia the new light is beginning to shine.
PREFACE.
15
"On the 29th August, Dr. H. W. Jackson lectured at the New
Temperance Hall, Pitt street, on 'The Inspiration of the Bible.'
In the course of his remarks the lecturer said that the heads of
the various churches, including our respected Primate, had re-
cently been speaking on this subject; but none of them had
attempted to define in what the inspiration of the Bible really
consisted. Men were told to believe in the fact, but at the same
time they were taught that it was a mystery that no man must
look into. Science, free thought, and textual criticism were all
being made use of by infidelity to assault the Bible, and its de-
fenders stood virtually disarmed. In this age men could not long
believe what they did not intelligently understand. It was stated
by many authorities that the inspired writers were presented with
a general view of the matters on which they wrote, and were left
free to present them in their own words and with their own com-
ments. But if this was the case the Bible was not the Word of
God, but the word of man. Guidance of this kind was not inspira-
tion, but simple illumination. Every writer or speaker who ever
gave a single truth to the world had illumination of this descrip-
tion, for all truth is from God. The lecturer maintained that the
Bible contained the very words of God, dictated through human
instruments, and written in such a form as to convey living and
vital spiritual truths to mankind in all ages and conditions. To
fulfill such a mission it must necessarily be parabolic in structure,
infallible in its correctness, eternal in its interest, capable of
experimental proof and of universal application. These tests he
maintained the Bible amply fulfilled. But there were two revela-
tions of God-the visible universe and the written Word. The
latter was given to supplement the former; not to repeat the
knowledge which we could gain by research for ourselves. The
expressions in which the Divine truth was clothed were chosen,
not because of their relation to scientific or historical facts, but
because they were fitted to enshrine the spiritual and celestial
truths which the Almighty Author sought to convey. The Word
of God differed from the word of man in the same manner as the
works of God from the works of man. The perfection of the lat-
ter was all on the surface, but the deeper we searched into the
former the more beauty and wisdom did we find. Scrape a picture
and nothing but a soiled canvas is left; but in examining man,
we come successively to the muscular, vascular, osseous and
nervous systems, each more wonderful than the other; and if we
could get deeper still, we should come to the human soul in all its
16
PREFACE.
perfection. So it was with the Word of God. In its inmost were
to be found the Divine love and wisdom of its Author, whilst its
exterior was adapted alike to the humblest or the most exalted
intelligence. The lecturer proceeded to explain that the spiritual
sense of the Bible was to be evolved, not by the capricious imagi-
nation of the reader, but by a definite law according to which it
was written—a law of correspondence founded in the relation
between the spiritual universe and the material universe, both of
which, having one common Author, were ultimately connected.
During his discourse, of which the foregoing is a very imperfect.
fragment, the lecturer was listened to with marked attention by
the large audience assembled."-Sydney Daily Telegraph.
It will be the aim of the present writer to bring the light of
this science to bear upon the wine question, in addition to all the
knowledge which can be drawn from all other sources.
Then last, but not least, the writer by a diligent study of the
writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, has endeavored to make him-
self familiar with the Science of Correspondences in accordance
with which man, the world and all things thereon, were created
and the Sacred Scriptures were written. There are thousands of
clergymen belonging to the various, Christian denominations, who
are beginning to realize that the Sacred Scriptures can never be
correctly interpreted by any man without the help of this newly
revealed science. And there are scientists who, begin to under-
stand that a knowledge of this science is indispensable for a cor-
rect understanding of physical phenomena; and there are a goodly
number of physicians who are beginning to perceive that the
physical body and the laws of physical health correspond to the
spiritual body and the laws of spiritual health, and that the
causes of natural diseases correspond to the causes of spiritual
diseases; and consequently that man cannot violate the laws of
physical health and life with impunity, even so far as heavenly
life in the soul is concerned, a truth St. John shows us in his
wish for Gaius. ((
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou
mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth
(III Ep. John, 2). They are also beginning to understand
that there is the most wonderful correspondence, in every par-
ticular, between the various methods of palliating, restraining
and curing natural diseases and evils, and the methods of palliat-
ing, restraining and curing spiritual diseases and evils. This
science is a universal science. The second coming of the Lord in
the clouds of Heaven-not of earth-or the literal sense of the
PREFACE.
17
Sacred Scriptures revealing the spirit and life contained therein
as a jewel in its casket, is not to destroy or tear down or scatter
that which is good and true on earth, but to restore, purify and
reunite men in the worship of one God, and in a belief in rational
doctrines flowing from Him. Thus a knowledge of the Lord is to
cover the earth as the waters cover the deep, and the Christian
Church of every name is to be renovated by its members seeing
the truth and shunning, as sins against God, the evils it
reveals.
Swedenborg tells us that: "The presence of the Lord is con-
tinual with every one, whether wicked or good, for without His
presence no man can live; but His coming is with those only who
receive Him, and these are they who believe on Him, and do His
commandments.
The mere presence of the Lord, and the
illustration of the understanding thereby, may be compared with
the presence of solar light in the natural world, which, unless
conjoined with heat, cannot prevent a universal desolation on the
face of the earth."--True Christian Religion, 774.
It may be very pleasant for us of the Christian Church to float
along with the current, bearing in our understandings the beauti-
ful doctrines and the clear faith of the New Christianity, but shun-
ning all knowledge as to the fearful evils of life in the midst of
which we are dwelling, and carefully excluding such knowledge
from our pulpits and from the columns of our periodicals, lest our
fancied peace may be disturbed, making no efforts to shun these
evils ourselves or to help our neighbors to shun them, beyond
thinking we will be moderate or temperate in indulging in them,
that we bring not sudden destruction upon ourselves. But is such
a life the life of the New Jerusalem, which requires that a man
shall carefully examine himself that he may see his evils, and then
that he shall shun them as sins against God?
Charity requires the conscientious shunning of evils; and
wherever men and women are faithfully striving to thus act, in
them is the New Christianity beginning to be ultimated on the
earth in this our day.
Again, in the True Christian Religion, No. 674, we read: “If
the succession of churches from ancient times to the present be
inquired into, it will be seen that former churches were external
churches; in other words, that their worship consisted in external
rites, representing the internal principles of the Christian Church,
which the Lord founded during His abode in the world, and which
is now (A. D. 1770) beginning to be built up by Him."
18
PREFACE.
In the Arcana Coelestia, 4672, we read : Every Church which
commences from faith, has no other regulator than the understand-
ing, and the understanding has no other regulator than that which
is hereditary to man, viz., self-love and love of the world; it is
otherwise with the Church which commences from charity; it has
good for its regulator, and in good the Lord."
"For the good of life according to one's religion contains
within it the affection of knowing truths, which such persons
also learn and receive when they come into the other life.".
A. C. 455.
"Evils which belong to the will are what condemn a man and
sink him down to hell; and falsities only so far as they become
conjoined with evils; then one follows the other. This is proved
by numerous instances of persons who are in falsities, and yet are
saved.”—A. C. 845.
Charity requires, perhaps above all things, that the Church
should take good care of the young within its borders; yet too
many of our Church organizations in this country, so far as the
writer is aware, take no special measures to guard the young
against the most fearful and destructive habits of using intoxi-
cants, tobacco (a most deadly poison), and tight dressing. These
evils are known and seen by intelligent men and women; and, as
to our Church periodicals, which should especially guard the young
from such evils before they are allowed to enter our homes, the
reader will see where some of them stand. Even some of our
Church organizations give no certain sound as to these evils; and,
as a consequence, men and women belonging to them, who are
"bond servants" to such evils, instead of seeking the "dens and
caverns of the earth," where their example, influence and acts will
harm no one else, openly gratify their perverted appetites and pas-
sions before the uncontaminated and the young. Many do this un-
doubtedly without stopping to think of the consequences to the
young and inexperienced; yet, if charity ruled in our organizations,
it does seem that the latter would give forth no uncertain sound as
to these evils. How can the organized churches see such fearful
degradation, suffering and destruction around us, and make no
special efforts to call their own members to repentance, or to guard
the children and young from contamination ?
We may well remember the clear and explicit truths revealed to
us in the writings of Swedenborg, viz.: "Doctrine is of no account
unless men live as it teaches; that is, unless they regard life as the
end. Moreover, many who have been distinguished for their skill
PREFACE.
19
and knowledge in points of doctrine, are among the infernals ; but
all who have lived a life of charity are in heaven."—Arcana
Cœlestia, 1515.
"In the spiritual world to which every man goes after death, it
is not the character of your faith nor of your doctrine into which
inquiry is made, but the quality of your life.”—Divine Providence,
101..
"Life constitutes the Church, but not doctrine, except so far
as it be of the life; hence it is evident that the Church of the
Lord is not here or there, but that it is everywhere, as well within
those kingdoms where the Church is, as out of them, where the
life is formed according to the precepts of charity. Hence it is
that the Church of the Lord is spread through the whole world,
and yet that it is one; for when life constitutes the Church, and
not doctrine separate from life, then the Church is one; but when
doctrine constitutes the Church, then there are many Churches.
-A. C. 8152.
The writer in the following work has endeavored to be guarded
in all of his statements, and to make none but what are true; and
he has endeavored to establish every position assumed by an
abundance of testimony, and by facts and experiments where
practicable. The advocates of the "one wine theory" generally
assume that there is but one kind of wine, and the reader of their
arguments and criticisms on the writings of their opponents, should
always bear this in mind; and they are full of other assumptions
which have no foundation in truth or facts. In a criticism of Dr.
Kerr's works a writer says: "Of course the practice (among
the ancients) of adding several parts of water to one of wine, is
certain evidence that the wine is intoxicating." Can anything be
more absurd than this assumption? Please remember that in those
old times they had no distilled spirits to add to their wines as we
have, and that they were not as strong as most of our wines.
What drinker of fermented wine would be satisfied with adding
from five to twenty-five times the amount of water which he has
of wine? But when we are told that these wines which were thus
diluted were as thick as honey, and that they had to be scraped
from skin bottles, and were unquestionably the pure juice of the
grape boiled down to one-fifth of the original quantity, there is no
difficulty in understanding why they thus diluted their wines;
and we know that no thick wine like those described, can be made
by boiling fermented wine. Again, the above writer or critic,
speaking of the Hebrew word Shekar, usually in the Bible trans-
20
PREFACE.
lated strong drink, says: "It is not reasonable to suppose that it
can be used here of an intoxicant, and there of a non-intoxicant; at
pleasure." Why not? If we remember that Shekar means either
the sweet juice of the palm or the juice of other fruits than the
grape, and remember that, like wine, it may be fermented or un-
fermented, where is the difficulty in supposing that it may be
spoken of when sweet and unfermented as a harmless and useful
drink, and when fermented as an intoxicating drink?
We have endeavored in this work to expose every assumption
and argument which has thus far been made in favor of intoxica-
ting drinks, and the author refers the reader to the following
pages, and the index at the end of the volume, for facts and argu-
ments with which to meet the advocates of the " one wine theory "
wherever they may show a hand.
The Divine Commandments and the Lord's sayings are the
laws of spiritual life and health, and without keeping them in
intention, thought and act, men can never enjoy spiritual health;
and so the laws of physical life must be kept or men can never
enjoy physical health. When men violate the laws of spiritual
and physical life, they naturally begin to frame doctrines which
will justify them in gratifying their perverted passions and appe-
tites, or begin to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil; being seduced by the serpent, or their lowest sensual
earthly natures, which in a true state will always be kept under
the control of the higher faculties of the soul. Thus have origi-
nated all the evils and false doctrines in the world, and men come
to love the evils and confirm themselves in the false doctrines, and
teach them to their children, however false and absurd they may
be; and thus evils and falses are perpetuated. And when the men
of the Lord's Church on earth generally come to confirm, from
the Sacred Scriptures, false doctrines and falses which justify evils
of life, which are destructive to man's spiritual and physical life,
then the Church has come to its end; and nothing but a new Reve-
lation from the Lord and a new inflowing of truth and life from
the Lord through heaven can save our race from destruction. Men
to-day quote isolated passages from the Word of the Lord to justify
the most abominable falses and evils of life, as though there were
no distinction between that which is true and that which is false,
or between that which is good and that which is evil, thus con-
founding the two.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD, GOOD AND
INJURIOUS.
THE Essential Doctrines of the New Christianity are :
First, That God is one in essence and in person, in whom is a
Divine Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit; finitely repre-
sented in man who is created in His image, by his soul, body and
acts, or more interiorly by his love or will (for
"God is love,
and love is the very life of man "), by his understanding and the
thoughts, words and acts flowing forth from his will through his
understanding, by which the spirit of man is manifested in this
world. The Lord Jesus Christ is that one God manifested to man,
in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily-God in
His Divine Humanity, the only true Object for the worship of men
and angels. To worship and bow down to no other gods but
Him, requires that we shall put away by resisting and shunning,
our hereditary and acquired love of rule, in temporal and especially
in spiritual things for our own self-aggrandizement and glory; and
to remember that "one is our Master, even Christ, and that all we
are brethren." It requires us to shun the love of money for its
own sake, or for the sake of being called rich, or for the sake of
vain and useless display; and to remember that the earth is the
Lord's and the fullness thereof, and that we are but stewards.
It requires us to restrain our passions, and to deal honestly and
faithfully with our fellow-men, and to remember that we are to
strive to love our neighbor as ourselves. It requires that in eat-
ing, drinking and wearing we should make use the great aim,
and not simply the gratification of our hereditary inclinations or
acquired and perverted appetites; and we should remember that
we should so eat and drink and clothe ourselves, and so live as to
develop and sustain strong, healthy, physical organizations, that we
may live and be able to perform the active duties of life, instead
of being an unnecessary burden upon others, and going to an
untimely grave, from our violation of the laws of our physical
life.'
22
PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD AND POISONS.
The second essential doctrine of the New Christian Church is
like unto the first, viz., a life of Charity. We are told by Eman-
uel Swedenborg, servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose writ-
ings the Lord has revealed to us the glorious truths of the New
and Crowning Church on earth, that the first essential of Charity
consists in shunning evils, and especially in shunning evils as sins
against God.
"Charity toward the neighbor," says Swedenborg, "consists
in doing what is good, just and right, in every act and in every
employment. It extends itself, therefore (or has relation), to
everything that a man thinks, wills and does.”—Heaven and
Hell, 360.
Again, he tells us that all good is from the Lord and all evil is
from hell; and evil is opposed to good. Consequently before a man
can receive good from the Lord, and do good which is really good,
he must shun evils. In fact, before a man can see the truth which
leads to good, he must shun the evils which the truth condemns;
otherwise, as Swedenborg truly says, "he cannot see the truth
because he is not willing to see it." And this is of the Divine
Providence; for if he were to clearly see the truth without living
according to it, he would add to his other evils the sin of profana-
tion. We must shun the violation of the Divine Commandments
because they are the laws of spiritual life revealed to us by the
Lord, and to transgress them is to sin against Him. We must
shun the violation of the laws of our physical life; for if we trans-
gress them the penalty is sure-deformity, disease and suffering,
if not premature death. The Lord did not come into the world
to save us from the penalty, but to save us from sin by giving us
freedom and the ability to shun evils; and if we do not voluntarily
co-operate with Him by shunning evils, we cannot be saved from
the penalty attached to our sins, for "the evil-doer shall not go
unpunished." When a man deliberately and knowingly violates
the laws of his physical life, that violation becomes to him a sin,
and will affect his eternal destiny like other violations of the Divine
Commandments.
And now, Brethren, you of the Christian Ministry, let us all
remember that humanity can only be raised from its present fear-
fully depraved state, by men and women shunning evils; and that
shunning evils from selfish and worldly motives, such as love of
gain or fear of loss of reputation, or even of health, will never
redeem our race from the prevailing evils; evils must be shunned
as sins against God, and because they will tell on our eternal
STATE OF MAINE INTOXICANTS AND TOBACCO.
23
destiny, or there will be no radical reform. If man is in the effort
to shun one evil because it is a sin, Swedenborg tells us that the
Lord can and does keep him in the effort to shun all evils. In this
great truth lies the hope of the world. Take, for instance, the
great temperance reformation, the appeal has been made in the
past too frequently by earnest, zealous laymen and by clergymen,
to men to shun the use of intoxicating drinks from worldly and
selfish motives, instead of shunning their use as a sin against God,
and because it will affect their future life; and what is the result?
The writer has just received a letter from the State of Maine,
which shows clearly the result when evils are shunned from
selfish motives, instead of because they are sins; he says:
'DR. JOHN ELLIS :
(6
'BATH, June 22, 1886.
"Dear Friend,-The next thing needful to be done is to over-
turn the Tobacco Craze, the nursery of rum-drinking, as I believe.
The whole country seems inclined to give this State the credit for
temperance, but in my opinion it is a mistaken notion; for much
the larger portion of even temperance men, so called, in and out
of the Church, and an immense majority of the young people,
three feet high and upwards, take to smoking cigars and cigarettes ;
and I think it is not difficult to foresee the consequences by the
time they arrive at the age of twenty-one-tobacco, as I think,
being the nursery of inebriation. When I was a boy smokers in
the street were rarely seen, and when seen were fined; but now
eight out of ten passing, are either smoking or have cigars in their
mouths; or at least six out of eight are so seen, whether in the
New or Old Church, the same-except the Methodists."
We may well thank the Lord that there is one denomination of
Christians which is striving to make a stand against this direful
evil. May the Lord prosper them in their efforts!
And thus it is if men from selfish and worldly, instead of spiritual
and eternal motives, give up an evil habit, they are not held by the
Lord and thus restrained by conscience from seeking other unlaw-
ful gratifications as substitutes; consequently, it is not uncommon
to see earnest advocates of total abstinence from alcoholic drinks,
and even clergymen, smoking and chewing tobacco-a most deadly
poison-the smoke of which in the atmosphere, and the juice
therefrom in the saliva, are offensive to all who are not accus-
tomed to inhale the one and see the other; yet such smokers and
24
PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD AND POISONS.
chewers of this nauseous weed seem to have little or no hesitancy
in smoking and chewing publicly, even in presence of women
and of children, thus setting an example to all, the results
of which we see all around us. The writer is satisfied by the
testimony of careful observers, and by his own observation for
many years as a physician, and especially by his observations
during a year recently spent in traveling abroad in Europe, Asia
and Africa, that the use of tobacco impairs the vitality and stam-
ina of our race, both mentally and physically, quite as much as the
use of intoxicants. To be satisfied that this is true, the reader has
only to compare the children, and especially grandchildren, of
smokers and chewers, especially where both parents have used the
weed before their birth, with the children of those who totally
shun this poison.
Does any Christian man say that it is not a sin to indulge in
the unnecessary habits of drinking intoxicating drinks, smoking
and chewing tobacco or opium, and tight dressing?-all of which
impair health, and even the vitality of the children born, and
cause so much unhappiness and suffering, and often rapidly destroy
life, and, as statistics show, shorten materially the average dura-
tion of human life. Are such courses of life no violation of the
Divine command: "Thou shalt not kill"? Is it no violation of
the command to love our married partner, children and neighbor,
to drink intoxicants which we well know endanger our freedom,
love to the Lord, wife, children and neighbors, and which we know
may bring wretchedness and sorrow untold to all whom we should
hold most dear? Is it no violation of the Divine Commandments
to pollute the atmosphere which wife, child, friends, neighbors,
and even strangers within our gates, are obliged to breathe, by
puffing into it the nauseous smoke of tobacco, which, according to
the testimony of some observers, occasionally destroys the life of
infants? Is it no violation of the Divine Commandments for
women by tight dressing to prevent the development of the body,
and to cause the most serious displacement of organs, and the
greatest deformity of the body, until they are not able to bear well-
developed and healthy children and to nurse them successfully,
until the very existence of the native American race is threatened?
Gentle reader, look at the frail, deformed, nervous, delicate,
sickly American women around you, and at their puny, imper-
fectly developed, sickly and dying children, and at the suffering,
unhappiness, poverty and discomforts which result from such
evil habits. Look at the native American families, dwindling, from
CHIEF-JUSTICE NOAH DAVIS ON CRIME.
25
the prevailing evil habits among men and women, from four to
twelve children down to one, two, or three within the last seventy
years; and say, if you can, that the unnecessary indulgence in habits
which produce such shocking results, is not a sin against God and
a violation of the commands to love the Lord with all our hearts
and our neighbor as ourselves, instead of being ruled by perverted
appetites and vanity.
According to the testimony of physicians having in charge the
insane in our public institutions, more than one-third of the cases
of insanity which exist have been caused by the use of intoxicants;
and the writer will make the prediction that the day is not far
distant when it will be found that not less than another third of
the cases which exist among men, are caused by the use of tobacco,
and no inconsiderable number of both sexes by the use of tea and
coffee; and at least one-third of the cases which exist among
women, are caused by tight dressing and habits of idleness, and
consequent discontent and nervousness. Then we have only to
look at the mental anxiety, disappointment, mortification and
poverty which result from the above evil habits, to account for a
large portion of the remaining cases of insanity, excepting per-
haps a few cases where there is a strong hereditary tendency; and
correct habits of life would unquestionably overcome even such a
tendency in most cases. For life from the Lord flows in most
abundantly into all who repent and are striving to live orderly
lives.
Chief-Justice Noah Davis, of New York, in an address on the
relation between intemperance and crime, says:
"Intoxicating drinks enable men to commit crimes, by firing
the passions and quenching conscience. Burke, the Irish mur-
derer, whose horrible mode of committing his crimes has taken his
own name, in his confessions states that only once did he feel any
restraint of conscience. That was when he was about to kill an
infant child. The babe looked up and smiled in his face, but, said
he, I drank a large glass of brandy and then I had no remorse.
His case is one of thousands. Many times in my own experience
have young men looked up to me when asked what they had to say
why the sentence of the law should not be pronounced, and falter-
ingly said, 'I was drunk-I would not and could not have done
it had I not been drunk.'
"That habits of intemperance are the chief cause of crime is
the testimony of all judges of large experience. More than two
hundred years ago Sir Matthew Hale, then Chief-Justice of Eng-
26
PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD AND POISONS.
land, to whom as a writer and judge we are greatly indebted for
our own criminal law, speaking on this subject, said: 'The places
of judicature I have long held in this kingdom have given me an
opportunity to observe the original cause of most of the enormi-
ties that have been committed for the space of nearly twenty years,
and by due observation I have found that if the murders and man-
slaughters, the burglaries and robberies, the riots and tumults, the
adulteries, fornications, rapes and other enormities that have hap-
pened in that time, were divided into five parts, four of them have
been the issue and product of excessive drinking-of tavern and
ale-house drinking.' Leaping over two hundred years of English
history and jurisprudence, I call one other eminent judge of great
experience to testify. Lord Chief Baron Kelly, perhaps the oldest
judge now on the English bench, says in a letter to the Archdeacon
of Canterbury: 'Two-thirds of the crimes which come before the
courts of law of this country are occasioned chiefly by intemper-
ance.'
"Not less explicit is the testimony of those whose official duties
have brought them in contact with convicted criminals. Speaking
of intemperance, the chaplain of the Preston House of Correction
said: 'Nine-tenths of the English crime requiring to be dealt with
by law arises from the English sin, which the law scarcely discour-
ages.' And the late inspector of English prisons says: 'I am
within the truth when I state that in four cases out of five, when
an offense has been committed, intoxicating drink has been one of
the causes.' The reason for this is not found in the English skies.
A Committee of the House of Commons of the Dominion of
Canada, reporting in 1875, state that 'out of 28,289 commitments
to the jails (of the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec) during the
three previous years, 21,236 were committed either for drunken-
ness or for crimes perpetrated under the influence of drink.
"Massachusetts, the great keeper of Plymouth Rock and of the
virtues which landed there, tells the same tale. The report of her
State Board of Charities for 1869 says: 'The proportion of crime
traceable to this great vice must be set down, as heretofore, at not
less than four-fifths;' and her inspectors of State prisons in 1868
give the same proportion.
"Of seventeen cases of murder examined separately by Dr.
Harris, corresponding secretary of the Prison Association, fourteen
were instigated by intoxicating drinks.
"If intemperance were a new evil, coming in upon us for the
first time like a pestilence from some foreign shore, laden with its
EVILS RESULTING FROM DRINKING—“Á SUFFERER.” 27
wful burden of disease, of pauperism and crime, with what hor-
ror would the nation contemplate its monstrous approach. What
severity of laws, what stringencies of quarantine, what activities
of resistance, would be suddenly aroused. But, alas! it is no new
evil. It surrounds us like an atmosphere, as it has our fathers
through countless generations. It perverts judgments, it poisons
habits, it sways passions, it taints churches and tears consciences.
It seizes the enginery of our legislation, and by it creates a moral
phenomenon of perpetual motion, which Nature denies to physics ;
for it licenses and empowers itself to beget in endless rounds, the
wrongs, vices and crimes which society is organized to prevent;
and-worst of all for our country-it encoils parties like the ser-
pents of Laocoon, and crushes in its folds the spirit of patriotism
and virtue."-New York Tribune.
And yet, in this fearful array of crimes which are caused by
the drinking of intoxicating liquids, we see but a small share of the
sin, misery and wretchedness which result from their use. Now, can
we for a moment suppose that the cause of all this mischief, which
destroys human freedom, which stirs up, excites and brings into
unrestrained activity the perverted passions of man, is a harmless,
innocent drink, of a good correspondence, simply used in excess?
When has the excessive use of unfermented wine, milk, water, or
any other wholesome liquid, ever produced the slightest approach
to such dire effects? How perfectly clear it is, if we will but open
our eyes, in the light of this new day, that the tree which bears
such fruit must be an evil tree, of an infernal origin. Let us lay
aside prejudice, and preconceived opinions, if possible, and
examine this question in the light of science, the Sacred Script-
ures, and of the New Christianity, and, it seems to the writer that
the truth on this subject is so plain that we cannot fail to see it.
Let us never forget that drunkenness has but one origin, and
that is the so-called temperate drinking of intoxicating drinks.
"A Sufferer" writes: "The only standard we have by which
we may measure the enormity of an evil, is the effect that the
evil has upon the victims of the evil-doer. That is, the extent to
which it violates the command, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself.' By this standard who so bad as the drunkard? We
cannot judge of his spiritual condition. We do not know what
may be in store for him in the other life.
We hope for the best in
his case, just as we do in the case of a Piper, or a Jesse Pomeroy,
or any other victim of the insanity that flows in from the hells;
but what does humanity suffer from the drunkard? The assassin
28
PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD AND POISONS.
kills his victim at a blow, or if he be very bad, by tortures that
endure for a few minutes, or perhaps hours. The drunkard kills
his victim by tortures that endure for years, and that victim the
wife of his bosom, whom he has taken to himself to love, cherish
and protect. Tortures, too, that are as much worse than physical
tortures as the power of the spirit to suffer is greater than that of
the body. The thief steals from those in whom he has no par-
ticular interest; sometimes also from those who trust him and
depend upon him. The drunkard always steals from those who
trust him and depend upon him most; sometimes even from his
own children. And he steals from them without mercy, without
regard for their necessities. He steals from them all their cloth-
ing, all their food, their education, their position in society, their
everything; and sends them forth to fight the battle of life weak-
ened by physical, mental, moral and material poverty to such a
degree that it is wonderful evidence of the mercy and power of
the Lord that ever any of them succeed at all. And he does this
simply to gratify his own miserable spirit of self-indulgence, in
utter disregard of the rights of the neighbor. He cannot conceive
of the duty of self-denial to shield others from suffering. He has
killed in himself all perception of duty in the matter, by his per-
sistent course of indulgence of his own sensuality. Sometimes, in
advanced stages of the drunkard's journey, when he begins to
experience something of the punishment that evil always brings
with it, he would break away from the habit if he could to save
himself from suffering-to save others from suffering, never. All
that in him which regards the happiness of others was stifled,
repressed, smothered away back in his career, when he was seek-
ing his own pleasure with his merry companions, regardless of
his mother or wife at home suffering the torments of anxiety
through the weary hours of waiting for his return.
"When we meet the drunken man-no matter how funny the
form which his drunkenness assumes-do we not know that his
family is suffering inconceivable tortures at home? And these
tortures he is willing to inflict upon all who feel any interest in or
responsibility for him, and he has been willing to do it all
through the past, when he had strength to do differently,
which he has not now. Is it not hard to conceive of an evil
worse than this?
i
"We often hear of drunkards who would be good men if it were
not for drink. That is all imagination. There is no such thing in
reality. As well might we say of the burglar, 'He is a good man
THE DANGER OF DRINKING INTOXICANTS.
29
were it not for the habit he has of breaking into people's houses ;'
or of the murderer, 'He is all right if he would only leave off the
habit he has of killing people.' When a young man is dabbling
with intoxication, he is doing just what another young man is
doing when he tells small lies, or another one when he indulges
his lascivious propensities, or another one when he steals small
sums of money from his employer's till. Drunkenness is a sin
against God. Of just what degree of deadliness we cannot say :
but certainly deadly enough to destroy all man's spiritual life."-
N. J. Messenger.
No man living can enter upon the use of intoxicating drinks
with the slightest reasonable assurance that he will not become a
drunkard, and the one who feels the most assurance is most likely
to fall. The writer well remembers, more than half a century
ago, standing upon his native New England hills, working upon
the highway, conversing with a young neighbor in regard to the
danger of using intoxicating drinks, the strong assurance with
which the young man exclaimed, "The man is a fool who cannot
control his appetite! if you ever hear of my getting drunk, tell
me and I will quit drinking." Alas! Alas! not many years
passed before that young man became a drunkard; the kindly
warning voices of friends and neighbors were unheeded; he spent
the fine farm left him by his father, his wife was said to have died
broken-hearted, and his children were scattered among friends
and strangers.
Now we ask you, Christian brethren, if there is no sin in
entering on such unnecessary and dangerous courses of life as
we have briefly alluded to in the preceding pages. We all know
by observation that intoxicants, tobacco and tight dressing are
not needed by healthy men and women; can we deliberately
thus violate the well-known laws of health and life without sin-
ning against our Creator.
We are told by Emanuel Swedenborg that, "In the repre-
sentative Church it was a common ceremony to wash the feet
with water, thereby to signify that the filth of the natural man
should be washed away; the filth of the natural man are all those
things which relate to self-love and love of the world, and when
this filth is washed away, then goodnesses and truths flow in; for
this filth is what alone prevents the influx of good and truth from
the Lord; for good is continually flowing in from the Lord, but
when it comes through the internal or spiritual man to his ex-
ternal or natural man, it is there either perverted, or reflected
30
PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD AND POISONS.
back, or suffocated; but when the things appertaining to self-love
and love of the world are removed, then good is there received
and there fructifies, for then man exercises himself in works of
charity. This may appear from many considerations, as from the
state of man in misfortune, misery and disease, when the things
appertaining to the external or natural man are laid asleep, in
which case man begins instantly to think piously, and to will what
is good, and also to exercise himself in works of piety to the
utmost of his ability; but when the state is changed, there is a
change also in these things. * * * * The laver of brass
whereat Aaron and his sons were to wash themselves, was placed
between the tent of the congregation and the altar, consequently
out of the tent (Exod. xxx: 18, 19, 21); by which also was signi-
fied that the external or natural things only were to be purified ;
for unless these are purified—that is, unless the things of self-love
and love of the world are thence removed-it is impossible that
things internal, which relate to the Lord and neighborly love,
should enter, as was said before.
*** * He that is washed
needeth not save to wash his feet, signifies that he who is reformed
has need only to be cleansed as to natural things; that is, that
evils and falses be removed thence, in which case all things are
disposed to order by an influx of spiritual things from the Lord.
Moreover, to wash the feet was a token of charity, to denote that
they did not reflect upon another's evils; and also of humiliation,
to denote the cleansing another from evils as from filth, as may
appear from the Lord's words in the same chapter (John, verses
13 to 17).”—Arcana Calestia, 3147.
FOOD AND DRINK, GOOD AND BAD.
"It would be well for man," says Swedenborg, “to prepare his
food chiefly with reference to use; for by so doing he would have
for his object a sound mind in a sound body; whereas, when the
taste is the chief thing attended to, the body thence becomes dis-
eased at heart, inwardly languishes, and consequently also the
mind, inasmuch as its state depends on the state of the recipient
bodily parts, as seeing depends on the state of the eye; hence the
madness of supposing that all the delight of life, and what is
commonly called the summum bonum, consists in luxury and
pleasurable indulgences: hence also come dullness and stupidity
in things which require thought and judgment, whilst the mind is
disposed only for the exertions of cunning respecting bodily and
worldly things; hereby man acquires a similitude to a brute
31
EVIL USES, LIKE INTOXICANTS, FROM HELL.
animal, and therefore such persons are not improperly compared
with brutes."-Arcana Calestia, 8378.
"A man cannot be conjoined to the Lord unless he be spir-
itual; nor can he be spiritual unless he be rational; nor rational
unless his body be in a sound state: these things are like a house,
the body is like the foundation, the rational principle is like the
superstructure, the spiritual principle like the things in the house,
and conjunction with the Lord is like inhabitation."-Divine Love
and Wisdom, 330.
"All things created by the Lord are uses," says Swedenborg,
and as to the uses for nourishing the body he says: "Uses created
for the nourishment of the body are all things of the vegetable
kingdom which are for meat and drink, as fruits, berries, seeds,
pulse, and herbs; and all things of the animal kingdom which are
eaten, as oxen, cows, calves, deer, sheep, kids, goats, lambs and
their milk; also fowls and fishes of many kinds.'
“There are indeed many things which are not used by man;
but superfluity does not take away use, but causes uses to endure.
There is also such a thing as abuse of uses; but abuse does not
take away use, as the falsification of truth does not take away
truth, except only in those who are guilty of it."-D. L. W., 331.
In other words, if a man eats or drinks any healthy article to
excess, so that it harms and is not useful to him, it does not
follow that the same food or drink would not be useful to him
who uses it properly.
Thus far Swedenborg has been speaking only of good and useful
articles for sustaining and nourishing the body, and of their
legitimate use and abuse; but he now comes to speak of a totally
different class of substances, or of "evil uses," of which he says :
"Good uses are from the Lord, and evil uses are from hell.
Evil uses were not created by the Lord, but that they originated
together with hell. All goods which exist in act are called uses,
and all evils which exist in act are called uses, but the latter are
called evil uses, and the former good uses. Now as all goods are
from the Lord, and all evils from hell, it follows that no other than
good uses were created by the Lord, and that evil uses originated
from hell. By uses, which are treated of in particular in this
article, all things that appear on earth, as animals of all kinds and
vegetables of all kinds; of both the latter and the former, those
which furnish use to man are from the Lord, and those which do
hurt to man are from hell." Among the evil uses referred to
above he enumerates: "Wild beasts of all kinds, as serpents,
32
PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD AND POISONS.
scorpions, dragons, crocodiles, tigers, wolves, foxes, swine, owls of
different kinds, bats, rats and mice, frogs, locusts, spiders, and
noxious insects of many kinds; hemlock and aconite, and all kinds
of poison, as well in herbs as in earths; in a word, all things that
do hurt and kill men; such things in the hells appear to the life,
just like those on the earth and in it. It is said that they appear
there, but still they are not there as on earth, for they are mere
correspondences of the lusts that spring from evil loves, and
present themselves before others in such forms."-D. L. W., 339.
Swedenborg again says: "The things that do hurt to a man
are called uses, because they are of use to the wicked to do evil,
and because they contribute to absorb malignities, and thus also as
remedies. Use is applied in both senses like love; for we speak
of good love and evil love, and love calls all that use which is done
by itself.”—D. L. W., 336.
So it will be clearly seen, from the above quotations, that there
are in the world substances which are good and useful as articles
of food and drink, which in themselves always have a good cor-
respondence—they are always good uses, for they are among the
good gifts of God; we may abuse them, but we cannot convert
them into evil uses-they are still good. So it is equally clear,
from the above quotations, that we have another class of sub-
stances, which, when used as food and drink, are always evil
uses-evil in themselves, for they originate from hell, we are told ;
and even though they may contain some materials which may
nourish the body of man, as most poisonous vegetables do, as a
whole they are poisonous and injurious, and never in health can
we use them without violating the laws of our being, and the plain
philosophical teaching of the Church. Can anything be clearer
than this? Further on in this work it will be shown that fer-
mented wine, whisky, and other intoxicating drinks are poisons ;
and, consequently, that they are, according to the philosophy of
the New Christianity, from hell. Of no other substance or article
ever used as drink or food have we such long continued historical
records, both secular and sacred, showing that it harms and kills
men when used as a beverage, as we have in the case of fermented
wine.
We repeat, in substance, that intoxicating drinks, even the
single article of fermented wine, has hurt and killed more of the
human family than all other poisons or evil uses pertaining to food
and drink put together. It has done it more insidiously, more
cruelly, and has perverted the passions and appetites of men im-
GOOD USES AND THEIR ABUSE.
33
measurably more than all other poisons. It has caused more
wretchedness, poverty, domestic unhappiness, and crime than all
other poisons put together. It so clearly belongs to the evil uses,
which Swedenborg assures us have their origin from hell, that it
seems strange that any intelligent Christian should for a moment
claim that fermented wine is a good and useful article to drink,
when in health. In sickness the chemical elements of fermented
wine may be curative in very rare instances. Chemistry shows
conclusively that it is in no true sense the fruit of the vine; that
almost all of the organized substances contained in the juice of
the grape, have been either partially or totally destroyed, precipi-
tated, changed, and perverted by leaven or ferment. Can an evil
substance, like leaven, bring forth good fruit?
Good, pure, clean water, the unfermented blood of the grape,
wine or must as it flows from the press, unfermented new and old
wine, good sound wheat and other grains, suitable for human food,
and fresh meal and flour made from the same, sweet unleavened
- bread, good fresh mutton and beef from healthy cattle, and many
other wholesome articles not here enumerated, when used as drink
and food, supply the wants of the human body and give substance
and thus strength, without causing any unnatural excitement or
depression, or any disease peculiar to the article used, however
freely it may be taken, and without causing any unnatural appe-
tite which other healthy articles will not satisfy, and without
requiring to be taken in gradually increasing quantities to satisfy
the appetite for them, and which therefore in their action are not
seductive, are all good uses, according to the philosophy of the
New Christianity, and always have a good signification and cor-
respondence; and they are never evil or bad uses, and they never
have a bad signification or correspondence. But these good uses,
as we have already intimated, may be abused, used to excess, or
improperly used; but abuse, or excessive or improper use does not
destroy them as good uses, and they are still good uses, and have
a good signification and correspondence, however much their abuse
may injure the individual misusing them. Their improper use,
abuse, or excessive use may have a bad signification, but the sub-
stances themselves never have, for they are the good gifts of God,
and always correspond to truths and good affections. Swedenborg
says: "As meats and drinks recreate the natural life, so good
affections and genuine truths corresponding to them recreate the
spiritual life."-Swedenborg's Index to the A. C.
On the other hand, water contaminated by arsenic, copper
34
PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD AND POISONS.
alcohol or other injurious substances, or which is dirty and filthy
from the presence of substances capable of causing disease or in-
jury when drank, fermenting must and new wine, and fermented
new and old wine, owing to their either being or having been pol-
luted by fermentation and its poisonous product (alcohol), unsound
or decaying wheat and other grains, sour or mouldy bread, dis-
cased or putrid beef and mutton, henbane, opium, the deadly
nightshado, tobacco and other poisonous plants, when used as
drink and food are always evil uses, and have a bad signification
and correspondence, and are never good uses, and never have a
good correspondence. Many of the above substances possess in an
eminent degree all the characteristics of poisons, as the writer has
shown elsewhere. This is especially true of all fermented and
alcoholic drinks, opium, and tobacco.
The above poisonous substances, or evil uses, may be applied
to good purposes, and thus used, their use may, perhaps, have a
good signification; for we are told that, during the process of
regeneration, evil spirits flow into man's evil inclinations and
excite them, and by so doing bring them before his mental vision,
enabling him to see them, when, if he resists, overcomes and puts
them away, such evil spirits have been useful to him; so poisonous
substances taken into the physical body will excite existing discases
similar to those they will cause when taken by the healthy, and
thus bring such existing diseases into view, or make them manifest
to that living force which is ever active to preserve the health of
the body and, if the latter reacts, overcomes and puts away such
diseases, a good use is performed by these poisonous substances.
But being used for such good purposes does not change the inherent
quality of either the evil spirits or of the poisons; the former are
still evil and the latter are still poisonous. Poisonous substances
as food and drink, correspond to evils and falses appropriated and
imbibed; and, therefore, however useful for the cure of diseases,
they should never be used by man during health.
HOW TO DISTINGUISH HEALTHY FOOD FROM POISONS.
We should ever strive not to confound or mix truths with fal-
sities, or goods with evils, nor poisons with healthy drink and food,
for the two are distinct. Of the one we may partake, but the
other we must strive to shun, absolutely, if we would walk in the
path of safety. This is as true in regard to natural food and
drink as it is in regard to spiritual nourishment.
There is a most wonderful correspondence between all natural
HOW TO DISTINGUISH HEALTHY FOOD FROM POISONS. 35
things and processes and their spiritual causes, which we should
ever bear in mind. Natural food and drink correspond to spiritual
food and drink; for the former build up and sustain the natural
body as the latter do the spiritual body; natural causes of disease
and unnatural excitement correspond to spiritual causes of disease
as natural methods for restraining and curing natural diseases
correspond to spiritual methods for restraining and curing spiritual
diseases, and this correspondence extends even to the most minute
particular. The human body is to be developed during childhood
and youth, and sustained during adult age by a regular supply of
healthy food and drink; and this should ever be such as enters into
the various structures of the body, and supplies its wants, and
causes neither unnatural excitement, nor any disease peculiar to
itself, nor any unnatural appetite. A man may eat and drink to
excess of healthy articles, and in the use of these is the legitimate
field for the exercise of temperance.
The Christian scholar has not only the letter of the Sacred
Scriptures on which to rely for the precepts which should guide
his life, although the letter gives no uncertain sound, but he
has also the spiritual sense, according to the Science of Corre-
spondences, to illuminato the letter and make everything plain.
How clearly it does it on this subject we will endeavor to show
in the following pages :
Natural food is composed of such substances as are required to
build up and sustain a healthy body, and these substances corre-
spond to spiritual food so accurately that Swedenborg assures us
that, when man is eating food, the angels with him are in the idea
concerning good and truth, according to the species of such food.
-Arcana Calestia, 5915. Goods and truths are man's gen-
uine spiritual food and meat, without which, we are told, he cannot
live a true spiritual life. How important, then, that we under-
stand the natural food and drink which correspond to such
heavenly food. Again, we are told that the food or meat which
the wicked want in another life, are the delights arising from evils,
and the pleasantnesses arising from falses, which are the meats of
death.-A. C., 680, 681. IIow important, then, that we shun those
articles as food and drink which correspond to the spiritual food
last named, if we desire to live a true, orderly and heavenly life.
"Poison denotes deceit and hypocrisy in the spiritual sense.
A. C., 9013. All poisonous substances which do harm to man
when used by him as food or drink, are when so used among the
evil uses described or named by Swedenborg in the "Divine Love
36
PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD AND POISONS.
and Wisdom." He tells us "that evil uses were not created by
the Lord, but that they originated together with hell.”
But the practical question arises, "How are we to distinguish
poisonous and injurious substances from healthy food?" The
answer is plain: "By their effects on the body and mind shall we
know them." All suitable articles sustain the body in health, and
cause no unnatural appetite which other healthy articles of food
and drink will not satisfy; neither do they cause any unnatural
excitement or depression of either body or mind; nor do they
cause disease either of the body or mind peculiar to the substance
used. The tendency of healthy food is to sustain both body and
mind in a true, orderly and happy state. Healthy food and drink,
if used to excess, may derange and oppress the digestive organs
and the whole system; but no such article causes special excite-
ment or a disease peculiar to itself, like drunkenness and delirium
tremens. How different from all this is it with poisons. Let us
take a few which are, unfortunately, frequently habitually used
by individuals, such as opium, alcohol-including wine and other
fermented drinks-and tobacco. It is well known to every
observer that all these three articles, when habitually used,
develop an appetite which no healthy article will satisfy, and
that they enslave the man. Even more than this, opium will
not satisfy the appetite for either tobacco or alcohol, nor will
tobacco satisfy the appetite for either of the other two; and no
substance in nature will satisfy the appetite for alcohol unless
it contains alcohol. IIow wonderfully does this correspond to the
effects of evils and falses upon the soul! The gratification of per-
verted acquisitiveness does not satisfy perverted vanity, unless by
display it can gratify vanity; nor does even successful falsehood
gratify either acquisitiveness or vanity. And there is another
striking correspondence between these natural and spiritual per-
versions—the tendency of one perversion to lead to another; as
the use of tobacco to the use of alcoholic drinks and opium;
like as stealing leads to lying, and lying to gratification of per-
verted acquisitiveness, etc.
Again, healthy food and drink require only to be taken in
moderate quantities to satisfy the appetite and demands of a
healthy organization for them. How is it with the poisons
we have been considering? They cause either unnatural excite-
ment or depression, and in accordance with well recognized
physiological laws, if health is to be restored (if the dose is not a
fatal one), unnatural depression follows unnatural excitement,
THE ACTION OF POISONS-ALCOHOL A POISON. зну
and unnatural excitement follows unnatural depression, inevi-
tably; consequently, in order to keep up the same state of excite-
ment day after day and year after year, the quantity of the
poison must be steadily increased, or the individual becomes
moody in body and mind for the want of it; for he is violating
the laws of his perverted life if he fails to increase the dose of the
poison. It is just as natural for the users of such poisons to
increase the quantity until the amount used in a single day would
kill several healthy men not addicted to their use, and until dis-
case and death result, as it was for Alexander the Great, when
told that there were other worlds in the universe, to weep to think
he had not yet conquered one; and finally to die in a drunken
sprec. Perverted appetites and passions can never be fully satis-
fied, and the former correspond to the latter, or the natural to the
spiritual. The perversion of the natural appetites leads naturally
to suffering, disease and death, equally as spiritual perversions do
to spiritual suffering and spiritual death, or the death of the love
of goodness and truth in the soul. The poor confirmed drunkard
is to be pitied; his greatest sin was when he yielded to the
temptation of moderate drinking, instead of resisting it—that
time has passed; for he has now become a slave to his appetite-
sometimes a most unwilling slave.
Poisons cause diseases, when used so as to act on the human
body, and every poison causes symptoms peculiar to and charac-
teristic of itself. They even act specifically upon different por-
tions of the body, as is well known; some on the brain, others
on the spinal cord, salivary glands, stomach, heart, kidneys, etc.
It is safe to say that there is no other poison which so entirely
perverts the functions, and causes diseases of so many of the
organs and structures of the body, as alcoholic drinks; and none
which so thoroughly perverts and impairs the mental faculties, even
causing mental excitement, confusion, loss of memory, loss of con-
trol of the understanding over the will or affections, insanity,
stupor, often as profound as that of apoplexy, delirium tremens,
and, not unfrequently, permanent insanity, thus destroying the
freedom of man.
Alcohol and fermented drinks cause various diseases of the
brain, red eyes, "rum blossoms" on the nose and face, diseases
of the stomach, liver and kidneys, and in fact, from the crown of
the head to the soles of the feet, even to the end of the toes, there
is scarcely an organ which does not suffer more or less from the
habitual use of alcoholic and fermented drinks. They, especially
38
PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD AND POISONS.
wine and other fermented drinks, are recognized as among the
chief causes of that crippling, painful and hereditary disease,
named gout. Need we say more? Does a good tree, or good, whoio-
some food or drink, bring forth such fruits as the above? Never!
If we examine the origin of alcohol in the light of correspond-
ence, we shall see that it is the fruit of, or, rather, produced by,
an evil tree (the yeast fungus); then why should we pervert its
use by taking it into our stomachs. Alcohol is never found in any
healthy living natural substance, fruit or vegetable. It is always the
result of the decomposition or decay of a good and useful article
of food-sugar, which corresponds to spiritual delights; and this
decomposition is the result of a substance of no doubtful origin,
leaven, or yeast, or ferment, which, Swedenborg assures us, signi-
fies evil and the false, which should not be mixed with things
good and true. This vile substance lays hold on the sugar and
actually destroys it and perverts its natural constituents into car-
bonic acid gas, which men cannot breathe without destroying life,
and alcohol, which causes drunkenness, delirium tremens, insanity
and death.
Now we will ask the thoughtful reader if it is not almost
shocking, to say the least, to suppose for a single moment that the
wine partaken of by the Lord and His disciples at the Last Supper,
was a wine which had been polluted and partially decomposed by
this substance of evil correspondence, and that the wine actually
contained the poisonous products which always result from such
decay? Was the natural blood which flowed from the Lord's side
at the crucifixion, fermented blood? Please remember that it had
a similar signification to the wine, and if the latter was fermented
it is difficult to avoid tho conclusion that the former must have
been. Is it possible that when the Lord changed the water in
the water-pots, at the wedding, into wine, Ho permitted leaven,
or ferment, to enter the wine and decompose, or rot it, for the
sake of having alcohol formed therein? In the first place, we can
see thero was not time for this process to take place. But He
formed the alcohol in the wine when IIe formed the wine, some
one may say. But, unfortunately for this supposition, alcohol has
never been found as one of the good gifts of God, for it has never
been found either in the vine or the fruit of the vine, and is only
found in wine, or in the juice of the grape or other fruits, when a
certain temperature has been preserved for a period, and leaven
has decomposed sugar. It is always the product of an evil tree--
ferment or leaven.
sa
POISONS AND EVILS AND FALSES.
39
There is another remarkable correspondence between the action
of poisonous substances, especially of wine and other alcoholic
drinks, on the body and appetites and sensations, and the action
of evils and falses on the soul of man, which is worthy of our
serious attention, for it conveys a useful lesson-perhaps few
more so.
Poisons, like evils and falses, when we make them our own by
eating and drinking, or appropriating them to our own selfish
purposes, not only excite an unnatural appetite and specific dis-
eases peculiar to themselves, as we have seen, but they also palliate
the symptoms which they cause; and for this reason, while their
use is continued, the individual does not realize that he is being
harmed, for he honestly feels that so far from harming him, they
actually do him good every time he partakes of them, and are just
what he needs, precisely as the evil man feels while he is under
the influence of evils and falses. He does not realize that he is
living an evil life, any more than the user of stimulating drinks
realizes that he is violating the laws of his physical organization
both regard themselves as "hale fellows well met.' And if the
remains of a healthy natural appetite, and the love of natural
food and drink in the body, and of goodness and truth stored up
by the Lord in the spirit, cannot be warmed into life by moral and
religious "suasion," the wine-drinker may go on with his cups
until drunkenness and even death may result, as the evil-doer may
until spiritual death results, without in either case the man seeing
clearly the consequences of the life he is living. For the sake of
the salvation of the man, that he may have a glimpse of the un-
satisfactory life he is living, the Lord often permits some physical
misfortune, such as a broken bone, an attack of an inflammatory
disease, a fever, or an attack of indigestion, to destroy for the time
being the ruling appetite, and show how unsatisfactory are the
results of its gratifications, when the "horrors," or delirium
tremens, may result; precisely as the Lord often permits some
great misfortune, like the loss of property, friends, or reputation,
to show the spirit of man the little dependence to be placed on its
gratification, and the unsatisfying nature of his ruling love. It is
then that remorse and despondency, even to despair, may ensue,
precisely as delirium tremens may result, as named above, with
the drinker of alcoholic drinks. Neither suffers with such symp-
toms while pursuing the full bent of their perverted appetites and
passions. How wonderful the correspondence in every particular.
If in either case the man sincerely repents and puts away his evils,
40
PRELIMINARY REMARKS-FOOD AND POISONS.
it is well, and he may be saved, but he must look to the Lord for
strength, and hold out to the end.
It is clearly shown in the writings of the Church, and every
day's observation confirms its truth, that a man only sees his falses
and evils as he is in the effort to put them away, and he only sees
clearly their real and fearful nature as he actually puts them
away; and this is not less true of the perversions of the natural
appetites than it is of spiritual perversions, for the one corre-
sponds to the other.
How clearly is this illustrated by the members of the medical
profession to-day. The world over, those who love and use wine
and intoxicating drinks, who partake of "the social cup," are the
men who often prescribe them for patients, and strive to justify
their use; and it is wonderful, and very interesting, to see to what
shifts they have been driven by the advancing science of this age.
It retards the metamorphosis or wasting and repair, or renewal of
the structures of the body, they tell us, when every school-boy in
physiology, and every man and woman who has ever felt the invig-
orating effects of active exercise, can see clearly that to retard
such changes is the last thing to be desired, if we wish health and
strength. The use of opium, and the torpor of hibernating ani-
mals, and the sluggishness of lazy and indolent men and women,
retard much more fully the metamorphosis of the tissues; but is
such a life to be desired when happiness and health depend on
activity?
Again, we are told that a small portion of the alcohol taken
into the system is actually appropriated to some useful purpose,
and is, consequently, actually food-"yes, food, gentlemen." The
same is true of a much larger proportion of the opium, tobacco,
or deadly nightshade, which can safely be taken into the stomach ;
but who would think of attempting to justify the use of these
poisons by any such argument? These straws are fast being sub-
merged.
Go the world over and the physicians who have either never
used wine and alcoholic drinks, or having used, have repented and
put away their use, will be found to totally condemn their use
during health, and rarely, if ever, to prescribe them as medicine.
Need more be said ?
CHAPTER II.
DISEASES FROM A SPIRITUAL OR MENTAL ORIGIN, OR FROM
THE PERVERSION OF THE PASSIONS AND FACULTIES OF
THE SOUL-EVIL USES-CURE OF DISEASES.
WE may denominate the harmonious action of all the organs,
faculties and functions, of both body and mind, or spirit, as a state
of health; and any change of structure, or variation of function,
as a state of either disease or deformity. Disease is an effect of a
preceding or co-existing cause, which may still be operative, and
require to be removed before any permanent cure can be effected.
Before we can either remove or avoid the causes of diseases we
must understand them.
But before we are prepared correctly to understand our subject,
it is necessary for us to have some knowledge of man, who is th
subject of disease; and as we are about to consider, in this chapter,
the origin of diseases from the perverted passions and faculties of
the human spirit, it is necessary for us to have a distinct idea as
to man's spiritual nature.
Believing, with St. Paul, that "There is a natural body, and
there is a spiritual body," we have an abundance of evidence to
satisfy us that the latter is far more real and substantial than the
former, 'for man's natural body is but an effect. If we would seek
causes we must seek them in the world of causes: matter in itself
is dead.
Go, reader, to yonder forest; the trees which were once living
and towering in all their majesty toward the heavens, now lie pros-
trated by the woodman's ax, and lifeless; no more shall they be
clad in living green, their glory has departed.
Go to yonder dark shaft, from which the laborious miner raises
from the bowels of the earth the copper and iron ore, and you will
behold the materials from which the steam engine and cars are
built-an almost shapeless stick of wood in one case, and a mass of
minerals in the other. Tell us if they are the cause of the beauti-
ful steam engine which you see flying over the iron rail at the rate
of thirty or forty miles an hour? Or are they simply the ma-
terials from which it is formed?
42
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
Go and examine the anatomy of the engine, study its physi-
ology, or the functions of the various parts; behold the evidence
of design in every part and piece, and then say if you find the
cause of its existence in it, or that it was the cause of itself; or,
again, that it is a part of its own cause. No! you exclaim, the
cause is not in it; it is not the cause of itself, and it constitutes
no integral part of the cause. Then, if the cause which has pro-
duced the engine is neither the matter of which the engine is
built, nor included in it, where shall we seek its cause? Shall
we seek it in matter, or in the material world? No; for matter,
it is evident, in itself is dead we will seek the cause in the mind
of the architect who has fashioned it; for it is but a manifes-
tation of his thoughts, and the thought existed before the external
form.
We have now traced the cause of the engine to the thoughts of
the builder, but are we sure that we have reached the real cause?
Let us see what is the cause of the thoughts which have given
life to this beautiful machine? Are they their own cause, or are
they but an effect of a certain affection, or love, which desires the
accomplishment of a certain end or object; which may perchance
be to save labor, horse-flesh, time, or, to make money? Then we
see that even the thought is but an instrumental cause in the
formation of the engine; the real cause is love, the love of accom-
plishing a certain end. Love is the very life of man, and we read
that even ((
God is love," and His wisdom is but a manifestation
of His love, as our thoughts are but a manifestation of our love,
or loves. Then all the works of man which we behold are but
manifestations of his affections, through the instrumentality of his
understanding.
Let us turn from the comparatively dead works of man, which
are but surface works, to the nobler works of God, which are
infilled with life to every fibre. Let us read the thoughts of the
great Architect in all the works of Creation which we behold
around us; in the substantial earth upon which we stand, the
blade, the leaf, the full grown plant and tree, of the vegetable
kingdom; in the worm that crawls at our feet, the insect that flies
at our approach, the animals which acknowledge our suprem-
acy; in the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea. All
these manifest thought and design, far more than the works
of man, and can only have had their origin from an intelligent
personal being. We behold springing forth from the earth the
tiny vegetable, but warmed by the solar rays, and moistened by
THE ORDER OF CREATION-MAN.
43
the rains and dews of the natural heavens, it grows, blossoms,
and bears fruit for the sustenance of the animal kingdom. We
behold then, even in the creation of the mineral kingdom, an end,
or object, for which it was created; for without the mineral king-
dom vegetables could not have been created: but the great end
or object of the creation of this beautiful universe is not to be
found in the vegetable kingdom, for creation rests not there, and
this kingdom is but instrumental for the development of higher
orders of life, or the animal kingdom. From the lowest forms
of animal life we shall need to ascend step by step, until we
arrive at the creation of man, before we reach the crowning
act of creative energy. Comparative anatomy teaches us that
in man is to be found the various forms of the animal kingdom
beneath him.
Throughout the entire works of Creation we are able to read
the design of the Almighty, and clearly to see that the creation
of man was the end in view.
Revelation teaches us that man, differing from all the rest of
the animal kingdom, was created in the image and likeness of
God his creator. We find man more perfect in organization
than any animal; and, although without the strength or bulk of
many animals, yet able to subject them all to his dominion. We
find him endowed with mental faculties immeasurably above the
brute creation. He alone possesses the power of reasoning,
reflecting or thinking rationally. He alone is endowed with con-
science and freedom of will. Yet man, although capable of loving,
reasoning and executing, and of clothing his thoughts in words and
external forms, is not his own creator, any more than the steam
engine is its own creator. He is not the creature of chance, or
unintelligent nature, for we behold in his beautiful and erect
form, the surprising adaptation of parts, and wonderful delicacy
of structure, far more evidence of thought and design than can
be found in all the works of man, or even in creation beneath
him. We find that he possesses in a finite degree, those facul-
ties which are manifested in the works of the infinite Creator-
love and wisdom. But man does not possess life in and of
himself, nor does he possess love or wisdom of himself; he is
simply an organ, receptive of the life which is ever flowing in
from the Giver of life. Even his body does not live of itself, but
is only sustained in being by the constant reception of materials
from the external world, or by food and drink, which is for a
time made alive by the indwelling spirit or soul. The spiritual
44
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
world then is the world of causes. Man is at one and the same
time an inhabitant of two worlds; his natural body is an inhabi-
tant of the natural world, and his spiritual body (composed appa-
rently of affections, and intellectual and perceptive faculties) which
gives life to the natural body, is an inhabitant of the spiritual
world. Even man's external acts and works have their origin
in his spirit, for affections and thoughts are spiritual and not
material; and when the artist forms the image of a man or animal
from granite, or a machine from iron and wood, it is but an em-
bodiment of a spiritual form or thought.
If all the works of man have a spiritual origin, and are but the
clothing of spiritual forms or thoughts, how much more must the
material works of God have a spiritual origin; for they are the
clothing in matter of the Divine thoughts, which give life to all
the organized forms of the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
Man's material body then is but the clothing of his spirit or
soul, and must correspond to it in every particular. It follows
that there cannot be an organ, member, or fibre in the body, which
possesses life, which does not derive that life from the spirit. The
spirit being the real man, is of course in the form of man, or of
the body.
We read that God created man upright, but that he has
sought out many inventions. We read also that he was created
free from evil and free from disease. Even aside from revelation,
we cannot for a moment suppose that the first man was created the
sinful and diseased being we behold in the man of to-day.
But that
Not a few believe that our race has always been progressing,
from the time of the very first creation of man on earth.
man has degenerated upon the earth, it seems to the writer, must
be manifest to all who are capable of reflecting, if they are not
blinded by the theories of progress so prevalent among those who
worship nature instead of God.
It is known that vast cities and mighty nations have passed
away; that arts once possessed were lost for many centuries, some
of which have not yet been re-discovered.
The relics of past
greatness are being discovered on every hand. "The languages of
savage nations, however," says a recent writer, "show this cor-
ruption of a noble primitive tool still better; for they point back-
wards into the dim past, to a time of perhaps even greater perfeċ-
tion of speech than Latin or Greek. Alexander von Humboldt,
the man best fitted to speak with weight upon this subject, describes™
the American races as singularly remarkable for the degradation
EVIDENCE THAT MAN HAS FALLEN.
45
of their faculties from an original standard whence they have
fallen; while he says that their languages resemble the relics of
some great ruin or mighty devastation. In his study, the scholar
wanders among the fallen columns and overgrown ruins of a once
noble temple of human words; the relics of desolation, not the
first, crude, undeveloped germs of language yet to be. Niebuhr,
also, the historian,-and higher authority could hardly be quoted-
insists strongly that the languages of savage nations are only the
poor fragments of a once glorious instrument of thought; and
declares that language, as well as history, points backward to a
lost civilization and a golden age.
""
It seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that our race has
fallen from the state of purity and innocence which existed when
man stood forth in the garden of Eden, the image and likeness of
his Creator. To the writer nothing is more irrational than the
supposition that man has not fallen, but that he has always been
progressing.
Man is not a creature of chance or blind nature, for we behold,
even in his fallen state, abundant traces of the handy workman
ship of an intelligent, all-wise and merciful Creator; and to sup-
pose that man, when he came from the hands of such a being, and
was pronounced by him " very good," was the poor, miserable,
sinful being we behold him to-day-spiritually with his affections
perverted, and his intellectual horizon full of every variety of
unclean thoughts-is to suppose that God is directly the author of
evil, or that a good tree can bring forth evil fruit. We ask the
reader if it is possible that man could have been created the poor,
diseased, broken down object we see him now; with his body full
of hereditary tendency to the development of scrofula, cancer,
consumption and insanity, which are so common; to say nothing
of the specimens of puny and delicate organization which we so
generally witness around us? Is it possible that the time has
never been, when the inhabitants of our earth were in the posses-
sion of better physical organizations than they have now?
How few strictly healthy men can be found in our land. Can
you find one entirely free from disease, free from pain and suffer-
ing from the cradle to the grave; whose lamp of physical life goes
out gently like the setting of the summer's sun, or the closing of
the eyes of the innocent babe in quiet slumber? Such would be
the life of a truly healthy man, and such the only natural death.
But alas! how far from this is the sad reality we witness around
us in the present life of man. Behold the innocent babe suffering
46
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
and dying in its mother's arms, perchance amid contortions and
convulsions terrible to witness. Behold the prattling child, the
playful boy or girl, the youth, the middle-aged and the old, stricken
down by disease and cut off by a premature death! Tell us if the
first men on earth, when God breathed into man the breath of life,
and he became a living soul, were so created that necessarily nearly
one-half of the children born into the world died before they were
ten years old, as at present? Enlightened reason rebels against such
a conclusion, and sustains revelation when it teaches that man has
fallen. We cannot doubt that our race from a primitive state of
innocence, peace and physical health, has degenerated until the
darkness of night has shut out from man's spiritual perceptions the
bright rays of the Sun of Heaven; and until selfishness, violence,
vice, and sensualism have sapped even the physical constitutions of
the inhabitants of our earth. Evil is not undeveloped good, but is
the opposite of good, or a perversion of good; nor is falsehood unde-
veloped truth, but the opposite or the perversion of truth. Nor are
disease and suffering undeveloped health and happiness; for they
hold the same relation to health that evil and falsity do to
goodness and truth; and all progressive increase of disease and
suffering tends toward the destruction of the life of the natural
body, in the same manner that an increase of evil and falsity
tends to destroy spiritual and heavenly life in man; for disease
and suffering hold the same relation to evil and falsehood that
effect does to cause. If man were free from sin he would under-
stand more fully the physical laws by which he is surrounded; and,
what is even more essential, he would be willing to live in accord-
ance with them; for even the brute creation-the horse, the ox,
and sheep, cull the life-giving grass from the same field where
grows the poisonous plant; and even the young lamb will rarely
touch the deadly laurel, except when driven to it to prevent star-
vation, when the green grass and other vegetation are covered with
snow. The animals in the world, when unperverted by man, live
in the order of their creation. But man, standing at the head of
the animal kingdom, endowed with freedom, and with reason to
guide him, is found both physically and mentally or spiritually
perverted; and he is constantly suffering, both physically and
spiritually, from the consequences or penalties which follow the
violation of natural and spiritual laws. This fact, of itself,
should be satisfactory evidence that man is responsible for his acts;
and that he is not simply the child of circumstances, and therefore
irresponsible for his doings.
MAN HAS FREEDOM OF WILL.
47
When correctly understood, and the apparent truth is distin-
guished from the real truth, as we are obliged to discriminate
between the apparent and the real in the works of God, revelation
teaches that God is not the author of evil; and if not the author
of evil, of course not the author of diseases which are but the effects
of evil. God is the author of life; evils which cause diseases, tend
to destroy the life of the body through the instrumentality of such
diseases.
If evil is the cause of disease, it becomes important for us to
inquire what constitutes evil; and from whence is its origin if not
from God. Without the aid of revelation it might be difficult for
us to answer this question; but the truth, when once revealed,
can be seen in the light of reason.
We have said that man is endowed with freedom of will, without
which he would not be man, and of course not responsible for his
acts any more than beasts. Does any one question that man is
responsible for his acts? How otherwise can we account for the
present fallen state of our race? Every youth has a clear percep-
tion that he has freedom of will; external circumstances may often
prevent him from carrying out his designs, but he can harbor
them, and have the will to do in spite of circumstances. The
dealings of man with man, and our entire system of government,
are founded upon the assumption that man has such freedom, and
is therefore responsible to society for his acts, so long as he is a
sane man. In fact, upon this very point, in a great measure, turns
the question of man's sanity or insanity. The insane man has not,
for the time being, such freedom; and therefore we do not hold
him responsible for his acts. So clear is our perception that we
are free to will to do right or wrong, that it is next to impossible
for us not to manifest our instinctive faith in free will in our
external acts. The light of perception flows into man from the
Lord, the Sun of Heaven; and the very moment we close our eyes
to that light, and call it in question, that moment we plunge into
mental darkness on that subject. Therefore, if we call in question
our mental freedom, after having perceived that we have freedom
of will, and by the unaided light of our understandings attempt to
reason about it, we may confirm ourselves in almost any absurdity
upon this question, and it will appear to us as truth.
ceive, for instance, that we live in a real and material world; now
we may call in question this light of perception, and begin to
reason about it, and we may readily confirm ourselves in the
opinion that there is no real world, but that we are only living in
We per-
48
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
an ideal world; and not a few have done this very thing. The light
of perception is above the light of man's understanding, and if we
desire to understand and analyze man's perceptions, we must make
the attempt in their own light; for the light from the Lord to the
perceptions, is to the spirit of man what the light of the natural
sun is to man's natural vision; and we can no more understand
these matters of perception, when we call in question or deny their
existence, than we can understand and analyze the light of the
natural sun when we close our natural eyes, call in question the
existence of the sun's light, and sit down by a coal fire to reason
about the solar rays. Every child, for instance, born into the
world, understands by instinct or perception how to draw his
nourishment from his mother's breast; but you feed that child a
few times with a spoon, and his instinctive knowledge is lost or
gone, and you will find it very difficult, and in some cases almost
impossible to teach him to nurse.
Man has conscience to restrain him when he knowingly inclines
to do wrong, which the brute creation has not; but conscience
does not teach him what is right or wrong; Revelation teaches
him this; and the right is summed up in the two great command-
ments, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy
mind; and thy neighbor as thyself." These commandments,
together with an acknowledgment that all goodness and truth
are from the Lord, constitute the tree of life in the midst of the
garden; and when man partakes of its fruit, it gives life and
health to both soul and body; for to live in accordance with the
commands of the Lord should be the great end and aim of man.
The Lord is the center, and a firm reliance on the Divine Providence
gives peace, contentment, and quiet; and an earnest desire to do
good to all, leads to unity and harmony among mon. No selfish
or angry passions bear sway, and even the sensual appetites are
under subjection to reason; use is then the great object in all
sensual indulgence. If a man cats and drinks, it will not be to
gratify his appetite, but to give strength and substance; and, of
course, such food, and such only, as will build up a healthy body,
will be selected and used. So of the other sensual appetites,
use alone will govern their indulgence. So in regard to dress,
use alone must govern, and not vanity.
When man thus lived he was free from diseases, because he
was free from their causes; and when man shall return again
to the "tree of life, which (we read) bare twelve manner of
THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.
49
fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the
tree were for the healing of the nations," diseases will vanish
with their causes-the evils of the human heart. But man, we
read-and we see evidence of its truth all around and even within
ourselves-chose to abuse his freedom and to eat of "The tree of
knowledge of good and evil," of which he was commanded not
to eat. Or, in other words, instead of acknowledging that all life
and all goodness and truth are from the Lord, and striving to live
according to the Divine laws, both spiritually and naturally; he
began to persuade himself that he had life and goodness and truth
in himself; and came to love himself, and the sensual gratifications
of earth, more than he loved his Creator. Here was the origin
of evil, and a fruitful tree this "tree of the knowledge of good and
evil" has proved to be. When man came to love himself su-
premely, and the gratification of his selfish desires above his neigh-
bor, self became the end and aim of his life, the center around
which he revolved. Then his interest was at war with the inter-
est of every other man; and an endless strife for the mastery, for the
acquisition of power, reputation, wealth, display, and the sensual
things of earth, has been the result ever since. Anger, hatred,
revenge, love of dominion and money, have desolated our earth
with fire and the sword; flourishing nations have been overthrown,
cities have been destroyed, and fruitful fields have been desolated,
until briers and brambles, useless and even poisonous weeds flourish,
and pestilential marshes exhale their poisonous miasma where gar-
dens once furnished sustenance for man. Pestilence and famine
have followed in the wake of these infernal gratifications—the
inevitable and natural result. Vanity, or perverted love of appro-
bation, has led to the adoption of fashions and habits which are
destructive to health and life. The perversion of amativeness
from its legitimate use to lustful gratification, has filled our world
with licentiousness; and impotency, syphilis and gonorrhea,
constitute no inconsiderable share of the diseases which the
physician is called to treat. These are the legitimate effects
of vice.
Disregarding the legitimate use for which he should eat and
drink—that is, that he shall eat and drink to build up a healthy
body, or to live-man has perverted this department of his being,
or has come to live to eat and drink for pleasure rather than for
health, and to make the attainment of such gratifications one
of the chief objects of his life; and not satisfied with plain,
wholesome, nourishing food, he seeks out those substances which
50
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
stimulate his perverted passions. As a result, gluttony and
drunkenness cover the land, and degrade man, the noblest work
of God, beneath the brute; for he sacrifices, to gratify his unhal-
lowed cravings, his freedom, and becomes an abject slave to his
appetite; his rationality, and becomes a fool; and even his instincts,
and thereby sinks himself beneath the brute, at least for the time
being. A large share of the diseases, which the physician is
called to treat, have their origin in the perversion of the appetites
by which man's body is nourished and sustained. We see then,
that directly or indirectly, diseases are but an effect of the evils
in the heart of man; and these evils are a perversion of God-
given faculties and appetites; not always with the individual suf-
fering, for diseases are sometimes transmitted from parents to off-
spring; and a tendency to diseases similar to those which have
afflicted parents, is generally transmitted to their offspring. The
child has thus to suffer physical consequences which result from the
evils of his parents. So the child inherits a tendency to the pre-
dominant spiritual evils of his parents; but this inheritance is not
his fault, and he only becomes evil when he voluntarily does evil, or
that which he knows to be wrong himself. If the hereditary inclina-
tion to do evil is so strong that the child or man cannot avoid acting
it out, or doing evil, and therefore he is not in freedom to do or
not to do, he is either insane or a fool, and not responsible for his
acts.
It may be asked why man was created with the ability to do
evil as well as good? To which we may reply, simply because
if he had not been so created he would not have been man, with
the capacity of thinking and reasoning, and then of acting out
his thoughts or not, as in freedom he may choose. Deprive
man of freedom of will, and he would be compelled to act out
his impulses, as are the brutes; and like them he could only be
restrained through fear; now he is able to sit in judgment on his
impulses, and to reason about them, and restrain them if need be.
With freedom of will he possesses an endless capacity for improve-
ment; and, although born into the world more ignorant than the
brute creation, he is raised immeasurably above it in capacity for
development.
The
But to strive to justify the order of creation is unnecessary.
As practical men we have to do with the world as it is.
fact that Revelation teaches us a true life, which will lead us to
unity and peace, to happiness and health, and, although men are
uble to see that this is true, and yet do not lead such a life, is
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CAUSES OF DISEASES. 51
positive evidence that they have freedom of will, even to do evil
when they know what is good. The implantation of conscience
in the human soul would have been an act of cruelty, and entirely
superfluous, if man had not been endowed with freedom of will.
The mental suffering which follows doing wrong is further evi-
dence, for in no other way can its existence be reconciled with
the wisdom and goodness of God; and the consciousness which
every man has of such freedom is an unanswerable argument in
favor of its existence. Man by sophistical reasoning may per-
suade himself that white is black, and black white; but truth is
eternal, notwithstanding.
We have already intimated that the causes of disease, although
spiritual, may be divided into two great classes. The one inter-
nal--the perverted affections of the human soul, acting directly
on the body, causing unnatural excitement or depression, or per-
verted action in the organism,-the other external, or poison-
ous substances, miasms, or mechanical agents, acting directly
on the organism, either internally or externally. When man, to
gratify his perverted affections or appetites, voluntarily and know-
ingly cultivates or indulges in deleterious habits or practices,
or brings himself under the influence of external causes of disease,
the real cause of the disease, it will be seen, is spiritual, or his
perverted affections, and the external agents are but instrumental
causes. But where he is brought, either ignorantly or unavoid-
ably, under the influence of external causes of disease, the cause
of the disease which follows would seem to be external; still, even
this may be but an appearance; for, have we not reason to think
that the entire animal, vegetable, and even mineral kingdoms
derive all the life they possess from the spiritual world-from
spiritual influx, and that all substances derive their character
from the quality of the influx which has given them form, and in-
dividual life? The actual ultimate constituents of which different
substances are composed, which are capable of causing very dif-
ferent effects when taken into the stomach, are sometimes so nearly
alike that the chemist can detect no difference, except from sight,
smell, touch, taste, and effects.
If, as perhaps enlightened reason may teach, all chemical
and mechanical changes or effects, are but the ultimation of spir-
itual causes, it will be seen that all the causes of disease are
spiritual.
It is certain that matter alone does not possess the ability to
manifest activity, life, or intellect, unaided by spiritual influx,
T
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
52
We can perhaps more distinctly see the truth of this position by
an examination of our own senses. Does the eye see? No,
for in cases of mental abstraction, or when our thoughts are
intently engaged upon other subjects or objects, how often are
the rays of light reflected from the printed page directly upon the
retina, without our seeing distinctly a single word or letter, or
perhaps even knowing that a book is before us. Who has not
passed his own door, or failed to recognize his most intimate
friends in the street, not because they were not within the angle of
vision, but because his affections and thoughts were directed else-
where? But let a desire arise to possess the treasures of the
printed page, or to see the loved ones at home, or to recognize an
expected friend, and every word will be distinctly seen, every door
noticed, and every face carefully scrutinized. It is not then the
eye which sees, nor is it the brain; for the rays of light reflected
from objects, may strike the retina just as distinctly, and the im-
pression may be carried to the brain just as perfectly, when we do
not recognize the objects, as when we see everything plainly. So
we are compelled to admit that it is not the eye that sees, but the
spirit or soul within the body, which sees through the eye. And
the same is truc of all the other senses. The vibrations of the air
strike the auditory membrane just as distinctly during sleep as
when awake, and yet a severe thunder-storm will not arouse many
individuals. The writer has spent weeks within a few rods of one
of the largest bells in a city, without even scarcely recognizing its
regular ringing-not from the lack of cars, but because his affec-
tions and thoughts did not flow into the ear to hear. He has,
perhaps, never been awakened a dozen times by thunder in his life ;
and yet his door-bell rarely ceases ringing for the first time, during
the night, however sound asleep he may be, before he is on his
feet. Separate the spirit from the body or any part of it, and
sensation, circulation, and nutrition cease; decomposition follows,
and it returns to its original elements. When once the soul is
fairly or fully separated from the body, however perfect the
organization may be, we can get no manifestations of life from
the latter.
The internal or spiritual causes of disease require at our hands
a more extended notice. Nor do they have that place in medical
works which their importance demands, although it is true that
by some physicians and in some of our medical works, far more
importance is attached to mental symptoms in selecting remedies,
than with others; and yet, even such hardly begin to realize the
MENTAL PECULIARITIES MANIFESTED.
53
importance of an inquiry in regard to the mental causes and
symptoms of diseases.
Mental emotions, which are but manifestations of the affections
or loves, cause diseases by producing undue excitement or depres-
sion, or perverted action in the organism. Phrenology teaches
that the intellectual and perceptive faculties, the moral sentiments,
and the passions, are manifested through different portions of the
brain; and that we can judge with some degree of certainty as to
the comparative natural strength of the different faculties by the
external development, or form of the head. The natural is not
the cause of the spiritual, but the latter clothes itself with a body
of matter as with a garment, through which it manifests itself in
this world. Not only the head but the whole body manifests the
character, or comparative strength of man's intellectual faculties
and affections; for, as we have already said, we have every reason
to think that man's affections and intellectual faculties compose
the very substance and form of his spiritual body, or soul; and
the latter lives in, and gives life to every part of the natural body.
For this reason we are by no means confined to the form of the
head in making up our mind in regard to a man's mental capacity,
but we all judge almost intuitively from the form and expression
of the face; and had not man the ability to play the hypocrite, we
should be able to read character far more accurately in the pliant
structures of the face than in the more unyielding form of the
head. Nor are we confined to the head and face alone, for we can
see a manifestation of the quality of man's spirit in the form of
the body and extremities, even to his finger and toe nails; also in
the tone of his voice, in his gait, and his handwriting. Man can
hardly prevent his passions being manifested in the tones of his
voice; and very impressible persons, it is said, can judge in regard
to a writer's state and character by simply placing a piece of paper
upon which he has written, on their foreheads. While at a hat
store not long since, the writer noticed that the measures of two
heads by the conformateur were almost exactly alike, both as to
shape and size, and a very striking similarity exists in the hand-
writing of the two gentlemen. This would doubtless often be
found to be the case where the handwriting is natural and not
changed by art.
As the harmonious action of all the parts and organs of the
body constitutes physical health, so the freedom of the mental
faculties from undue excitement or depression, at the same time
54
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
that there is a manifestation of mental strength and power, de-
notes spiritual health.
Man's spirit requires food and drink as well as his body; truths
or knowledges, for the intellect, and love or affection, for the affec-
tions; both are necessary, as both water and bread are necessary
for the body. Water satisfies man's natural thirst; knowledges
his spiritual thirst. Water is the medium in and through which
substantial food is carried to the structures of the body, to nourish
it; so truths, or knowledges, are the medium, if you please, through
which correct and true principles and affections reach man's
spiritual structures. Life from man's spirit flows into the body
and makes alive the nutritious substances which are received from
the food, and moulds them into vital structures. So life from the
Father of our spirits flows in and moulds the spiritual food we
eat, or good affections we cultivate, into our spiritual body, and it
becomes a part of us. After the days of childhood are over, we
voluntarily select, cat and drink such food and drink as we please,
of which to build up our bodies. So we voluntarily seek such
knowledges, and cultivate such affections as we desire, for the
sustenance of our spirits.
<;
Man's body may be surfeited by eating and drinking too much
good food and drink, more than the digestive organs can digest,
or more than the different structures can assimilate, so that the
secreting organs become diseased, and the body becomes an un-
wieldy mass of fat, instead of being adapted for use; or, as in
other instances, the undigested food irritates the stomach and
bowels, thereby causing disease; so, likewise, man's spiritual organ-
ism may be surfeited with even healthy spiritual food and drink
for he may acquire knowledges faster than he can carry them into
life, or even without any desire to do so; and when he fails to live..
according to the truths he possesses, they are worse than useless.
The noblest affections of the human heart, veneration for the
Supremo Being, benevolence and conscientiousness, when inces-
santly fed and excited by long continued religious observances,
exciting appeals, and exaggerated example, may become so far sur-
feited as to ronder the man a recluse, enthusiast, or a monomaniac.
To man is given reason, and through his understanding he should
control his affections, and thereby avoid enthusiastic excitement;
for such excitement, even in a right direction, is mental disease.
Excessive joy may cause montal alienation, disease of the organ-
ism, or death. Intense and long continued mental application
to religious subjects, not unfrequently causes disease of the brain
DISEASES FROM PERVERTED AFFECTIONS.
55
and nervous system and also mental derangement. As man may
supply nourishment of a poisonous quality for the sustenance of
his body, so he may appropriate spiritual nourishment of like
quality for his soul; and he does this when he voluntarily seeks
false teachings, and is influenced by bad example to do wrong,
and to break the Divine precepts; and also when ceasing to rely
upon the Divine Providence, he forgets to be cheerful and con-
tented, and to look forward with hope, but frets himself with
unnecessary fears, anxiety for the future, unavailing grief, disap-
pointed hope, and a murmuring and discontented spirit.
Love is spiritual heat, and truth spiritual light. The tempera-
ture of man's body depends much upon the state of his affections;
when they are warm and active, they flow into or excite the natural
body to activity; the heart beats with increased force, the respi-
ratory organs are more active; more air, and consequently more
oxygen is received into the lungs; oxygenation of combustible ma-
terials throughout the body is more rapid, and the result is that
the heat of the body is increased. All this will ensue, although
there is not a voluntary muscle moved. But the brain and nerves
of voluntary motion partake of the increased excitement of the
involuntary system; and there is an increased inclination to volun-
tary action, even although such action is restrained by the will.
Man's affections when perverted to evil ends, and allowed to
flow out into act unrestrained, are a fruitful source of disease.
Unnatural mental excitement causes unnatural excitement, and,
consequently, disease of the body. Anger causes excitement of the
brain, which may result in apoplexy, paralysis, congestion, con-
vulsions and even insanity. It excites the heart to unnatural
activity, which may result in dilatation, or other form of cardiac
disease;
it may cause hemorrhage from the lungs, also derange-
ment of the functions of the liver, kidneys and bowels; and
disease of these organs can often be traced to this cause. Anger
may cause inflammatory fever, or develop other febrile diseases
when there is a predisposition to them latent in the system. A
desire for revenge may so far take possession of the human soul,
as to be a cause of disease of the brain and insanity; and,
although perhaps more slow in its effects, it may disturb the func-
tions of the vital organs to the extent of causing disease and death.
Avarice, or the unrestrained love of money, when unduly excited
by sudden prospects of wealth, or by its actual acquisition, may
cause excitement and disease of the brain, resulting in sudden
death or insanity. It may also affect the functions of the heart,
56
ORIGIN, AND CURE OF DISEASES.
lungs, and other organs as seriously as anger. Perverted love of
approbation, or vanity, may be attended with similar results; and
so of all the other perverted passions. Lasciviousness, or perverted
amativeness, is a frequent cause of nocturnal emissions, sperma-
torrhoea, leucorrhoea, and impotence.
The diseases which result from the direct excitement of the
passions are, as a general rule, congestive, or inflammatory, or
diseases of nervous excitement ;-debility or depression of course
may follow the undue excitement in these as in other cases.
There is another class of spiritual causes of disease, which is
perhaps even more potent than the one we have been considering.
We allude to the depressing mental emotions. Love, or the affec-
tions, as we have seen, constitute the very life of man; and with
every man there is a ruling affection which is predominant, to
which all the other affections are, to a greater or less degree,
tributary and subordinate. The ruling affection may be good and
heavenly-love to the Lord, neighborly love, or love of obeying
the truth; or, it may be evil-the love of self, the love of ruling
over others, the love of approbation, or the love of wealth. A
blow which results in a wound of man's ruling love, or even one of
the prominent subordinate affections, spends its force not alone
on his spirit; for it depresses all the functions of the body,
sometimes to the extent of causing sudden death. In the latter
case the eye grows dim, the car dull of hearing, the blood forsakes
the surface, respiration ceases, the heart ceases to beat, and the
body is dead; and all from a wound received by man's spirit. If
man is in truc order, or has his ruling love centered out of himself,
and he is seeking, not so much his own happiness as the happiness
of others, he is comparatively safe. If death snatches beloved
friends from his very hearth, he feels an assurance that what is
his own loss, is their gain; and however severe the parting, conso-
lation will come. If disappointed in love, by the refusal of one of
the opposite sex to join hands and hearts as partners for life, he is
aware that her welfare which he has at heart, requires that her
hand should only be given with her heart; and he rejoices in seeing
her happy, even though in the arms of a rival suitor. The loss of
wealth, of power, place, public favor, and even of earthly friends,
or, undeservedly, of his good name, does not reach his heart, or his
ruling love; and his trust in the Divine Providence sustains him
in the hour trial.
Not so with the man who has made some selfish object the
chief aim of his life. If money is his god, take from him his
*
EVIL USES.
57
wealth and you strike a blow at the very heart of his spirit; and
if his earthly tenement survives the shock, instead of being recon-
ciled to his loss, he murmurs against the Almighty, or permits his
spirit to burn with feelings of revenge towards his fellow-man, on
whom he casts the blame of his misfortune. The same is the
case with all the other selfish passions, when encountering losses
and disappointed hopes or expectations. Such mental blows often
depress man's spirit even when the life of the body is not imme-
diately endangered, and slowly impair the functions of important
organs; causing debility and disease, if not directly, at least indi-
rectly, by rendering the organism more susceptible to the influence
of the external causes of disease and less ready to respond to
remedial agents for its cure. Fear and apprehension render the
system far more susceptible to the action of epidemic and mias-
matic poisons; and protracted grief predisposes to, if it does not
actually cause dyspepsia, jaundice, neuralgia, hypochondriasis,
phthisis pulmonalis or consumption, and many other diseases.
EVIL USES.
In regard to the article on evil uses, printed in the “
March 18th, 1885, we will reprint our reply to the same, published
in "The Dawn," printed in London, December 25th, 1885; and,
from the extracts therein contained, the reader can judge for him-
self whether that article on evil uses was calculated to do harm or
not. It is manifest that if the statements therein were true, there
never could have been any diseases in the world; for it is contrary to
true doctrine, as we have seen, to suppose that the Lord ever created
any germs of disease in man when he was originally created. Every
man who is lusting after unlawful indulgences and sensual grati-
fications, is already apt enough to imagine that he is so immacu-
late and free from a liability to be contaminated, that he can
gratify his appetites and passions without danger; and the
result is drunkenness, and the diseases which result from licen-.
tiousness all around us on every hand. We need no such teach-
ing in the Christian Church as is contained in that article
on evil uses: first, because it is not true, for poisons will
poison the healthiest child or animal ever born; and second,
because it is nonsensical and fearfully pernicious-a cry of
peace and safety where there is no peace and the greatest
possible danger,
58
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
To the Editor of "The Daum :"
of a
DEAR SIR,-In an article on "Evil Uses," in a recent number
periodical, we read as follows:
"The law, so far as the body of man is concerned, is this: that the
body through the soul is receptive of an influx out of heaven, and also out
of hell. The influx out of heaven brings health to the body, and the influx
out of hell causes illness and disease."
After speaking more at length of the influx from heaven and
from hell, the writer continues:
"In a like manner the disease-bearing influence out of hell rushes into
human bodies, and wherever it meets with bodily states corresponding to
these evils it affects them, and creates disease. But where this influence
out of hell does not meet with the germs of disease, there the body
remains unaffected thereby.
"This influence out of hell may enter into man either from within or
from without. The influence from within, as already stated, comes through
the immediate influence of evil spirits, who are evil uses in form. From
without, however, the disease-generating influence reaches the human body
either through malaria or miasma, or through infection, or also through
the direct action of animal and vegetable poisons. Yet, as observed before,
unless the germ of disease exists beforehand in the human body, it will not
be affected by the disease-bearing influences from without."
In the first place, it is, to say the least, by no means certain
that "when this influence out of hell does not meet with the
germs of disease, then the body remains unaffected thereby."
Can the most healthy man in the world voluntarily allow evil
spirits to flow into his mind, and excite his perverted passions
without restraint, and not endanger his bodily health? Do
strong and overpowering mental emotions never cause the dis-
ease and death of previously healthy men and women? Phy-
sicians, we think, would give but one answer to these questions.
In the second place we are told that "unless the germ of
disease exists beforehand in the human body, it will not be
affected by the disease-bearing influences from without." Among
the latter, as will be seen, he enumerates malaria, infection, ani-
mal and vegetable poisons.
Now, if it is true, as is represented above, that spiritual influx
from hell never causes disease in healthy men and women who
are free from the germs of disease, and that external poisons
and 'disease-bearing influences from without" never cause
"
POISONS WILL POISON HEALTHY MEN.
59
disease in those free from the germs of disease, we would
like to know how there ever came to be any diseases, or germs
of diseases, troubling the bodies of men and women at all ?
While it is unquestionably true that, as a rule, the freer a man is
from disease, or the germs of disease, the better able he is to
resist the action of poisons and other discase-bearing influences,
yet this is by no means universally true; for it sometimes happens
that an individual suffering from disease can take a quantity of a
given poison, without being injured seriously, which a well man
could not take with impunity. Again, if a man has, by the long
continued habitual use of a poison, caused disease of the body, we
know that he can often take a quantity of that same poison in a
given time which would kill more than one healthy man if taken
within the same period of time.
Contrary to what the above writer represents, it is well known
that a strong poisonous dose of opium, tobacco or alcohol will
poison men and any animals however healthy they may be, or
however free from the germs of disease they may be.
Animal and vegetable poisons which do hurt and kill men,
Swedenborg tells us in the Divine Love and Wisdom, have their
life from hell; and we can no more safely eat and drink them,
and thus appropriate them for either exciting or sustaining our
material bodies, than we can eat and drink spiritually, and thus
appropriate the evils and falses from which they derive their life,
for sustaining our spiritual organizations. Total abstinence in
both instances is the only law of temperance. We can but see
how difficult it must be for a man who is regularly exciting his
perverted passions by the use of natural poisons, to overcome
such perversions. The only true and safe course is to shun evils
as sins against God; and to commence this work at once on the
natural plane.
That poisons, even intoxicating drinks and opium, although
never useful during health, are sometimes useful as remedies for
the cure of diseases, the writer does not question; but the above-
named poisons, when used in large doses, are as a rule but palli-
atives; and for this reason, excepting in transient cases where
patients may recover under their temporary use, it is always better
and safer to select some other remedy if possible. If prescribed in
chronic cases, or even in sub-acute cases of disease, there is great
danger of their use becoming habitual; as the patient generally,
while he continues to use them, will never see the time when he
does not actually feel that he requires the remedy; and after con-
60
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
tinuing them for a long time, it is very rare that any one can quit
their use without a strong effort of the will, and encountering
often severe suffering; and we know many fail in the effort,
and always remain slaves to the habit.
VIENNA, AUSTRIA, Nov. 15, 1884.
A respected clergyman writes as follows :
เ
JOHN ELLIS.
"MY DEAR DOCTOR,-I am grateful to you for your efforts.
wish to call your attention to one passage in the Writings, which
disposes of the notion that the influx from hell or of poisons from
without, does or does not affect the bodies of men according as they
are or are not free from germs of disease. In the Arcana Cœlestia,
7524, speaking of the boils breaking forth with blains upon man
and beast, Swedenborg says that such things would be in every
evil man unless he, so long as he is in the world, was in a state of
receiving the good and truth of faith; it is for the sake of that
state, that the Lord prevents such things bursting forth from evils.'
From this it appears that men are not protected from disease
because they are pure in body, any more than they are defended
from evils because they are free from evil tendencies; but that
both are due to the Divine mercy of the Lord in order that men
may be kept in a salvable state. I think this is a very important
doctrine, and if we could all remember, it would beget a slight
degree of humility in our hearts."
Swedenborg says "that diseases also have correspondence with
the spiritual world, not indeed with heaven, which is the Grand
Man, but with those who are in the opposite, thus with those who
are in the hells. By the spiritual world in the universal sense we
mean both heaven and hell; for a man, when he dies, passes out
of the natural world into the spiritual world. The reason why
diseases have correspondence with those who are in the hells is,
because diseases correspond with the lusts and passions of the
mind; these therefore are the origins of diseases; for the common
origins of diseases are intemperances, luxuries of various kinds,
pleasures merely corporcal, also envyings, hatreds, revenges, las-
civiousness and the like, which destroy a man's interiors; and
when these are destroyed, the exteriors suffer, and draw him into
disease, and thereby into death. That man is subject to death by
reason of evils, or on account of sin, is well known in the Church;
thus also he is subject to discases, for these are of death. From
these considerations it may be manifest that diseases also have
1
EVIL USES AND EQUILIBRIUM.
61
correspondence with the spiritual world, but with unclean things
there; for diseases in themselves are unclean, since, as was said
above, they originate in things unclean.”—A. C'. 5712.
If a man uses poisonous substances, not knowing them to
be injurious, and thereby endangers his health, reason and
life, it is "the sin of ignorance;" but even then the poisonous
effects will follow, and the suffering and disease which result,
together with the depraved appetite for the poison which is devel-
oped if its use is continued, will seriously interfere with his regen-
cration; yet the evil is light when compared with the lusting after
and craving for such poisons, and the unnatural excitement which
they cause, and striving to justify their use, and then deliberately
using them, knowing that their use endangers health, reason, free-
dom and life. When a man does the latter he " destroys his
interiors," or his ability to see that the poison injures him, and
that its use is an evil; and he destroys his freedom to resist the
inclination to use the poison, and so becomes a slave to his appe-
tite, and thus he is "drawn into disease, and thereby into death.”
Besides those noticed above, there are many passages in the
article on evil uses, the truth of which, to say the least, is very
questionable; and even if they contain a trace of truth, there is
no doubt but that, owing to the crude manner in which the ideas
are presented, they are calculated to do great harm to the Church,
especially to its young, if allowed to pass unnoticed. Look at the
following extracts, gentle reader, and see if you think they should
be allowed to pass unquestioned before your children in a religious
paper, and in the form of a tract?
EQUILIBRIUM.
“Evil uses are instrumental in procuring for man a state of equilibrium
ever since the fall; that is, ever since the time when evils and falsites were
introduced into man's spiritual constitution. Indeed, ever since the lower,
natural degrees in man, down to his very body, have been perverted by evil
and falsity, evil uses actually require to be introduced into his system, in
order to keep these lower degrees alive. Hence the craving of the body of
the fallen man for the flesh of animals, and even of unclean animals like
the hog, which is the form of an evil, and not of a good and heavenly use.
"Evil spirits are thus allowed, under divine providence, to apply their
evil uses to man for the sake of keeping his body and his spirit in a state
of equilibrium. And for this purpose, also, as we have seen, evil spirits
are permitted by the Lord to flow into a man's evils and falsities at his
entrance into his age of maturity. And yet they are never allowed to flow
62
ÖRIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
into man with such a rush of evil as to disturb his spiritual equilibriuni,
and as to interfere with his freedom and rationality."
Now, the above are no new ideas in the Church; for they have
been long used in private conversation by certain members of the
Church, to excuse and thereby indirectly to encourage the use of
intoxicating drinks, tobacco and other injurious substances; but
how much truth is there in the above representations?
It does seem to the writer that every intelligent, diligent
student of the writings of Swedenborg, who, by the means of a
good life, is in freedom to see the truth if he uses the reason with
which God has endowed him, cannot but see that the above repre-
sentations in regard to the equilibrium in which the Lord desires
to preserve men, and in regard to evil uses, are not only false in
themselves, but most fearfully false and pernicious in their ten-
dencies. By such representations in the past, the most fearful
evils which are so destructive to our race both spiritually and
physically, have been regarded by some professed Christians as
allowable and even justifiable, not simply among evil men, but
also among the members of our Churches; and thus such evils of
life have been encouraged as the drinking of intoxicating drinks,
the using of tobacco and opium, injurious habits of dress among
women, etc. Even licentious practices have, under certain cir-
cumstances, been regarded as justifiable among Christian men by
some professed Christians.
In regard to freedom, the Lord is in the most perfect freedom,
and is the source from whence angels and men derive their free-
dom. The angels are in freedom, and the regenerated man is "free
indeed;" and, if you will allow the expression, goodness and
truth are free. Neither the Lord, His angels, regenerated men,
nor goodness and truth desire to destroy men's freedom, or the
equilibrium in which they are placed; and the Lord, His angels and
regenerated men would be equally free if there were no evil spirits,
evil men, or evil uses originated and appropriated by evil spirits and
men in the spiritual and natural worlds. The Lord's judgments,
the coming of the Lord into the world, and all the punishments and
sufferings permitted, and remedial measures provided, were not
necessary to prevent the angels, and goodness and truth, if you
please, from interfering with the freedom of man and the equilib-
rium in which man is placed, but directly the reverse. They were
all required and necessary to prevent and remedy the encroach-
ments of evil spirits and evils and falses which alone endanger,
63
EVIL USES NOT REQUIRED BY HEALTHY MEN.
impair and destroy man's freedom and the equilibrium in which
he is placed, and render remedial measures necessary to restore
man to spiritual and natural health, and consequent freedom ;
and if this cannot be done, to restrain men from sinking to lower
depths of evil.
The necessity of introducing' evil uses into man's system, for
the purpose of keeping his body and spirit in a state of equilibrium,
is strongly insisted on in the above essay. It says: "Indeed, ever
since the lower natural degrees in man, down to his very body,
have been perverted by evil and falsity, evil uses actually require
to be introduced into his system in order to keep these lower
degrees alive. Hence the craving of the body of the fallen man
for the flesh of animals, and even of unclean animals like the
hog, etc."
(C
As we have shown, this assertion of the necessary employment
of evil uses (as articles of ordinary food or drink) is contrary to
the Writings, so we can prove that it has no foundation in expe-
rience. There is a class of degraded humanity, among which more
than any other "the lower natural degrees, down to the very
body, have been perverted by evil and falsity and evil uses," and
among which there is a craving" for the evil use of intoxicating
drinks-we mean the inmates of our prisons and houses of correc-
tion. Of these a very large proportion are committed directly as
drunkards; and of the remaining prisoners, a large majority are
confined in consequence of crime which has resulted in whole or
part from the influence of intoxicating drinks. As soon as these
persons are arrested-without any regard to the "perverted
natural degrees, down to the very body," or to the clamors of its
craving," without any preparation whatever their supply of
liquor and tobacco is cut off; and as long as they remain in jail,
whether for ten days, or thirty days, or thirty years, they are not
able to "introduce into their system "the evil use actually
""
' required," in the estimation of the above writer, "to keep these
lower degrees," "down to the very body," alive.
What is the result? They go in, physical wrecks, from the
vices of drinking, smoking, etc.; and after living for a time on the
total abstinence plan, their hands become steady, their eyes clear,
and their muscles strong. They become healthy in body, clear in
their minds, and very often with no less improvement in their
spirits than in their bodies. Instances are not unfrequent where
the poor, shaking drunkard, desiring to free his "lower natural
degrees, down to his very body," from the slavery to drink, has
64
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
"
asked to be sent up for ten days, or thirty days, or for a longer
time, in order that he might be removed from the temptation of
saloons that meet him at every corner; and by an enforced absti-
nence, gain strength that might perchance enable him to recover
the state of freedom in which the Lord wills him to be.
It will be seen that the Lord does not desire to perpetuate
either the perversions of man's spiritual life, or the corresponding
diseases of his physical life; therefore He provides truth and good,
and gives to man the ability to see the truth and to love the good,
if he is willing and obedient; and, by his thus seeing and loving,
a good, substantial, healthy spiritual organization is developed
and preserved. And so the Lord has provided for the develop-
ment and preservation of the material body, good, substantial
drink and food; and He gives to man an instinctive desire to
appropriate such nourishment, if he is willing and obedient; and,
by thus drinking and eating, a good, substantial, healthy physical
body is developed and preserved. The natural drink and food
which build up and sustain the material body, correspond to the
truth and good which build up and sustain the spiritual body;
and finally, the natural body, which has thus been built up, cor-
responds to the spiritual body. All of this the Lord wills, and has
provided for most bountifully.
But the Lord has given to man freedom, that he might be man ;
but man, by abusing his freedom, has sought out many inventions,
and has come to love that which is false and evil, and to act
accordingly; and this has caused, if you please, disease of his
spiritual organization, and interfered with its orderly development;
and thus he attracts to himself spirits of a similar quality from
the spiritual world, which the Lord permits so long as he continues
to live such a life. But the Lord desires that he shall totally
forsake the false and evil, and live a true and good life, in which
alone there is genuine freedom and health. There is no necessity
for man to pursue such a perverted life, but while he does so he
necessarily attracts to himself evil spirits; but when he repents
and shuns the falses and evils, there is no danger of his lacking,
for the Lord provides that angelic spirits shall supply most abun-
dantly the place of the evil spirits who have been put away by
resisting the false and shunning evils.
So in regard to the natural body; men have forsaken good,
wholesome articles of food which the Lord has provided for them,
and for which He has given them a natural appetite, and have
sought out poisonous substances which have their life from hell,
MEN SHOULD TOTALLY SHUN EVIL.
65
and which correspond to spiritual perversions; and by persistently
using them they have developed an unnatural appetite for them,
and have come to love them, and the unnatural excitement which
they cause; and their taste and relish for good, wholesome nour-
ishment is impaired, and a perverted or diseased state of the body
results. There is no necessity for men to continue the use of
such poisons, but the first duty is to totally stop their use; and
then the natural instinctive demand for natural food will return,
and good, wholesome articles of drink and food will supply the
demands of the body immeasurably better than such poisonous
articles possibly can, and health will generally result; but if dis-
eased action produced by such poisons remains, then it is proper
to give remedies for its cure; but to continue the habitual use of
the poison or poisons which have caused the disease, is a most
fearful mistake, and tends to the total destruction of health and
life.
As spiritual and natural diseases and consequent suffering
result from the violation of spiritual and natural laws of health
and life, if a cure is to be effected, the very first thing to be done
is to stop totally the violations which have caused the disease, and
to do this as soon as possible. Without honestly and faithfully
doing this, a cure is impossible; otherwise, spiritual and natural
disease can only be palliated, at most, and even this cannot always
be accomplished. We have seen above that evil spirits, and evils
and falses, and evil uses alone interfere with the state of equilib-
rium in men, or destroy their freedom and cause spiritual and
natural diseases; and that these diseases can only be cured rad-
ically by shunning the causes which have produced them, instead
of men continually introducing those same causes into their sys-
tems in order "to keep these lower degrees alive," as the above
essay represents is actually required.
The truth is that men should always, to the very best of their
knowledge and ability, strive to totally shun the appropriating of
evils and falses, and the corresponding natural evil uses which
correspond to evils and falses, to the sustenance of their spiritual
and natural organizations, as sins against God; and to seek or ap-
propriate the good and truth which the Lord has provided for the
development of their spiritual organizations; and to seek and ap-
propriate good, healthy, nourishing food and drink for building up
and sustaining their natural bodies; and thus strive to keep the
laws of health and life. Men should never excuse themselves for
violating the spiritual or natural laws of their being, because the
66
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
Lord in this new age permits that evil spirits may tempt men
during the process of regeneration, and that physicians may use
natural evil uses for the restraining and curing of natural diseases ;
for, when evil uses are used, excepting strictly as remedies, with
the full determination to stop their use at the earliest practicable
moment, the patient becomes a bond servant to the evil.
METHODS OF OURING SPIRITUAL AND NATURAL DISEASES.
The methods for restraining and curing natural diseases cor-
respond strictly and beautifully to those for restraining and curing
spiritual diseases.
Prisons, punishments and sickness may restrain and keep men
from evil acts, but they rarely are instrumental in changing the
inclination and will; but still sometimes the remains stored up
during childhood by the Lord, are allowed to become active, and
the man resolves to shun the evil acts which before he loved; and
with the help of the Lord that resolve may lead to a new life of
obedience to the Divine Commandments. In a similar manner
natural diseases may be restrained by evil uses, as when constipa-
tion is overcome by cathartic remedies, diarrhoea is restrained by
astringents, great heat of the body is overcome by the application
of cold, or extreme cold subdued by hot applications. While the
above treatment is only palliative and does not cure, yet it often,
or, at least where the disease is not deep-seated, sometimes occurs
that if the remedy is not continued, the natural or living forces
rally and health is restored.
The second method of restraining spiritual evils in evil men, is
to excite one evil passion to restrain another evil inclination; thus
the love of reward or money, or of power or fame without regard
to use, often restrains men from evil acts, but the stimulation of
such affections does not change the hearts of men; still it prevents
them from doing evil acts, and thus they may have a chance to
reflect, and may be brought under better influences, and receive
the truth; and in some instances reformation may follow. In a
similar manner natural diseases are restrained in one organ by
causing a disease in another organ or part ; as, for instance, when
blisters are applied to the skin for the purpose of restraining
disease of an internal organ, or a cathartic is given to lessen or
relieve disease of the head. While such treatment is only pallia-
tive, by calling the attention, as it were, of the vital forces to
another part or organ, the original diseased action may be over-
come by the vital forces, and health restored,
CURE OF DISEASES BY TEMPTATIONS AND ROMEDIES. BY
Last, in this new age or dispensation, we have the cure of
spiritual diseases by the means of temptations by evil spirits, the
Lord being the physician. It is here, when the man is sincerely
striving to put away his evils, that the Lord never allows him
to be tempted beyond what he can bear, and not when he is
voluntarily indulging in the gratification of his perverted passions
and appetites against the Divine Commandments. If during
regeneration evil spirits prompt a man to yield and do an evil act,
they aggravate his spiritual disease; yot this very act may make
his evil more manifest, and if he reacts against it and resolves
never to do the like again, it may benefit him; though he fall, he
falls to rise again. But if the regenerating man willingly and
diligently strives to put away his evils, it is not necessary that he
should be subjected to such violent temptations as to lead him to
commit evil acts; and this is especially the case with young men
and women who, owing to having been carefully reared, have not
indulged in evil acts. It is sufficient that the inclination to do an
evil act comes into thought; when, if it is resisted and the thought
is put away, the cure is more perfect and radical than when it is
ultimated in act. This shows the vast importance of striving
to train up children in the way they should go, instead of
encouraging them to "sow their wild oats." It will be seen
that only spirits of a character similar to the evils to be over-
come, can be permitted by the Lord to tempt the regenerating man.
Now, in strict harmony with this spiritual method of cure,
we have in this new age developed a method of curing natural
diseases corresponding in every respect to the spiritual method
referred to above. Remedies are given which act upon the organ
diseased in the direction of the disease, and which in a healthy
person will cause similar symptoms to those existing already in
the diseased man; as, for instance, cathartic remedies are given
for diarrhoea, astringents for constipation; remedies which will
cause nausea and vomiting are given for nausea and vomiting;
remedies which will cause pain in the head similar to the existing
pain in the head, for headache, etc. It is evident that if such
remedies are given in large doses they will aggravate the disease
therefore the skillful physician avoids giving such doses.
experience it has been found that the most minute dose, even the
thousandth or millionth, or often a much less part of a grain or
drop of the remedy, will be much more effectual than a larger dose.
It is generally sufficient that the dose of the remedy should be
large enough to excite the diseased action sufficiently for the living
And by
68
ORIGIN AND CURE OF DISEASES.
forces to recognize the impression, to produce a reaction; for it is
not the remedy which cures natural diseases, any more than it is
the evil spirits that tempt man during regeneration, which cure
him of his spiritual evils; but it is the living force which flows
into the body from the Lord, to which the remedy has made the
diseased action manifest.
Now, it must be evident that poisonous remedies or evil uses
should only be taken for the shortest necessary period, and in the
smallest adequate doses. For instance, if alcohol or opium is
given in large doses for delirium tremens, to continue giving the
remedy after the acute symptoms have been removed, is to render
the man's last state worse than the first.
The hog is an unclean animal; but his flesh is not poisonous,
although it is liable to become contaminated by trichinæ and the
germs of the tape-worm, when it becomes practically poisonous,
if eaten raw. All experience shows that good and evil men in
usual health can live without hog's flesh, if they have other
healthy food, quite as well as, and even better than, they can
with it. The Jews live well enough without it; and who will say
that, if there were the slightest truth in the representations con-
tained in the essay referred to on evil uses, they do not actually
need swine's flesh as much as Christians? While the writer does
not often use it himself, yet, in cases of cholora infantum and
marasmus, he has seen great benefit result from giving patients
moderate quantities of salt fat pork fried until it was cooked
through, and continuing it until the symptoms were relieved; it
seemed to act as a remedy and to supply a temporary want, but
the patients did not require to continue it after their disease was
relieved. It is worse than folly to talk about the flesh of the hog
and other evil uses, especially poisonous ones, being actually
required by men and women as articles of food and drink during
ordinary health.
If an evil man, one full of hatred, covetousness, or love of
rule, lives according to the physical laws of health, he will be
healthy and strong; and if a good man violates those laws-
ignorantly, of course, if he is a truly good man-he will be
neither as healthy nor as strong as he otherwise would be. We
repeat, poisons will poison when brought in contact with or taken
into the human body, so as to act upon it; for they derive their
life from hell, and correspond to falses and evils, the indulgence
in or appropriation of which tends to destroy heavenly life in the
soul of man.
CHAPTER III.
THE CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-ARE THERE
ANY IMPURITIES IN MUST OR UNFERMENTED WINE?
It is supposed by many who are not acquainted with compara-
tively recent scientific discoveries, that the fermentation of grape-
juïc. is a natural and orderly process of purification, and that the
agent which causes fermentation is developed in the grape itself,
instead of coming into the juice from without. Now, careful ex-
periments have shown that these views are entirely erroneous; and
that the fermentation of wine is no more an orderly step in purify-
ing the juice of grapes, than putrefaction is an orderly process in
purifying meats; for in both instances the germs come from with-
out, and if they are carefully excluded or destroyed the wine will
never ferment and the meat will not putrefy..
We have had occasion repeatedly in our works on "The Wine
Question," to speak of the change that ferment makes in the juice
of the grape, or new wine, changing or destroying the sugar, albu-
men and other nutritious substances that are so pleasant to the
taste and so healthful to the body of man, and substituting in their
place the intoxicating and poisonous spirit, alcohol. As the cor-
rectness of our representation has been questioned, we think it
well to furnish the reader in this volume with such information as
will show him the difference in the processes by which fermented
wines are manufactured, and unfermented wines are preserved ;
and to this end we propose to present for his consideration, on the
one hand, extracts from standard works and from the writings of
scientists, showing the cause of fermentation and the action of
ferments; and on the other, the result of experiments in the
preservation of unfermented wine by the writer himself, as well
as some of those communicated to him by others.
"It has been definitely established that the spores of yeast are
universally diffused through the air, and that so soon as they meet
with a solution containing the nutriment necessary for their devel-
opment, yeast cells are produced, and fermentation sets in. If
air be excluded from grape-juice or any saccharine solution, no
70 CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-IMPURITIES.
fermentation takes place. Fresh grape-juice may be kept for
years at a temperature of 68° Fahr., without undergoing any
change, provided it never comes in contact with the atmosphere;
or if air has been heated to redness, it may remain in contact with
a saccharine liquor for an indefinite time without producing fer-
mentation. But as Pasteur has shown, the motes in the air can
be collected in cotton or asbestos placed in a tube through which
air has been drawn; and a piece of this cotton or asbestos placed
in a sugar solution which has been well boiled, and cooled again,
but which contains the mineral and albumenoidal constituents of
yeast, develops fermentation. Sugar solutions containing the same
yeast constituents, but without this air dust, undergo no altera-
tion, neither do those in which cotton or asbestos alone is intro-
duced. The same liquid remains unaltered if it has been boiled in
a glass flask, the neck of which is so bent that dust cannot fall
into it, the flask being afterwards left inclosed. Moreover, it is
essential that the yeast be in direct contact with the sugar solution.
A solution of sugar contained in a bladder suspended within a
fermenting liquid, does not ferment, but merely takes up alcohol
by diffusion.”—Encyclopædia of Chemistry, Vol. I., 1877.
Pasteur says:
"Albuminous bodies are never the ferments, but
the aliment of the ferments," "the true ferments are living organ-
isms."
Payen states that an increase of yeast takes place in fermenta-
tion when the liquid, in addition to sugar, contains a nitrogenous
substance. When, on the contrary, yeast is left in contact with a
pure solution of sugar, it diminishes both in weight and fermenting
power, and finally becomes totally inactive. It lacks other nutri-
tious substances, as would man were he to attempt to live on sugar
alone.
Pasteur mixed yeast with a saccharine solution and albu-
minoidal substances, and exposed the whole to the air in shallow
vessels. He found that a quick and active increase of the yeast
cells took place, but that only six or eight parts of sugar were
decomposed for each one part of the newly-formed yeast. When,
however, a similar mixture was made, and the air excluded, the
yeast decomposed about 100 times its weight of sugar, but the
yeast grew and multiplied very slowly.
It appears from the experiments of Minend, that the quantity
of yeast must bear a definite proportion to that of sugar; if the
sugar is in excess, part of it remains undecomposed, or merely
undergoes a very slow after-fermentation, often continuing for
THE CAUSE OF FERMENTATION.
71
years. If, after all the sugar is decomposed, the fermented liquor
still contains nitrogenous matter not wholly converted into yeast,
putrefaction may ensue if it is not prevented by the presence of a
sufficient quantity of alcohol, or by some other means.
For several of the above items the writer is indebted to an
article on Fermentation by Prof. C. F. Chandler, in "Johnson's
Cyclopædia," Vol. II.
The reader will see from the above that our fermented wine is
really in most instances nothing but a fermenting wine; and if the
fermenting process is not restrained by strong casks and bottles,
or other means, fermentation never entirely ceases until entire
decomposition of either the sugar or albumen has resulted. It
does seem so strange that any intelligent Christian man should
claim that such a wine in which the sugar, which corresponds to
spiritual delights, is nearly or quite all destroyed, is suitable for
use as a communion wine. Let him remember that all well fer-
mented wines contain alcohol, vinegar, glycerine, succinic acid and
fusel oil, substances never found in the unfermented juice of the
grape, and that such wines will all cause drunkenness, which is
never caused by unfermented wines.
Mr. Adolph Reihlen, of Stuttgart, Germany, claims recently to
have discovered that the substance in which the fermentation com-
mences, is contained in cells in the skin, and that the germs and
cells of leaven are not so dependent on the albuminous portion of
the wine for their nourishment as has been heretofore supposed.
'Professor Roesler proved by eight very interesting experi-
ments, that although the powerful matter contained in the grape-
skins generated the material which furnished nutriment for the
fermentation fungi, yet this substance, without the presence of
grape-skins, is separated into integrant particles, and in this con-
dition was not favorable to the process of fermentation. [As fer-
mentation ordinarily takes place in must when it is separated from
the skins, if the above theory is correct, it can only commence in
the contents of the cells which are diffused through the must,
owing to the cells being broken in crushing and pressing the
grapes.-E.]
"In confirmation of these observations, the last experiment of
Roesler demonstrated the fact that 'wine-must,' without the
presence of grape-skins remained entirely unfermented, and after
standing two days was covered with mould, although the yeast
was left in condition for free action. [It would seem that this
could only occur in case the must was so carefully drawn off from
72 CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-IMPURITIES.
the grape as not to get mixed with any of the contents of the skin
cells, which the discoverer claims contains the nutriment required
by the germs and cells of leaven for their development and growth.
-E.] Even when the same fluid was boiled with prepared skins
under a cotton cover it remained, as was expected, perfectly clear,
but fermentation did not take place; whereas the first 'must,'
with prepared skins but without cotton cover, up to two and
eight-tenths per cent, extract attained perfect fermentation.
"Prepared grape-skins can be kept and used at any time during
a period of one to four years.
"Tests by this method have shown that grape-skins, young or
old, constitute the prolific field or basis upon which the fermenting
fungus grows and thrives, and have proved to be nearly as effective
as fresh ones. It has also been demonstrated that diseased or
damaged old wines can be readily brought to a second fermentation,
and restored at pleasure without injuring their quality as old
wines."-Extracts from a report by J. S. Potter, Consul, United
States Consulate, Crefeld, December 6, 1881.
Some of the passages in the above report are not altogether
clear, and what dependence is to be placed upon it as a whole the
writer is not prepared to say; but there are statements in it
worthy of consideration by those who desire to preserve unfer-
mented wines, one of which is that boiling must under simply a
cotton cover will prevent fermentation afterwards. This result
can only come by the cloth protecting the fluid from the germs of
ferment floating in the atmosphere.
In an experiment which the writer tried of boiling unfer-
mented wine or grape-juice in a bottle over which two or three
thicknesses of cotton cloths were tied, fermentation did not ensue ;
but as air had free admission through the cotton cloths, there
resulted a very large formation of mould; a consequence of the
fact that the temperature of boiling water does not destroy the
germs of mould.
The germs of ferment come from the atmosphere, and lodge on
the grapes and grape stems, also on presses, vessels, utensils,
hands, etc., with which the grapes and their juice come in contact
during the manufacture of wine; and it much more frequently
happens that fermentation in the juice is caused by germs of
ferment from the above sources, than it is by germs directly from
the atmosphere. Pasteur found, by his experiments, that the
germs of ferment on the stems of grapes lost their power to cause
fermentation by the month of April, which he thinks "tends to
GERMS OF FERMENT FROM THE ATMOSPHERE.
73
prove that the ferment can only appear about the time when grapes
attain maturity, and that it disappears during the Winter, not to
reappear before the end of the following Summer."
Grapes and other fruits exposed to the air, absorb oxygen and
give off carbonic acid gas; but Pasteur has shown by his experi-
ments that if we immerse unblemished grapes in carbonic acid
gas where they can absorb no oxygen, a process analogous to fer-
mentation takes place and alcohol is produced without the aid of
either the cells or germs of ferment. He accounts for this by sup-
posing that the vital action of the cells in the fruit does not cease
immediately on immersing the fruit in the carbonic acid gas;
consequently, as oxygen cannot be obtained from the air to sus-
tain their vitality, they act on the sugar in the grapes and decom-
pose it as do the cells of ferment; thus giving rise to the
formation of alcohol, by a process somewhat similar to that
which seems to take place in the human body when alcohol is
found in the blood of one who never drinks it. Crush the grapes
and thus destroy the vitality of the cells of the fruit, and no such
result follows. Alcohol when thus produced in the fruit, as when
produced by leaven, is strictly an effete substance, resulting from
the decomposition of sugar by living organic cells.
As we have said, it is beyond question that the germs of fer-
ment at certain seasons of the year are disseminated everywhere
through the atmosphere and lodge upon grapes and their stems;
and as soon as they find a liquid affording food and suitable con-
ditions for their development, they appropriate it and fermenta-
tion soon begins. If we were able to exclude these germs from
the newly pressed wine, fermentation could never set in. But
they have already entered the pressed juice during the process of
pressing, and unless their action is checked they will in a short
time begin their work of destruction. If the wine is closely
corked or sealed, and kept at a temperature below 42° Fahr.,
conditions are wanting necessary for the development of the
germs, and they remain inactive until the wine is brought to a
higher temperature or exposed to the air. These germs, however,
may be destroyed by either heating the wine to 180° or 200° Fahr.
and keeping it at that temperature a few moments, or by heating
it to the point of boiling, after which it will not ferment in any
temperature until, by exposure to the atmosphere, other germs
have been allowed to enter it. The gas from burning sulphur, if
carefully and persistently applied, either destroys the germs of
ferment in wine, or so changes the substance in which they
74 CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-IMPURITIES.
develop, that they are rendered innocuous and incapable of
propagation. Wine producers use this process to arrest fermenta-
tion when it has progressed as far as they think expedient.
The reader will now understand clearly that the cause of fer-
mentation in wine is not from anything organized in the grape or
juice of the grape, but from the introduction and action of foreign
living organisms which appropriate, feed upon, and change the
nutritious and health-giving substances produced by the vine;
and leave in their stead (as the results largely of their own
decomposition), the alcohol and other substances which form
fermented wine.
'Investigations (German) have led chemists to distinguish two
varieties of yeast: the ober-hefe, surface yeast, and the unter-hefe,
sediment yeast; the former rises to the surface, the latter goes to
the bottom,' when their work is finished. 'Surface yeast is prop-
agated by buds, and sediment yeast by spores.' When exam-
ined under the microscope, yeast is found to consist of aggregations
of small, oval cells of a vegetable nature, called yeast-plant.' Oval
cells is the name of another writer. 'The action of surface yeast
is rapid, that of sediment yeast slow.' The first requires a heat
of 65° to 77°, the other from 32° to 45°. These facts explain some
puzzling peculiarities in the rising of bread. As the two kinds
have the same action on sugar and produce the same effects in a
fluid glutinous substance in which they exist, one general term, as
yeast-germs, properly describes both.
"The part which the globules of yeast play in exciting the
conversion of sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid is very obscure.'
The fact is well ascertained and undoubted, that all alcohol is the
product of the fermentation of glucose, or grape sugar, as it is
called. The ferment that agitates the fluid is caused by the rising
of the 'carbonic acid' gas. These germs break up the sugar into
its original elements; these elements reorganize into two new
substances. The gas has one element of carbon and two of
oxygen; the rest of the elements unite and make another new
substance, alcohol; this has all the hydrogen in the sugar, and is
that which gives alcohol its fiery potency."-Rev. J. M. Van
Buren.
"Nature
Count Chaptal, the eminent French chemist, says:
never forms spirituous liquors; she rots the grape upon the
branch, but it is art which converts the juice into (alcoholic)
wine." It is an invention of man.
Dr. Henry Monroe, in his Lecture on Alcohol, says :
"Alcohol
DR. FOOTE ON FERMENTATION.
75
is nowhere to be found in any product of nature; was never
created by God; but is essentially an artificial thing prepared by
man through the destructive process of fermentation.
""
"The sugar, whether fruit or grape sugar, left undecomposed
at the end of fermentation in pure natural wines, rarely amounts
to more than 0.5 per cent. (2½ of 1 per cent.), being generally
much less. Even this small quantity is found in young wines
only, and disappears as the wine becomes aged. In fortified
wines, to which alcohol has been added to prevent secondary
fermentation, and concentrated must or the must from passulated
grapes preserved with alcohol (Spanish dulce,' Portuguese
'jeropiya'), or which are themselves made from raisins, whether
like Tokay with must only, and without alcohol, or like Tintilla
de Rota with boiled must, but without alcohol (arrope), or like
the liqueur wines with alcohol only, the sugar ranges from 2 or 3
per cent. to upwards of 20 per cent."-Lippincott & Co.'s Encyclo-
pædia of Chemistry, Vol. II., 1879.
Dr. Geo. F. Foote, who has experimented extensively on the
preservation of unfermented wine, says :
"DEAR DOCTOR, -It gives me pleasure to aid you in the good
work you are engaged upon by adding my experience in regard to
the successes that have attended my experiments in the preserva-
tion of grape-juice known under the appellation of must, sweet
wine, new wine, unfermented wine and more properly pure wine.
"The spores that excite fermentation float about in the atmos-
phere as fine dust. These are invisible in the ordinary light, but
rendered luminous when the sun's rays are admitted through a
small opening into a darkened room. In the path of these rays
are seen myriads of dust particles reflecting the light. These
spores, as they are wafted about by the currents of air, attach
themselves to the surface of grapes and their stems, and to other
fruits; ready to seize upon the contents so soon as the skin shall
be broken, or to drop into any vessel containing fermentative
matter, that is suitable food. From the surface of the grape they
are commingled with the wine as it flows from the press. Here
they grow and propagate with astonishing rapidity in a favorable
temperature.
'To one at all curious it is a matter of great interest to watch
this process of fermentation under the microscope.
With a mag-
nifying power of 500 or 600 diameters, the yeast globule is about
the size of a very small pea. With a proper temperature and in a
suitable medium for food, as grape or apple juice, you can see
76 CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-IMPURITIES.
them grow. A full-sized cell will throw out from its circumfer-
ence several small buds that enlarge and finally drop from the
parent cell; and these may often be seen to dart away as if in
pursuit of other pasturage. Finding a resting-place, they eat and
grow and soon become parent cells, and give birth to another crop.
Thus they multiply with great rapidity, and soon the whole lump
is leavened.'
"These germs and cells are great gormandizers. They con-
sume the sugar and albuminous portions of the wine, which they
eat up apparently by absorption, and give out apparently as
excrement carbonic acid and alcohol, effete substances, pregnant
with poison, mischief and death.
"In view of a scientific analysis, it is not strange that Sweden-
borg should have defined the correspondence of leaven as the falses
of evil."
In speaking of unfermented wine, Dr. Foote says:
"It requires no stretch of the imagination or poetical license to
fill the soul with delight while taking a draught of this wine. A
little may be taken at any time for the stomach's sake with impu-
nity. The nutritious properties of grape-juice have not been eaten
up and converted into carbonic acid and alcohol by these spores of
ferment."
In another letter Dr. Foote says:
"I will offer for your consideration the following, viz.:
"The cells of alcoholic ferment are of the animal kingdom, as
much so as a horse, or an elephant, though infinitely small. The
animal kingdom feeds upon and derives its nourishment from
organic matter. The vegetable kingdom feeds upon and derives
its nourishment from inorganic matter. The torula or alcoholic
ferment cell feeds upon organized matter, therefore it is an animal,
though microscopic in size, being about the one three-thousandths
of an inch in diameter. They are great eaters, living upon the
nitrogenous and saccharine matter of vegetable juices. And as
they cat, digest and assimilate, they must, as other animals,
excrete a corresponding amount of matter, and this passes away
from these minute animals as carbonic acid gas, alcohol, various
acids, fusel oil, etc. And now in language so plain 'that he that
runs may read': The man or woman that drinks fermented liquids,
be it beer, wine, cider or whisky, simply puts into his stomach
the excretory discharges of an animal. Strong language, but
nevertheless true."
Mr. W. J. Parsons, in a communication to the writer, says;
MR. W. J. PARSONS ON FERMENTATION.
куку
"The truth seems to be that the views of those who advocate
fermented wine as a beverage, are based upon a strange and pro-
found ignorance of the scientific discoveries of the last twenty
years.
"The common opinion accepts, as always, the seeming for the
real, and believes that grape-juice ferments, and that its fermen-
tation is an orderly step in its life, of the Lord's Providence and
not of His Permission. First the water, then the sap, then the
juice, and finally the perfect fermented wine.
'If this opinion was correct that the Lord so creates the juice
that in presence of pure air it would change of itself into alcoholic
wine, there might be ground to think that such wine was a good
and innocent drink if used with care, especially if its use was
attended with no danger.
"But the opinion was absolutely incorrect. Juice does not
ferment at all, it is fermented; and this difference is simply a
prodigious one.
"The air around us abounds with yeast, or leaven germs; and
these, introduced into the juice, and being there developed during
the process of fermentation, eat up the sugar and produce alcohol.
Grape-juice kept from the air, or exposed only to perfectly pure
air, never ferments nor is it fermented.
"The statement here given is accepted by the great scientific
men of this country and Europe as an unquestioned fact. The
great French chemist, Pasteur, by most ingenious experiments,
drew the juice from grapes so that the air did not touch it in the
process. This juice would not ferment as long as no air came to
it, and was fermented as soon as the ordinary air came to it at the
proper temperature. But when Pasteur purified the air by heating
it or by passing it through thick layers of cotton wool, then the
leaven germs were either destroyed or held back by the cotton,
and the pure air would not ferment the juice at all.
"How, then, can there be alcohol in heaven, where the air
must be pure, for no leaven from hell can be there? And how
could the Lord have turned the water into fermented wine?
"Fermentation has been called a process of separation. This
is not true, for while there is separation, yet this is entirely over-
shadowed by the profound chemical decomposition which destroys
the sugar, and the chemical reorganization which produces the
alcohol."
Again Mr. Parsons says:
"Science to-day has learned that alcohol is not a growth of the
778
CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION—IMPURITIES.
vine; that it is never found in the grape-juice as long as the skin
is whole; that the grape-juice has in itself no ferment principle
and cannot and does not of itself ferment; and that fermentation
is not at all a process of separation of one part of the juice from
another part.
* ** **
There is a separation by gravity in grape-juice, whether it is
kept from being fermented or is fermented. In either case the
lees settle because they are heavier than the rest.
"But no more absolute scientific falsehood can be told, than
that the fermenting of grape-juice is a process of separation. It is
a process of destructive chemical disorganization and chemical
formation, accompanied by certain separation.
Grape-juice drawn from the grapes so that no germs from
the skins get into it, and approached only by perfectly purified
air, does not ferment, or rather, is not fermented, and stays sweet
as it ripened on the vine.
"The juice will not ferment in the air found on the tops of
very high mountains.
·
"Could it ferment in the pure air of Heaven? Surely leaven
from Hell could not reach it there.
"The whole matter would have a very different aspect if
alcohol were a vegetable product of the vine, as the juice is, or if
the juice were so created that it would change of itself and produce
alcohol. ** * *
'Now let us follow alcohol from its production in its secret
place, to where we can view it in its nakedness.
"It is formed by leaven from the air cating up the sugar in
the grape-juice and excreting alcohol. The result is fermented wine.
"This is not alcohol; it is a mixture of, say, one part alcohol
and nine parts water; and the water prevents people seeing what
the alcohol really is.
"The distiller, by repeated or fractional distillation, draws
away the alcohol from the water till he gets what is known in
commerce as 95 per cent. alcohol. It is a mixture of, say, one
part of water with nineteen parts of alcohol.
“The chemist's skill can draw away this one part of water and
then he has what is called absolute alcohol.
"It is alcohol and nothing else, and what is it?
"I think I am safe in saying, that throughout the scientific
world, without a single exception, all the scientific authorities, all
th● medical authorities, and all the works on poisons, state posi-
tively that absolute alcohol is a true and deadly poison.
CHANGES WROUGHT BY FERMENTATION.
79
"It is greedy for water, in which it hides itself so that it can
deceive us as to its true quality; but by itself and in itself, if
drank without any mixture of water, it acts on the system as a
poison, and is a poison.
"It is a fact that when a person takes a glass of fermented
wine, he takes a certain amount of deadly poison just as truly as
does a woman when foolishly taking a solution of arsenic to
increase her charms.
"In view of Swedenborg's saying that poisons which hurt and
kill are from Hell, can alcohol itself but be from Hell? and can a
poisonous drug by mere dilution in water, become a healthy drink
for a healthy man?
"Absolute alcohol is produced with great difficulty, and very
few people ever see it or know of it.
"If it were common as pure arsenic is common, its true char-
acter would be well known; but, with the cunning of Hell, it hides
itself in water, an innocent fluid, so that it deceives us and makes
us think what a harmless thing it is if we only are moderate in the
use of it.
"As well might we say that a rattlesnake is not a vile beast
from Hell, because if we are prudent and moderate in our inter-
course with it, we shall not be hurt.
"Let us not forget that no sane man ever would or could drink
absolute alcohol, any more than he would put his hand in a rattle-
snake's mouth."
Man is a living being and leaven is a living substance; both
require nourishment, and both live upon substances organized in
the vegetable kingdom. In a proper menstruum and under favor-
able conditions, leaven buds forth and is developed with wonder-
ful rapidity, as Dr. Foote has stated. It cannot live upon sugar
alone, neither can it upon albumen alone, nor can it upon the
acids and alkaline salts which exist in the wine; like man, it
requires a variety of organized substances to sustain its life, and
all these are contained in the juice of the grape. Man appropriates
grapes and their juice to his use, but they do not leave the body
after supplying its wants, the delicate, beautifully organized sub-
stances that they were when they entered; but they leave in the
form of excretions from the bowels, kidneys and skin, and in ex-
halations; changed in color, look, taste and smell. Leaven also
appropriates most of the same organized materials to its own nour-
ishment and development, and when it casts them out they are
no less changed than if they had passed through the human body.
80 CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-IMPURITIES.
These substances leave the leaven, after having served its pur-
pose, as excretions and exhalations; and the taste of the wine has
changed, and even the smell has changed. Now, for the first
time, the "ambrosial odor," which wine-drinkers seem to prize so
highly, makes its appearance and takes the place of the delightful
odor implanted by the Lord in the fruit of the vine.
Unlike man,
leaven lives in the wine and surrounded by it; and all of the
excretions and exhalations of the leaven, excepting what are cast
down as lees or escape in the form of gas, are cast out into the
wine, and give it its alcohol and its vinegar, its taste and its
odor. Is it strange that such a fluid should so frequently, when
men drink it, make them sick, drunk and insane?
Preserve the blood of man as it is removed from his body,
from the germs which come from the atmosphere, and it will not
putrefy. No physician would dare to have either these germs, or
the smallest portion of a drop of putrefying blood injected into
the blood in his veins; for he too well understands that the result
would almost surely be death. Inject the germs of ferment, or
the smallest portion of the fermenting juice of the grape, beneath
the skin of the grape into its blood, and the consequences to the
grape will also be death. That the analogy is wonderful we can
all see.
Let us look for a moment at the chemical changes wrought by
fermentation. First, we will notice the component parts of
"Wine in the cluster," or unfermented wine:
Gluten-plentiful, which forms blood and muscle, and gives
strength and substance to the body;
Sugar a large amount, which is so delightful to the taste, and
warms the body;
Gum, and aromas ;
Malic and citric acids-small quantities;
Phosphorus and sulphur ;
Bitartrate of potash (cream of tartar) ;
Tartrate of lime ;
Water, etc.
Such are the essential living products of the vine, which are
grateful and nourishing to the natural body of man, and are all
retained in unfermented wine, and even in boiled wine, excepting
a portion of the water, which can be readily restored when it is
required for use. Now, let us look at the sad havoc produced upon
these good gifts of God by that substance of evil correspondence-
leaven or yeast, which in "Turner's Chemistry, by Liebig," we are
CHANGES WROUGHT BY FERMENTATION.
81
told "is a substance in a state of putrefaction, the atoms of which
are in continual motion."
Fermented or intoxicating wine contains:
Alcohol, a powerful narcotic poison;
Enanthic acid, an oily, inodorous liquid;
Enanthic ether, of a vinous, unpleasant smell;
Essential or volatile oils;
Bouquet or aroma ;
Acetic acid or vinegar—of none too good correspondence;
Sulphate of potash ;
Chlorides of potassium and sodium ;
Undecomposed gum, sugar and extractive matter in small
quantities.
The substances in italics are new compounds, never found in
the unfermented juice of the grape. Surely, we have only to look
over the two tables of contents just given, to be able to see how
truly fermented wine, when it pretends to be either the fruit of
or from the fruit of the vine, is a hypocritical "mocker." Its food
part or gluten—corresponding to good is gone; its sugar-corre-
sponding to spiritual delights is nearly gone, and perverted into
alcohol and vinegar; and its vegetable combinations of acids and
alkalies, combined expressly for the use of man by the Lord, in
the fruit of the vine, with phosphorus and lime for the brain and
bones, are either destroyed, changed, or precipitated, and what have
we left? A fluid which will cause drunkenness, which is never
caused by either the fruit of the vine or the pure juice of the
grape. Need more be said ?
Yes, more may be desirable, for all experience demonstrates
that when duty requires us to give up the traditions of the past as
false, and to stop the gratifications of our perverted appetites, we
need "line upon line and precept upon precept," else there is dan-
ger of our excusing and justifying our false views and evils, and
continuing in them, instead of putting them away as sins against
God. The truth must be made so plain "that the wayfaring man,
though a fool, need not err therein."
Wine has a similar signification to blood. Blood is composed,
not simply of water, which is from the mineral kingdom, and cor-
responds to truths upon the natural plane of life, and is the medium
through which nourishment is conveyed to every part of the material
body; but it also contains in a state of solution, all the substances
required to warm and build up the material body, which correspond
to good, all harmoniously blended in one fluid; a living current which
82
CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-IMPURITIES.
is to the body of man what Divine Truth, always united with Divine
Good, is to his soul. It is perfectly clear that wine has a similar
signification, because it has a similar composition. It has the
water from the mineral kingdom; the sugar, which is so delight-
ful to the innocent child, and which is appropriated to warm the
material body; the gluten or bread-part, which gives substance to
the various tissues; the phosphorus for the brain; the lime for the
bones; the potash for the tendons and ligaments; and there is
perhaps no part of the body which does not receive some nourish-
ment from pure unfermented wine. With all these nourishing
substances which are contained in the pure juice of the grape, and
which correspond to good either entirely or partially destroyed,
precipitated, or converted into poisonous compounds, even with
the delightful sugar perverted by leaven into alcohol, which is so
repugnant to the taste of the innocent child, what relation has
fermented wine to blood? Its correspondence may have been
appropriate to a state of the Church when faith was separated
from charity; but how any intelligent Christian of this day can
sanction the use of fermented wine, is an increasing wonder to
the writer.
If the wine is pressed directly from the clusters into the cup,
by the hand, as was done in ancient Egypt and Italy, it may be
drank freely, as we eat grapes; but if the juice is allowed to stand
a few hours exposed to the air, if the temperature is suitable,
fermentation commences, and the wine "becomes thick, muddy
and warm, and evolves carbonic acid gas." If drank while this
fermentation, motion, or destruction is in active progress, it is apt
to disturb the stomach-as Swedenborg intimates.
A singular proof of the ancient usage of squeezing the juice
of grapes into a cup, has been exhumed at Pompeii. It is the
figure of Bacchus standing by a pedestal, and holding in both
hands a large cluster of grapes and squeezing the juice into
a cup.
We will close this chapter on fermentation by noticing a phase
of this question hitherto comparatively unnoticed.
A friend ŝuggests that as we breathe an atmosphere which is
full of the germs of leaven and eat them upon the surface of fruits,
and drink them in drinking water and the juices of fruits, there
can be nothing very objectionable about them. Nor do we sup-
pose there is. They are evidently, when thus taken, harmless;
and the same is undoubtedly true of the cells of leaven or yeast
itself, if they could only be purified from the filthy, poisonous
FERMENTED WINE IS A LEAVENED FLUID.
83
excretions and exhalations which result from their vital action, as
similar excretions and exhalations result from a similar vital
action in animals. By baking our leavened dough in making
bread we destroy the life of the leaven, and drive off the excretions
and exhalations which have resulted from its vital action—the al-
cohol, carbonic acid gas, vinegar and other acids and the aroma
so grateful to the nostrils of some-and the bread, if not entirely
harmless, is comparatively so, for it has been purified by heat. The
cells of leaven, like those of the human body, have been organized
by decomposing and appropriating the organized substances found
in the vegetable kingdom, the albumen, gluten, sugar, etc. The flesh
of the rat, mouse, polecat, and even of the rattlesnake, if cleansed
from the excretions, exhalations and secretions which result from
the vital action in decomposing and changing organized food,
would be comparatively harmless, and some of the human family
use the flesh of these creatures for food with at least comparative
impunity; but they could not thus use the excretions, secretions
and exhalations which are developed by these creatures, any more
than they can those which are produced by leaven and exist in
fermented wine, without endangering health and life. So it is not
the leaven-cells which are so dangerous in the wine, but the leav-
ened wine, which is full of impurities from them.
It is therefore certain that if there is pre-eminently a leavened
substance on earth it is fermented wine; if there is any unclean-
ness pertaining to leaven and substances leavened, it is to be found
in fermented wine. We cannot understand how any Christian
with a knowledge of the fact that fermented wine originates from
that unclean living substance called leaven, and is full of the
foul excretions from it which cause all manner of uncleanness in
man, both physically and mentally, when he drinks it, can for a
moment advocate or justify the use of intoxicating wine either as
a beverage or for communion purposes.
Alcohol is the chief ingredient in fermented wine, and the one
for which men drink it; and yet the juice of the grape is by no
means the only source from which alcohol is produced by the
destructive action of ferment or leaven. It is also manufactured
from corn, barley and other grains, and from potatoes, and from
the juices of the sugar-cane, apples, berries and other vegetables,
and also from the sap of various trees; and yet from whatever
source it is derived, it is the same poisonous and pernicious fluid;
and capable of causing disease, drunkenness, insanity and death,
when used as we may use healthy drinks. It is in no sense the
84
CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-IMPURITIES.
product of the vine, more than it is of other vines, vegetables and
trees; whereas unfermented must or unfermented wine is strictly
the product of the vine, and its essential constituents have been
organized by the Lord in the fruit of the vine, and they are char-
acteristic of the fruit of the vine.
ARE THERE ANY IMPURITIES IN MUST OR UNFERMENTED WINE?
In a sermon printed in a religious periodical we read in regard
to the juice of the grape, or unfermented wine, as follows:
"Before fermentation the grape-juice in the wine vat is turbid, and
appears full of impurities. But by fermentation the impurities are re-
moved, the lighter ones are thrown off from the surface, and the grosser
sink to the bottom, leaving the wine clear and pure for use. The necessity
for this arises from the fact that in the grape-juice are many crude particles
of foreign substance that cannot be strained out, separated or removed in
any other way than by fermentation.
The impurities that give
rise to fermentation are in the juice, and the hidden, unseen leaven is in
the meal; and only by fermentation can the juice be purified, while the
bread must be purified by the fire of the oven as well."
*
* *
Can any one tell us what the impurities and foreign substances
are, which can only be separated by fermentation in the pure juice
of the grape, called must or new wine, as it flows from the press,
which Swedenborg tells us has the same signification as wine? Is
the gluten, which nourishes the body of man as good does his soul,
one of them? This is to a great extent destroyed and cast out by
fermentation. Is the sugar, which is so delightful and which cor-
responds to spiritual delights, one of them? This is destroyed and
converted into alcohol, a most deadly poison. Is it the phospho-
rus which is so necessary for the brain? This either disappears
or is polluted during fermentation. Do the vegetable acids and
alkaline salts, so carefully organized by the Lord in the grape to
nourish man's tendons and bones, belong to the impurities and
foreign substances which can only be removed by fermentation ?
These substances are perverted, changed, or cast down as lecs by
fermentation; and such lees have not a good correspondence, as
we shall sce. That the bread or nourishing portion of the wine is
thus destroyed to a great extent by fermentation, chemistry shows
conclusively; and we can demonstrate the same fact to our senses
by a very easy experiment. Take some new wine or must as it
flows from the press, boil it and you gradually drive off the water;
and by continuing your boiling it becomes a thick syrup; boil it
UNFERMENTED WINE NOT IMPURE.
85
long enough and it becomes a comparatively solid body; when it
cools you have lost nothing but water-the food portion remains.
On the other hand, take fermented wine and boil it, and you will
find no rich syrup, and little or no solid food substance remaining;
for it has been destroyed by fermentation. Could anything dem-
onstrate more conclusively than this simple experiment, that such
of our clergymen as attempt to justify the use of fermented wine,
by comparisons found in the Writings of Swedenborg, have totally
mistaken the true meaning of such comparisons ?
Again, as has been intimated elsewhere in this work, during
the process of spiritual regeneration good overcomes evil and
casts it out; and man's spirit is thereby purified, and rendered
clear, like wine after fermentation; but in the fermentation of
wine, as we have seen above, exactly the opposite takes place;
for almost all of the nourishing substances organized by the Lord
in the grape for the use of man, which correspond to good, are
overcome by the ferment, and the sugar is often entirely de-
stroyed if the ferment has had a chance to thoroughly complete
its work, and either changed or destroyed, and precipitated as
lees, cast out in the form of poisonous gases, or remain in, as alco-
hol and vinegar, to pollute the wine and to render it a seductive
and poisonous fluid, which will cause disease, drunkenness, and
insanity, if used by man as a drink.
Again if the grape-juice, as it flows from the press, is so full
of impurities which can only be removed by fermentation, per-
haps the author of the above sermon can tell us how it happens
that Swedenborg declares positively, in a general declaration, that
"must signifies the same as wine, viz., truth derived from the
good of charity" (Apocalypse Explained, 695), and that new wine
is the Divine Truth of the New Testament, consequently of the
New Church (Apocalypse Revealed, 316). It is quite certain that
neither party to this controversy would be willing to admit that
the must and new wine, to which Swedenborg refers above, can
be must and new wine undergoing the process of fermentation,
which are hot, and muddy from heterogeneous substances which
have resulted from the destructive action of ferment upon the
juice of the grape. We are all, then, compelled to admit that
unfermented must and new wine have the same signification as
wine; and, if they have the same signification, is it not certain
that they have the same composition—are, in fact, the same fluid
only modified by age? Some of the ancients, we are told, did not
regard their bolled wines as ripe enough for use until they were
86
CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-IMPURITIES.
four years old; and that such wines two centuries old were not
unknown.
Is it possible that any intelligent student of Correspondences
who has carefully examined this whole subject in the light
thereby afforded, and in the light of science, can for a moment
suppose that fermented wine (in which such a large portion of
all that corresponds to good has been destroyed, and in which
even the water contained therein is polluted by alcohol, the product
of fermentation, and by vinegar which results from the next process
of decay) can be the wine which is and ever has been, a blessing
to man? "Good wine is, and always will be, found at the 'feast
of fat things, full of marrow,' which the Lord is constantly offering
man on the mountain of his love-' wine on the lees, well refined.'
There is no poison in the wine which 'makes glad the heart of
man,' none in that which the good Samaritan poured into tho
wounds of the man who fell among thieves; none in that which
cheers but does not inebriate in declining age. The highest and
most holy earthly emblem of the truth which is divine, is wine."
But is it true, as represented in the above sermon, that flour,
meal, and the juice of the grape are impure?
Swedenborg says: “Flour or meal signifies celestial truth, and
wheat celestial good."-(Apocalypse Revealed, 778.)
"Fine flour
and also meal, denote truth which is from good.”—(Arcana
Calestia, 9995.) Are celestial truth and good impure, and is
truth which is from good impure?
In the quotation from the sermon at the beginning of this
section, are found several other incorrect representations and
statements which, in the estimation of the present writer, should
not have been allowed to pass unnoticed, as they were, in the
columns of a religious paper.
First, in regard to the impurities represented as existing in
the fresh grape-juice. If the grapes are properly gathered, and
insects and decaying grapes separated with care, as is done when
we eat them, the juice of grapes as it is pressed from them con-
tains no impurities; it contains nothing injurious to man when he
drinks it, more than do the grapes when he eats them. Both alike
are the fruit of the vine, organized by the Lord for the sustenance
of the natural bodies of men, and both have a good signification;
and this is especially true of the recently expressed juice or must,
for in the Writings we are told that "it (must, Latin mustum)
-corresponds to every genuine truth derived from the good of love
to the Lord," and "every good and truth of the external and
UNFERMENTED WINE IS BEAUTIFUL AND CLEAR. 87
internal man.
All the truth of the Church finds its corre-
spondence in this must or new wine. (See Apocalypse Explained,
376, and numerous other passages in the Writings.)
The freshly pressed juice of the grape is not "turbid" from
any impurities, but from the presence of albuminous and other
most nutritious portions of the clusters, which nourish the ma-
terial body as good does the spiritual body. If we keep the fresh
grape-juice or wine cool, as we do our meat to preserve it; or do
as the ancients did, put it into bottles and seal them carefully
and sink the bottles in wells or springs of cool water; or bury
them in cool, wet carth, fermentation will not ensue; and, con-
trary to the representation in the above sermon, the "apparent
impurities" will settle to the bottom of the bottle, and leave the
wine perfectly clear and beautiful. But if fermentation com-
mences, this heaviest part of the liquid-not the lightest as repre-
sented by our clerical brother above-will rise to the surface, for
precisely the same reason that the body of a man drowned gener-
ally rises to the surface of the water within a few days, namely,
because it is distended with gas which results from its own decom-
position. In other words, the leaven or ferment has destroyed
this gluten, and casts it out by the aid of the poisonous gas which
it has developed. If, instead of being cast out by leaven, it is
allowed to settle to the bottom as lees, such lees have a good cor-
respondence, as we shall see hereafter, for this gluten is good,
useful, and pure; and it is never impure before ferment assails
and destroys it, or before decomposition commences. Nor is there
much difficulty in removing the "apparent impurities" (which, as
we understand, are represented in the above sermon as real im-
purities) by the means of strainers and filters. Again, by heating
the fresh juice to a boiling point much of the albuminous matter
will be in a measure coagulated; and being expanded by the
steam, it will rise to the surface of the fluid, and can be readily
removed by the skimmer or strainer; and if any remains we have
only to bottle and seal or can it while boiling hot, as we do fruits
and jellies; and all turbidness will disappear in a few days.
When wine is preserved without fermentation the lees are light
and flocculent, and are really the most nourishing portion of the
wine, consequently they have a good signification; and they are
very different from the heavy dregs or lees which fall to the
bottom in fermenting wine, which have not a good signification.
The writer has repeatedly, within the last four years, preserved
wines by the above methods; and he has now (1887) samples put
88 CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-IMPURITIES.
up three years ago lasi fall, which are unfermented and beau-
tiful.
Again, the leaven is not hidden either in the meal as it is
ground from the grain, or in the wine as it is pressed from the
grape; but the germs of leaven float in the atmosphere and fall
upon grapes as they do upon all fruits and grains, and as they did
upon the unleavened bread in the days of the prophets, without
defiling or rendering the latter impure or unclean. So the germs
of the putrefactive ferment fall upon our meat and our fish and
upon other food which we eat, yet both kinds of germs are harm-
less, so long as they are not developed into active organisms; but
let the germs of leaven which are washed from the grapes and
their stems when they are crushed and pressed, or which fall from
the atmosphere into the juice after it has been pressed from the
grapes, be developed into leaven cells, and a wonderful trans-
formation ensues, not less surprising than that which results in
our meat and fish under similar circumstances. You may take
the most beautiful and clear unfermented wine, and if it contains
any germs of ferment, as is usually the case if it has not been
heated to nearly the boiling temperature (180°), or if you expose
it to the atmosphere and allow leaven germs to enter it, if the
temperature is suitable, in from twelve to forty-eight hours the
wine generally begins to grow turbid and slightly warm, and full
of impurities and heterogeneous substances; and it will only be-
come clear again when the process of active fermentation has in a
measure ceased. The leaven cells appropriate such portions of
the wine as are required for their own nourishment and reject
the other; and by the vital action of the leaven the substances
which it requires for its nourishment are radically changed, and
alcohol appears as one of the products; and the sugar or sweet
portion of the wine, which corresponds to spiritual delights, dis-
appears, until in old wines it has generally been all destroyed.
Fermented wine, then, it will be seen, is pre-eminently a leavened
substance, for it has all of the essential products of leaven in it;
and it is never purified by heat until they are driven off, as they
are in the baking of leavened bread.
Even if there were any impurities either in the meal or flour as
it is ground from the wheat, or in the newly pressed grape-juice,
the leaven germs could no more develop and the leaven live upon
such impurities, than could man be developed and live upon like
impurities. Leaven, like man, requires for its nourishment the
gluten and the starch, or the albumen and the sugar and other
UNFOUNDED ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS.
89
nutritious substances; remove either of the two last, the albumen
or the sugar, from the grape-juice, and add all the impurities you
please which contain neither gluten, starch, albumen, sugar, nor
their equivalents, and the leaven will starve as would man if he
were to attempt to live on a well fermented wine. Leaven, in
seeking organized food, does not seek impurities, but it leaves
behind its own impurities, as do animals; and these in fermented
fluids cause disease, drunkenness, insanity and death.
Unleavened wine, however freely used, never causes drunken-
ness and insanity; fermented or leavened wine causes both drunk-
enness and insanity every day all around us. Can there be any
question which is the good wine of the Word and the Writings-
which is clear and pure for use"?
(6
It has not unfrequently been assumed by the advocates of fer-
mented wine, especially by clergymen, that unfermented wine is
not suitable as a beverage until after fermentation, in the face of
the facts that men in all ages have drank it freely, and that men
and women go to Switzerland at this day and, with a little hand-
press, press the juice directly into a glass or cup and drink it
freely, and find it a healthy, life-giving fluid. And this assump-
tion is made, dogmatically, notwithstanding the Writings of the
Church give to such unfermented juice or must the very highest
signification that is ever given to any form of wine, as will be seen
in the pages of this work.
The above groundless assumption and erroneous statement, if
accepted as true by those not well informed upon the subject (as is
likely to happen), would lead them to the natural inference that
there is no wine or form of grape-juice suitable as a beverage, and
for communion purposes, excepting fermented wine. To allow
such an assumption to be made in our religious periodicals and
go unanswered and unquestioned to their readers, and refuse to
admit a reply, as has sometimes been done, is to commit these
religious papers to the advocacy of intoxicating drinks, and
against the great temperance reform of this day; and to make
them the medium for promulgating statements that are absolutely
false on this great practical question of life.
Again a writer in a religious periodical says:
"The impure portions of the grape-juice from which the yeast plant
is generated, together with tartar and other matters, are deposited during
the quiet that follows formentation, and the wine, purified, bright, and
permanent, is fit for racking and for use,
If,
*
*
*
90 CAUSE AND LAWS OF FERMENTATION-IMPURITIES.
therefore, there be any ground to avoid what has been called the evil
ferment, it can only be done by taking fermented wine and unfermented
bread."
(6
We have above several incorrect statements. First: the yeast
plant is not generated from impure portions of grape-juice, but the
germs come from the atmosphere, and are developed in the nutri-
tious substances of the juice which correspond to good; and these
substances the ferment or yeast plant" appropriates to its own
use, destroying not only the albumen which is such an important
nutritious substance, but also the sugar which corresponds to
spiritual delights. Second: take the purest and clearest unfer-
mented wine, and allow ferment or its germs to enter it and com-
mence its work of destruction, and it soon becomes turbid and
warm, from the ferment and decomposing substances. The "tartar
and other matters" then cast down were before this good and
useful constituents of a useful organized substance. How absurd
to suppose that the wine, full of the excrementitious substances
from the leaven, such as alcohol, various acids, glycerine, fusel
oil, etc., and which is so poisonous as to cause drunkenness, is
suitable to use as a beverage and as communion wine! Third :
the claim that by using fermented wine we avoid the "evil
ferment." This is like claiming that, by eating and drinking the
excretions from a rat, we avoid eating that unclean animal.
think any sensible man would rather cat a rat than the filthy,
poisonous secretions and excretions from his body; so the least
objectionable thing of the two, if we are anxious to use either,
would be the leaven or ferment itself, rather than the filthy, poison-
ous fluid it has left behind. Ferment is frequently drank in the
juice of apples or grapes which has just commenced fermenting;
and although it may sometimes infest the stomach, it never infests
the head until it has generated a certain amount of alcohol, and
then it is not the ferment which does the mischief, but the alcohol.
Fourth in fermented wine which has not been fortified by alcohol,
if there is any food for the ferment left, fermentation never ceases
entirely until all the sugar has been destroyed; and this often takes
years, so that it will be seen that by drinking fermented wine the
ferment is not avoided.
:
We
CHAPTER IV.
FERMENTED WINE AND ALL FLUIDS WHICH CONTAIN
ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
ALCOHOL is produced by the decomposition of sugar by that
unclean substance called leaven or ferment, a substance which
seems to exist upon the border line between the animal and vege-
table kingdoms; for like animals it possesses the capacity of
appropriating organized vegetable substances to its own nourish-
ment, and of changing them into substances of a very different
character from what they were when it came in contact with
them. In this process of change heat is produced and carbonic
acid gas is given off; and alcohol, which results, seems to hold a
similar relation to the leaven that urca and urine do to the human
body. The reader will now understand why the writer speaks of
alcohol as an effete and vile substance.
What is striking is, that this resulting alcohol is so poisonous
that when it reaches a certain per cent. in the wine it destroys the
activity, if not the very life, of the leaven or ferment itself; pre-
cisely as man would sicken and perish amid the excretions from
his body, if they were not carefully removed. Let the man who
cannot restrain his appetite drink such pernicious stuff, if he will ;
but do not let us defile the Temple of the Lord-the temple not
made with hands-by its use as a Communion wine.
We will first give the testimony of ancient writers before, and
about the time of, the commencement of the first Christian Church.
For many of the historical facts, quotations and records contained
in this chapter, we are indebted to a work by Rev. G. W. Samson,
D.D., on the "Divine Law as to Wines."
'Porphyry quotes from a lost work of Chæremon, librarian at
a sacred college in Egypt under the Cæsars, this historic record :
'Some do not drink wine at all, and others drink very little of it,
on account of its being injurious to the nerves, oppressive to the
head, an impediment to invention, and an incentive to lust.'
"In the Hieratic Papyri,' or records of Egyptian priests,
found on paper made from the stem of the water-lily (Anasti,
92
FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
!
No. IV., Let. xi.), is this record of the address of an Egyptian
priest to a pupil who had become addicted to the use of the beer
of Lower and the wine of Upper Egypt: 'Thou knowest that wine
is an abomination. Thou hast taken an oath as to strong drink,
that thou wouldst not take such into thee. Hast thou forgotten
thine oath?'
"The laws of the Brahmins of India, embodied in the twelve
chapters of the Institutes of Menu, declare that among persons to
be shunned in society is a drinker of intoxicating spirits.'
"Zoroaster declares that 'Temperance is the strength of the
mind; a man is dead in the intoxication of wine.'
"The Medes, succeeding to the Assyrian or Babylonian king-
dom, began as a people strictly abstinent from intoxicating wine.
Their degeneracy through luxury is portrayed by Xenophon in
his 'Training of Cyrus,' in a picture which will ever be quoted
as a gem of graphic sketching. Young Cyrus, coming from his
Persian home to visit his grandfather, Astyages, King of Medea,
came to have a moral aversion to the king's cup-bearer, because
of his office. The king remarking upon it, Cyrus proposed to
act the cup-bearer; and with a napkin on his shoulder presented
the cup to the king with a studied grace that charmed the fond
old man.
When, however, the king observed that young Cyrus
did not, before presenting the cup, first pour some of it into his
left hand and taste it-a custom rendered necessary as a
safeguard against attempts at assassination by poison put into
the king's wine-cup-Astyages said, 'You have omitted one
essential ceremony; that of tasting.' 'No,' replied Cyrus, 'it
was not from forgetting it that I omitted that ceremony.'
• For
what, then,' asked Astyages, 'did you omit it?'
(
'Because,' said
'Poison, child!'
'Yes, poison,
Cyrus, 'I thought there was poison in the cup.'
cried the king; 'how could you think so?'
grandfather, for not long ago at a banquet which you gave to
your courtiers, after the guests had drunk a little of that liquor,
I noticed that all their heads were turned; they sang, shouted
and talked they did not know what, and even you yourself
seemed to forget that you were king and they were subjects;
and when you would have danced, you could not stand on your
legs.' 'Why,' asked Astyages, 'have you never seen the same
happen to your father?' No, never,' said Cyrus (Cyrop. B. I.).
“Who could have supposed that this same Cyrus would him-
self be led to what was and still is called the temperate use of wine;
and would lead the Persian nation into a habit from which to this
(
THE ANCIENTS AND FERMENTED WINE.
ד.
93
It
day they have not even as Mohammedans been redeemed?
is worthy of special note that the very point of the English con-
troversy between Dr. F. R. Lees and Rev. A. M. Wilson turns
on the early abstinence of Cyrus and his subsequent yielding to
the seduction inseparable from high position, ease and luxury.
The sare Xenophon records that Cyrus in his manhood said, on
a long march, to his officers: 'Collect wine enough to accustom
us to drink only water; for most of the way is destitute of wine.
That we do not, therefore, fall into disease by being left suddenly
without wine, let us begin at once to drink water with our food;
after each meal drink a little wine; diminish the quantity we
drink after eating until we insensibly become water-drinkers; for
an alteration little by little brings any one to bear a total change'
(Cyrop. vi. 2). Xenophon, himself, a little later in life, encour-
ages his troops by saying, that their sobriety made them an
overmatch for their wine-drinking foes (Cyrop. vii. 5). The
lesson is manifest. Herodotus further states that Cyrus by
strategy overcame the fierce Massagetae; enticing the young
prince and his officers, at a banquet given them, to drink deeply,
while he and his generals only pretended to drink; and then
attacking their army while their officers were intoxicated. This
unworthy act led the queen-mother to remonstrate with Cyrus to
this effect: When you yourself are overcome with wine, what
follies do you not commit! By penetrating your bodies it makes
your language more insulting. By this poison you have con-
quered, my son; and not by your skill or your bravery.'
"When Alexander, the cultured pupil of Aristotle, transformed
into the autocratic military conqueror, was seen at thirty to be
in danger from wine-drinking, a physician named Androcydes,
Pliny tells us (Nat. Hist. xiv. 5), wrote to him, begging him to
avoid wine, since it was 'a poison.'
"Pliny closes this book (c. 28) with one of the most eloquent
of total-abstinence appeals ever penned or uttered. 'How
strange,' he exclaims, 'that men will devote such labor and
expense for wine, when water, as is seen in the case of animals,
is the most healthful (saluberrimum) drink; a drink supplied,
too, by nature; while wine takes away reason (mente), engenders
insanity, leads to thousands of crimes, and imposes such an enor-
mous expense on nations.' He says that confirmed drinkers
'through fear of death' resulting from intoxication, take as coun-
teractives 'poisons such as hemlock' (cicuta), and others which
it would be shameful to name.' 'And yet,' asks he, 'why do they
;
94
FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
thus act? The drunkard never sees the sunrise; his life by
drinking is shortened; from wine comes that pallid hue, those
drooping eyelids, those sore eyes, those trembling hands, * * *
sleep made hideous by furies during nights of restlessness; and as
the crowning penalty of intoxication (præmium summum inebri-
etatis) those dreams of beastly lust whose enjoyment is forbidden.'
He adds that many are led into this condition 'by the self-inter-
ested advice of physicians who seek to commend themselves by
some novel remedy.'"
Coming down to the second century in the writings of Pseudo
Justin, we read:
*
'Wine is not to be drank daily as water. *
Water is
necessary, but wine only as a medicine.' He shows the absurdity
of the plea that wine heats the body in winter and cools it in
summer; and says: 'It is admitted that wine is a deadly poison'
(pharmakon thanasimon). 'In using it,' he adds, 'we abuse the
work of God.""
Clement of Alexandria, who lived at the close of the second
century, says:
"I admire those who require no other beverage than water,
avoiding wine as they do fire. From its use arise excessive desires
and licentious conduct. The circulation is accelerated, and the
body inflames the soul.""-Divine Law as to Wines.
""
We have brought the testimony of the ancient writers to prove
that fermented wine was by them regarded as a poison, and it
was a poison then and now, because it contains alcohol. And all
books on medical jurisprudence treat of "Poisoning by Alcohol,'
and we have but to look around to behold on every hand the sad
effects of this poison on the bodies and minds of those who
drink it.
Coming down to our own time, we know of no standard work
on the effects of medicines or on poisons which does not recognize
alcohol as a poison. In the United States Dispensatory we are
told that: "As an article of daily use, alcoholic liquors produce
the most deplorable consequences. Besides the moral degradation
which they cause, their habitual use gives rise to dyspepsia, hypo-
chondriasis, visceral obstructions, dropsy, paralysis, and not un-
frequently mania. When taken in large quantities, alcohol, in the
various forms of ardent spirits, produces an apoplectic state, and
occasionally speedy death; the face becomes livid or pale, the
respiration stertorous, and the mouth frothy, and the sense and
feeling are more or less completely lost."
ALCOHOL RECOGNIZED AS A POISON.
95
The most distinguished English authorities declare as follows:
Sir Astley Cooper says: "I never suffer ardent spirits in my
house, thinking them evil spirits. If the poor could witness the
white livers, the dropsies, the shattered nervous systems, which I
have seen as the consequences of drinking, they would be aware
that spirits and poisons are synonymous terms."
Again he says: "We have all been in error in recommending
wine as a tonic. Ardent spirits and poisons are convertible
terms."
“Reduction of animal heat is the special action of this poison."
-Dr. Richardson.
"Its constant use in moderation injures the nervous tissue, and
is deleterious to health." "A man may very materially injure his
constitution short of drunkenness. "It degenerates the tissues
and impairs the intellect."—Sir W. Gull.
While even the Roman Catholic Cardinal Manning, of England,
urges that entire abstinence from all intoxicants is the only hope
of saving the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic races from physical degen-
eracy, several of our Protestant periodicals are striving to justify
the use of intoxicating wine; and one of them even advocates the
drinking of whisky, which Swedenborg declares a pernicious drink;
and this, notwithstanding Swedenborg compares wine and strong
drinks which cause drunkenness to falses from evil. Alas! alas!
for the organized Church. May God protect it from the fearful
evil of wine-drinking, and consequently from drunkenness. All
experience shows, as well in the Church as among Gentiles, that
so long as intoxicating wine, having its origin, as we have seen,
from hell, is drank, drunkenness, folly, wretchedness and insanity
will follow in a fearful number of cases; and as we shall show
from the ablest medical testimony in the world, few, if any, will
ever escape unharmed who use such a beverage, however mod-
erately.
Even the common sense of the world as manifested in its
poetry, has recognized the fact that wine and other intoxicating
drinks are poisons. Shakspeare, Milton, and Pope repeatedly
proclaim this most important truth, in lines ever memorable :
"O thou invisible spirit of wine! if thou hast no name to be known
by, let us call thee-devil."
"O God! that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal
away their brains! that we should with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause,
transform ourselves into beasts."
96
FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
"I will ask him (Othello) for my place again: he shall tell me, I am a
drunkard. Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop
them all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a
beast! O strange !"
"In the flowers that wreathe the sparkling bowl
Fell adders hiss, and poisonous serpents roll."
"The brain dances to the maddening bowl."
They fancy that they feel
Divinity within them breeding wings."
The late Willard Parker, M.D., of New York, asks, in his
address at the American Association for the Cure of Inebriates,
"What is alcohol? The answer is-a poison. It is so regarded by
the best writers and teachers on toxicology. I refer to Orfila,
Christison, and the like, who class it with arsenic, corrosive sub-
limate, and prussic acid. Like these poisons, when introduced
into the system, it is capable of destroying life without acting
mechanically. Introduced into the system, it induces a general
disease, as well marked as intermittent fever, small-pox, or lead
poison."
In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Patton, he says: "The alcohol is
the one evil genius, whether in wine, or ale, or whisky, and is
killing the race of men. Stay the ravages of this one poison,
alcohol, that king of poisons, the mightiest weapon of the devil,
and the millennium will soon dawn."
No higher, or more respected medical authority, in this country
can be given than Dr. Willard Parker; and no one has borne more
courageous and intelligent testimony against this evil than he.
To all his utterances concerning this scourge of humanity, the
writer, after more than thirty years devoted to the study and
practice of medicine, can heartily subscribe, merely adding his firm
belief that the rising sun of this millennial age is staying, and will
stay, the ravages of this fearful scourge; for this glorious total
abstinence reform, which is slowly but surely sweeping over the
world, is not of the old age and dispensation, but of the New
Jerusalem, now descending from God out of heaven, teaching men
that they must shun evils as sins against God. The good work
may commence from natural and selfish motives, but afterwards
'spiritual motives will take their place and our race will be regon-
erated.
TESTIMONY OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.
97
On the fly-leaf of one of his theological MSS., Swedenborg
wrote: The immoderate use of spirituous liquors will be the
downfall of the Swedish people." In his Memorial to the Swedish
Diet, of Nov. 17th, 1760, three years after the Last Judgment,
the same author says: "If the distilling of whisky-provided the
public can be prevailed upon to accede to the measure—were
farmed out in all judicial districts, and also in towns, to the
highest bidder, a considerable revenue might be obtained for the
country, and the consumption of grain might also be reduced ; that
is, if the consumption of whisky cannot be done away with alto-
gether, which would be more desirable for the country's welfare
and morality than all the income which could be realized from so
pernicious a drink." (Documents concerning Swedenborg, by
Rev. R. L. Tafel, Vol. I., page 493.) This has clearly and unmis-
takably the Total Abstinence and Prohibition ring.
Now, kind reader, can you for a single moment imagine that
Swedenborg did not mean to say what he so clearly says, that
whisky is a pernicious drink, and that it would be better if its use
were done away with altogether? Do healthy drinks impair the
morality of men? Do you think, as the editors of a religious serial
represent, that it was not the whisky which was pernicious, and
which was demoralizing and destroying his countrymen; but
simply the consumption of grain for making whisky, thereby
threatening a famine, and thus destroying the Swedish people by
starvation? What nonsense to talk or write like this!
TESTIMONY OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION AND SCIENTIFIC INVESTI-
GATIONS.
The Section on Medicine in the International Medical Congress,
held in Philadelphia in the year 1876, containing representative
medical men from all parts of our own country and Europe, after
carefully examining the subject, at the request of the “ National
Temperance Society," reported as follows, through its Secretary:
"1. Alcohol is not shown to have a definite food value by any
of the usual methods of chemical analysis or physiological investi-
gation.
"2. Its use as a medicino is chiefly that of a cardiac stimulant,
and often admits of substitution.
"3. As a medicine it is not well fitted for self-prescription by
the laity, and the medical profession is not accountable for such
administration or for the enormous evils arising therefrom."
98
FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
The above are not simply the opinions of a chemist, or of a
theoretical or speculative scientist, but are the conclusions of
practical men who have carefully witnessed the actual effects of
intoxicating drinks in every form, and who, consequently, can
speak intelligently upon the subject.
Dr. Benjamin Richardson, in a series of careful experiments
extending over a period of three years, found that alcohol pro-
duces paralysis of the minute or capillary vessels in which the
arteries terminate and the veins commence, where the groundwork
of building and repairing the body and the removal of injurious
substances is performed; and found that the flush upon the face
and hands after drinking is the result of this paralysis; and that
the glow of heat is the result of radiation from these congested
vessels. It is because alcohol thus acts upon these most minute
vessels, interfering with their work, that its injurious effects are
to be found so extensively in almost every organ in the body of
those addicted to its use. He also found that, owing to the
presence of so much blood in the congested capillary vessels, and
its absence from the heart, the action of this organ becomes irrita-
ble and its pulsations unnaturally frequent, and the temperature
of the body internally is actually reduced, thus showing con-
clusively why it is so extremely dangerous for men exposed to
severe cold to use alcoholic drinks.
After detailing the injurious effects which result from the use
of intoxicating drinks, he says: "It will be asked-was there no
evidence of any useful service rendered by the agent in the midst
of so much obvious evidence of bad service? I answer to that
question, that there was no such evidence whatever, and there is
none." It is certain that there is no service performed by such
drinks which cannot be much better and more safely performed by
healthy articles of food and drink.
Dr. Richardson, as the result of his experiments, reaches the
following conclusions :
'I find alcohol to be an agent that gives no strength; that
reduces the tone of the blood-vessels and the heart; that reduces
the nervous power; that builds up no tissuos; can be of no use to
me or any other animal as a substance for food.
"On the minute blood-vessels, those vessels which form the
terminals of the arteries and in which the vital acts of nutrition
and production of animal heat and force are carried on, alcohol
produces a paralyzing effect, as does the nitrate of amyle. Hence
the flush of the face and hands which we observe in those who
ALCOHOL CAUSES SUDDEN DEATH.
99
have partaken freely of wine. This flush extends to all parts, to
the brain, to the lungs, to the digestive organs. Carried to its
full extent, it becomes a congestion, and in those who are long
habituated to excess of alcohol the permanency of the congestion
is seen in the discolored, blotched skin, and, too often, in the dis-
organization which is planted in the vital organs, the lungs, the
liver, the kidney, the brain. At first it paralyzes those nervous
fibers of the organic or vegetative system which control the minute
vessels of the circulation. By this means a larger supply of blood
is driven by the heart into the nervous centers, and nervous action
from them is first excited, afterward blunted; the brain is in a
glow, and that stage of mental exhilaration which is considered
the cheering and exciting stage of wine-drinking, is experienced.
After a time, if the action progresses, the opposite condition
obtains; the function of the higher mental centers is depressed,
the mere animal centers remain uncontrolled masters of the intel-
lectual man, and the man sinks into the lower animal in everything
but shape of material body. In the lower animals a state of actual
madness accompanies this stage, and in man, sometimes, the same
terrible condition is also witnessed.
"In this manner, by the course of experiment, I learned, step
by step, that the true action of alcohol, in a physiological point of
view, is to create paralysis of nervous power. It acts precisely as
I had seen nitrate of amyle and some other chemical bodies act."
"Dr. Percy injected two and a half ounces of alcohol (specific
gravity .850) into the stomach of a full-grown do which imme-
diately uttered a loud plaintive cry and fell lifeless to the ground.
Not a gasp was afterward taken, nor, after the lapse of a minute
or two, could a single pulsation of the heart be felt. 'Never,'
says Dr. Percy, 'did I see every spark of vitality more effectually
and more instantaneously extinguished.' It is very probable that
the rapidity of the fatal results of such an unusually small dose of
alcohol, was due to the fact that the dog had been scantily sup-
plied with food for a day or two; so that the stomach was in a
condition to favor the rapid absorption of the poison into the
circulation. Death, in this case, was precisely like that of
poisoning by Prussic acid."-Alcohol and Science-Wm. Har-
graves, M.D.
Dr. Mitchell mentions the case of a boy ten years old, who
secretly drank from a whisky bottle, in imitation of his father,
who was at work in the field. The sudden silence of the boy
attracted his father's attention, when a wild, fixed gaze was dis-
Dor M
100 FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
covered, denoting something wrong.
He called the boy by name,
but in vain; and in less than an hour he was dead.
Orfila mentions the case of a man who died immediately from
the effects of a large dose of brandy.
It is well known to every medical man that alcohol not very
unfrequently destroys life suddenly, or at least within a few hours;
and if it were not a poison it would not do this.
ACTION OF ALCOHOL ON THE MIND.
Dr. Richardson says: "As I have moved among those who are
physically stricken with alcohol, and have detected under the
various disguises of name the fatal diseases, the pains and penalties
it imposes on the body, the picture has been sufficiently cruel.
But even that picture pales as I conjure up, without any stretch
of imagination, the devastations which the same agent inflicts on
the mind. Forty per cent.the learned superintendent of Colney
Hatch, Dr. Shepherd, tells us-forty per cent. of those who were
brought into that asylum during the year 1876, were so brought
because of the direct or indirect effects of alcohol. If the facts of
all the asylums were collected with equal care, the same tale
would, I fear, be told. What need we further to show the destruc-
tive action of this one instrument of destruction on the human
mind? The Pandemonium of drunkards! the grand transforma-
tion sceno of that pantomime of drink, which commences with
moderation! Let it be nevermore forgotten by those who love
their fellow-men, until, through their efforts, it is closed for ever.
"For the work that comes of the mind and that comes out
under pressure, no taste of alcoholic stimulation is necessary.
Every such taste is a self-inflicted injury, and, what is more, an
accumulating injury. The dose of alcohol which spurred the
thought of to-day, must be slightly increased to spur the thought
of to-morrow to the same pitch. So on and on the evil goes, until
at last the simple, and, as it was called, harmless dose, rises to the
poisonous dose; until, with unnerved limbs, faltering memory,
dull imagination, estranged feeling, enfeebled or even dismantled
reason, the victim falls. Of all men, brain-workers are the men
least able to bear up against the ravages of alcohol. Of all men,
they are the most liable to be deceived and played upon by this
traitor, who enters the most precious treasury, the citadel of the
mind. I hold that man as prematurely mad, who defends the use
of alcohol for himself on this ground of necessity. I hold that man
Maou
ACTION OF ALCOHOL ON THE MIND.
101
as criminally mad, who, knowingly, prescribes alcohol on this
foundation.
"On the other side the experience is unfortunately overwhelm-
ing in favor of the observation that the use of alcohol dulls the
reasoning power, makes weak men and women the easy prey of the
wicked and strong, and leads men and women who should know
better into every grade of misery and vice. It is not poor repent-
ing Cassio alone who cries out in agony of despair, 'Oh, that a
man should put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains !'
It is thousands upon thousands of Cassios who say the same
thought, if not the same words, every day, every hour. I doubt,
indeed, whether there is a single man or woman who indulges or
who has indulged in alcohol who could not truthfully say the
same; who could not wish that something he had unreasonably
said or expressed under the excitation of alcohol, had not been
given forth.
"If, then, alcohol enfeebles the reason, what part of the mental
constitution does it exalt and excite? It exalts and excites those
animal, organic, emotional centers of mind which, in the dual
nature of man, so often cross and oppose that pure and abstract
reasoning nature which lifts man above the lower animals, and,
rightly exercised, little lower than the angels. Exciting these
animal centers, it lets loose all the passions, and gives them more
or less of unlicensed domination over the whole man. It excites
anger, and when it does not lead to this extreme, it keeps the mind
fretful, irritable, dissatisfied, captious. The flushed face of the
red-hot angry man, how like it is to the flushed face of the man in
the first stage of alcoholic intoxication! The face, white with rage,
and the tremulous, agitated muscles of the body, how like both are
to the pale face and helpless muscles of the man deep in intoxica-
tion from alcohol. The states are not simply similar, they are
identical, and the one will feed the other.”
HEREDITARY RESULTS OF THE USE OF INTOXICATING DRINKS.
Dr. Nathan Allen, in his tract on the "Effects of Alcohol on
Offspring," says:
"First, then, what is alcohol? By this term it is intended to
include the property in all drinks that intoxicate, whether found
in brandy, gin, wine, whisky, or even in beer or cider; for it is
the intoxicating property that gives these drinks their significance
and makes them attractive.
102 FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
"Alcohol is an artificial product, obtained by fermentation,
and is never found in a simple state. It is a poison, both in its
nature and effects; is pronounced as such by the highest authori-
ties, and proved to be such by the tests of chemistry as well as of
physiology. Alcohol, unadulterated, is a pure poison, and though
taken into the system in a diluted state without at first apparently
any injurious effects, it is still a poison, and does the work of a
poisonous agent.
"All standard books on poisons-of which Christison's is,
perhaps, the highest authority-represent alcohol as a poison.
Says Christison: 'It constitutes a powerful narcotic poison.'
Carpenter, author of the best work on physiology extant, says that
alcohol ‘is a dangerous poison.' All standard works upon chem-
istry classify it among the poisons. The best writers on Materia
Medica describe alcohol as a poison. Pereira, perhaps the most
distinguished among these writers, calls it both ' an irritant and
fatal poison.' The French, and the British, and the American
Dispensatories-high authorities everywhere in such matters-
describe alcohol as a 'powerful irritant poison, rapidly causing
intoxication and, in large quantities, death.' Medical dictionaries
say the same thing; in fact, all standard writers on the subject
agree in this description."
One of the saddest and most fearful of the results which flow
from the use of intoxicating drinks, and one which should cause
every philanthropist and Christian to hesitate before ever using,
continuing or justifying the use of such drinks, is the fact
that drinking parents transmit to their offspring a tendency to
many of the diseases which they develop in themselves; such as
gout and organic diseases of the brain, lungs, liver and kidneys.
Nor is this the worst which is liable to result, for mental as well
as physical tendencies are often transmitted, even to epilepsy, in-
sanity and idiocy.
Aristotle taught that "drunken women bring forth children
like unto themselves ;" and Plutarch writes that เ one drunkard
begets another." The reader will please remember, that all the
drunkenness which existed in the days of Aristotle and Plutarch,
was caused by drinking wine and other fermented drinks, for they
had no distilled liquors then.
"Hereditary Alcoholism is an undeniable fact" said Dr.
Lunier, of Paris, at the Brussels Congress.
"Alcoholism strikes man not only in his own person, but also
in his descendants. The children of the alcoholic parents are
HEREDITARY CONSEQUENCES OF INTOXICANTS.
103
stamped, as it were, with a fatal sign that often seals their doom
and death in an early age."-Dr. Lunier, of the French Medico-
Psychological Society.
""
In a (
Report to the Massachusetts Legislature on Idiocy,'
Dr. S. G. Howe says: "The habits of the parents of three hun-
dred of the idiots were learned, and one hundred and forty-
five, or nearly one-half, were reported as known to be habitual
drunkards."
Mr. Darwin says: "It is remarkable that all the diseases
arising from drinking spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to
become hereditary, even to the third generation, increasing, if the
cause be continued, till the family becomes extinct.
Dr. Brown, a well-known English writer on insanity, says :
"The drunkard not only enfeebles and weakens his own nervous
system, but entails mental disease upon his family.”
"Of many manifestations of alcoholic heredity, epilepsy is the
most common."-M. Taquet.
Dr. Richardson says: "There can be no reasonable doubt, in
fine, that not the least painful and unavoidable effects of intem-
perance in alcohol are the physical and mental debility and disease
it entails on posterity. Darwin, in 'The Botanic Garden,' in 1794,
pointed out this fixed and immutable law. Nearly all the diseases
springing from indulgence in distilled and fermented liquors are
liable to become hereditary, and to descend to at least three or four
generations, unless the hereditary tendency be starved out by
uncompromising and persistent abstention from all intoxicating
drinks. This is no speculative theory, no visionary hypothesis.
It is a well-grounded belief founded on accurate observation—a
legitimate conclusion deduced from extended experience, and
based on incontrovertible facts."
While the writer does not think that a child often inherits an
uncontrollable appetite for intoxicating drinks, yet it is unques-
tionably true that the children of drinking parents inherit a ten-
dency which makes it especially dangerous for them ever to partake
of such drinks; and yet they are perfectly safe from all craving for
them, so long as they let them entirely alone. In regard to this
inclination Dr. Richardson says :
“The inherited drink-crave, where it exists, even when from
the absence of temptation or from the strength of resolute will it
has never been made manifest, is always latent, and ever ready to
be lit up at the faintest alcoholic provocation. The smallest sip
of the weakest form of fermented or distilled liquor, has power to
104
FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
set in a blaze the hidden, unhallowed fire. Persons ignorant of
the inexorable law of heredity in alcohol, indiscriminately rebuko
and denounce the vicious drunkard and the diseased dipsomaniac.
But to medical experts it is as clear as is their own existence that
there are multitudes of persons of both sexes and in all positions
in life, who, though they may never have yielded to the entice-
ments around them, are yet branded with the red-hot iron of alco-
holic heredity. There is no nobler sight on earth than the triumph
of such weighted ones over their lurking and implacable foc—a foo
the more terrible that it lies concealed within their own bosom.
The only safety for all such lies in entire and unconditional absti-
nence from all alcoholic drinks. Such must shun all the alcohols.
Every fermented and distilled liquor is their enemy. Though
added horrors, such as delirium tremens, may be heaped up by a
resort to impure spirits and the heavier alcohols, the purest ethylic
alcohol, or the weakest and most delicate fermented wine, is strong
enough to awaken the dormant appetite, and provoke a thirst too
often, alas! quenched only in death. Whatever their station or
their accomplishments, the subjects of the inherited drink-crave
can abstain or can drink to excess, but drink moderately they can
not. If, in a state of consciousness, they taste an alcoholic bev-
erage at all, whether on the plea of sickness at the prescription of
a physician, or on the plea of religion at the exhortation of a
priest, they are in imminent danger. Their whole system is, as it
were, set on fire. Unless happily enabled to master the giant
appetite in the very first moment of its re-awakened life, they are
truly taken possession of by a physical demon-a demon casily
raised, but once raised, almost beyond the power of even a Hercules
to slay.
"To prevent misapprehension, it is as well here to state that
all the evil resulting from hereditary alcoholism may be transmit-
ted by parents who have never been noted for their drunkenness.
Long continued habitual excessive indulgence in intoxicating
drinks to an extent far short of pronounced intoxication, is not
only sufficient to originate and hand down the morbid tendency,
but is much more likely to do so than even oft-repeated drunken
outbreaks with intervals of perfect sobriety between.
"Men and women on whom this dread inheritance has been
forced without their consent, are everywhere around us, bravely
struggling to lead a pure and sober life; and would it not be but
an act of justice to make every church, every home, and every
land safe for all such afflicted ones by the expulsion of all intoxi-
HEREDITARY INCLINATIONS TO EVIL.
105
cating beverages from our sacred services, from our social gather-
ings, and from within our borders?"
Excepting in cases of idiocy or insanity, children, if healthy,
are born into this world simply with hereditary inclinations to
evil; and they must voluntarily think, will and do evil, and thus
appropriate it to their own lives before it becomes their own. A
child may be born with an hereditary inclination to steal, murder,
commit adultery, drink intoxicating drinks and bear false witness
against others; but if restrained by his parents, and as he comes
to years of maturity, under correct instruction, if he voluntarily
resists the thoughts of, and inclinations to do, these evil acts, is
it not much better than it would be for him to go on and do such
evil deeds? Again, if a man in this world is already a thief, a
murderer, a drunkard and a perjurer, is it not better for him and
the world that he should repent, and cease totally to do these evil
acts, and cease to harbor the thoughts which lead to them, than it
is to be led into doing these evils again?
Let us see what we are taught in the Writings:
"It is well known that a man is in full liberty to think and
will, but not in full liberty to speak and act whatever he thinks
and wills. ** *
"That love of evil which does not appear is like an enemy
lying in wait, or like corrupted matter in an ulcer, poison in the
blood, and rottenness in the breast, which, if kept inclosed, will
produce death. But when man is permitted to think upon the
evils of his life's love, so far even as to intend them, they are
cured by spiritual means, as diseases are by natural means.
Divine Providence, 281.
In regard to hereditary evils, we are told, that to prevent
man's losing the two faculties of liberty and rationality, and thus
becoming insane even until he would not have sense enough to
cover his nakedness, "he is permitted to think and will his hered-
itary evils, but not to speak and do them. In the meantime he
learns things civil, moral and spiritual, which also enter into his
thoughts, and remove these insanities; and thereby he is healed
by the Lord; but yet no further than to know how to keep the
door shut, unless he also acknowledges a God, and implore His
assistance, that he may be able to resist the above evils; and so
far as he then resists, he does not admit them into his intentions,
and at length, not even into his thoughts."—D. P., 281.
·
"The reason why a man is permitted to think evils, even so
far as to intend them, is, as was observed, that they may be
106 FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
removed by considerations of a civil, moral and spiritual nature;
as is the case when he thinks that they are contrary to justice and
equity, to honesty and decency, and to goodness and truth, there-
by contrary to the tranquillity, pleasure, and happiness of life.
By these three considerations the Lord heals the love of man's
will; and at first, indeed, by fear, afterwards by love."
D. P., 283.
There can be no question but that many children actually
acquire an appetite for intoxicating drinks from nursing women
who drink fermented and alcoholic drinks while they are nursing ;
and physicians, we are sorry to say, are often blamable for pre-
scribing such drinks to nursing women.
When the Word of the Lord, as we have seen, pronounces
"wine and drink that maketh drunken" unholy and unclean;
and the wise man of old tells us that we should not even look
upon fermented wine, for "at last it biteth like a serpent and
stingeth like an adder;" and Swedenborg compares such drinks
as cause drunkenness in their effects upon men, to the effects of
the doctrine of faith alone upon the clergy, and to falses from
evil. Is it not time that Christians who profess to believe on the
Lord should put away this evil from their midst; especially when
science, as the result of the most careful and critical experiments
and observations, speaks to us in such plain language as the
above? Religious teachers and writers, and the conductors of our
religious periodicals, must heed the Word of the Lord, the Writ-
ings of the Church, and the testimony of Science, and put away
this evil, and cease to teach young men in our theological schools,
who are training for the ministry, that it is right to use intoxicat-
ing drinks; or their churches and schools, their serials and
periodicals will cease to be patronized by the intelligent men and
women who care for the welfare of their children.
Sceing what we do all around us of the fearful effects of the
use of intoxicating drinks, and with the experience of at least
two-thirds of the community (including women and children) who
abstain from their use, proving that they are entirely unnecessary
for health and happiness, is it possible that any thoughtful
Christian parent, who has examined this subject, even superfi-
cially, can be willing that his children should be taught by the
precepts, and perhaps by the example of their religious teachers,
that it is right and expedient to use as beverages fermented wine,
beer and whisky, and to use the drunkard's cup as a Communion
wine-substances which we know from all experience will cause
THE WISE MEN OF OLD-A CONTRAST.
107
drunkenness sooner or later in a large number of those who drink
them? From statistics gathered in different localities, the highest
number which the writer has noticed that become drunkards, of
those who drink intoxicating drinks, is two out of seven; the lowest
is one out of thirteen. We also know very well that a very large
number who never acquire the reputation of being drunkards,
become irritable, moody, easily excited and subject to diseases of
the brain, kidneys, liver, heart, lungs or stomach; and multitudes,
from the effects of these drinks, die sooner than they otherwise
would. Can careful parents be expected to support or counte-
nance churches, institutions, teachers and periodicals which
directly encourage habits that lead to such dreadful results? Too
long have they done this, and many have done so to their
sorrow.
Alas! alas!! the wise men of old spake of fermented wine in a
different language from that which is used by some of our religious
writers and teachers of this day, when they talk so enthusiastically
of it as "an
an invigorating, pure and wholesome wine," "a smooth,
rich, oily and perfectly clear liquid, "" which transforms a listless
company into a chatty, brilliant and entertaining party." Solo-
mon speaks not of rudeness and incivility banished by it, but of ·
woe and contention brought in; not provoking the sparkle of
brilliant wit, but redness of eyes; not causing æsthetic refine-
ment and chatty entertainment, but causeless wounds and foolish
babbling; and "at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth
like an adder." The Word of the Lord tells us : "Their wine is
the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps" (Deut. xxxii.
33). We know fermented wine is the natural ultimate of such
wine. The fifth "Pentalogue of Budda" (B. C. 560) runs thus:
"Obey the law, walk steadily in the path of purity, and drink not
liquors that intoxicate and disturb the reason.
""
"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."-1 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 in-
flames the soul."—Clement, of Alexandria, a. D. 180.
In all of the above testimony from the wise men of old, and
108
FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
excess;
from the Word of the Lord, there is not the slightest allusion to
it is the fermented wine itself which is condemned.
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.'
(6
Experience says: 'The common and social use of intoxicants,
alcoholic or otherwise, has a physical tendency to create an intem-
perate appetite, insatiate as the grave, making slaves of thousands.'
The Bible answers: Wine deceiveth a lofty man, and enlargeth
his desire as hell, (Hab. ii. 5); it bringeth poverty and pain, sorrow
and remose upon him, yet he crieth, 'I will seek it yet again'
(Prov. xxiii. 35).
6
"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.' The Bible re-echoes: 'Wine is a mocker; wine is a de-
frauder. 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.'
The Bible replies: "Look not upon it, lest thino eyes look upon
strange women and thine heart go after perverse things' (Prov.
xxiii. 33).
· 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 correspond-
ingly commands: 'That God's priests, while doing His work, shall
drink no strong drink, lost they die.'
66
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 (in any
true sense); that alcohol is a mere drug; that it should be pre-
scribed 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
!
THE MODERATION FALLACY.
109
basilisk,' but actually called a poison (Deut. xxxii. 33; Hos. vii.
5; Hab. ii. 15)."-Temperance Bible Commentary.
How can Christians talk of fermented wine making the heart
of man glad, when we all know that it makes the hearts of count-
less multitudes of wives and children, fathers and mothers, brothers
and sisters, unspeakably sad ? How can Christians say that it
increases strength for labor and quickens the wit and understand-
ing, when we know that those who use it most work the least, and
are least fit for work; and that it makes wise men fools and beasts
and mad? How can Christians seriously call it the good gift of
God, when we know that it does nought but the devil's work, and
is a fruitful cause of wretchedness, poverty, disease, insanity, and
premature death; and that it is the fountain whence flows, as
from the mouth of hell, the provocation to lust, violence, murder,
and to every crime against God and man?
But how different from the effects of pure unfermented wine
is the action of fermented wine, may be seen from the testimony
of Judge Davis in the preceding pages.
And yet, in this fearful array of crimes, which are caused by
the drinking of intoxicating liquids, we see but a small share of
the sin, misery and wretchedness which result from their use.
Now can we for a moment suppose that the cause of all this mis-
chief, which stirs up, excites and brings into unrestrained activity
the perverted passions of man, is a harmless, innocent drink, of a
good correspondence, simply used in excess? When has the ex-
cessive use of unfermented wine, milk, water, or any other whole-
some liquid, ever produced the slightest approach to such dire
effects? How perfectly clear it is, if we will but open our eyes, in
the light of this new day, that the tree which bears such fruit
must be an evil tree, of an infernal origin? Let us lay aside
prejudice and preconceived opinions, if possible, and examine
this question in the light of this new day; and, it seems to the
writer, we cannot fail to see the truth on this subject-it is so
plain.
THE MODERATION FALLACY.
In concluding what we have to say of alcohol and fermented
drinks as poisons, we cannot do better than quote a few passages
from the writings of Dr. Benjamin Richardson, of England, who
has unquestionably observed and experimented more carefully,
and for a longer period of time, on the action of alcoholic drinks
110 FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
on the body and mind, than any other man. Speaking of The
Moderation Fallacy,” he says:
"This thought leads me to add a word on what is called the
practice of moderation in the use of alcohol. I believe the
Church of England Temperance Association is divided by two
lines, one of which marks off total abstainers, the other moderate
indulgers. I am one of those who have once been bitten by the
plea of moderate indulgence. Mr. Worldly Wiseman, with his
usual industry, tapped me on the shoulder, as he does every man,
and held a long and plausible palaver on this very subject. If I
had not been a physician he might have converted me. But side
by side with his wisdom there came fortunately the knowledge
which I could not, dare not, ignore, that the mere moderate man
is never safe, neither in the counsel he gives to others, nor in the
practice he follows himself. Furthermore, I observe as a physi-
ological, or perhaps, psychological fact, that the attraction of
alcohol for itself is cumulative. That so long as it is present in a
human body, even in small quantities, the longing for it, the
sense of requirement for it, is present, and that as the amount of
it insidiously increases, so does the desire.
"The mere question of the destructive effect of alcohol on the
membranes of the body alone would be a sufficient study for an
address on the mischiefs of it. I cannot define it better, indeed,
than to say that it is an agent as potent for evil as it is helpless
for good. It begins by destroying, it ends by destruction, and it
implants organic changes which progress independently of its
presence even in those who are not born.
"In my address delivered last year in the Seldonian Theater
at Oxford, I spoke almost exclusively on the facts connected with
the action of alcohol on the body. It seems to me befitting, if on
the present occasion I touch more particularly on the facts con-
nected with the action of alcohol on the mind. Before, however,
I pass to this particular topic, it may be advisable to epitomize
the matter of the Oxford essay, so that those, and they must be
many here, who have not read that essay, may follow the present
argument dealing with mental phenomena, from the argument
which was based on the study of physical phenomena.
"In that essay I endeavored to show from the experimental
evidence I had previously collected, that alcohol, when it finds
its way into the living body, interferes with the oxidation of the
blood; that it interferes with the natural motion of the heart;
that it produces a paralyzing effect on the minute circulation of
EXAMPLE OF MODERATE DRINKERS.
111
the blood at the point of the circulation where the quantity of
the blood admissible into the tissues ought to be duly regulated;
that habitually used in what some-indeed, the majority of those
who indulge in alcoholic drinks-consider a moderate quantity,
it impedes the digestive power; that it induces organic changes
ending in organic diseases of vital organs, such as the liver and
kidneys; that it leads to similar changes in the great nervous
centers, and to destruction of nervous function, ending in
paralysis.
"I further indicated, in the address to which I refer, that
alcohol has no claim whatever to be considered a supporter of the
animal temperature, and no claim whatever to be thought a sup-
porter of muscular power. On the contrary, that, from the
moment a physiological effect is produced in the body by alcohol
and onward, so long as the effect is kept up by the addition of
the agent to the body, the animal heat, the nervous control over
the muscles, and the independent power resident in the muscles
themselves, begin and continue to decline, until at last the body,
cold and senseless, falls to the ground, checked only by its own
utter helplessness, and, as it were, living death, from imbibing
the last drops that would make the death absolute. From all these
facts I reasoned that alcohol could not, in any sense whatever,
be, scientifically, set down as a food for man or any other animal;
that it could not be set down as a necessity for man or any other
animal; that, useless as food, it is mischievous as a luxury; and
that, indulged in as a luxury, it is far too dangerous a destroyer
to be entrusted to the general management of mankind, or to the
hands of those who, because of its luxurious temptations, fall
under its power."
The young man, in his path of life, has no worse enemies to
encounter than temperate drinkers, more aptly named by an
Irishman who had himself once been one of them, "Beginners,"
and Dr. -'s temperance society the "beginners' society.'
The influence of the drunkard on the young amounts to little,
his example disgusts and repels; but that of the beginner may be
fearfully destructive. Well did the wise men of old advise, that
the society of such should be shunned.
It is well known to medical men that a man may have delirium
tremens, and die from this disease, without ever having been
what the temperate drinker calls drunk. Even clergymen not
unfrequently witness such cases. Says the Rev. J. M. Van
Buren :
112 FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
"I have in my knowledge two cases of men dying from
delirium tremens, who were never known to be drunk; steady
moderate drinking was the cause.
Are such men drunkards or are they not? Can any one tell
us where the line of demarkation between the so-called temperate
drinker and the drunkard lies? Surely the chief responsibility
for the drunkenness in the world lies with the "beginners;" for
if men never begin to drink, the race of drunkards will soon be
extinct.
Speaking of those who attempt to justify the use of intoxicat-
ing wines from the Bible, the Rev. J. M. Van Buren, in his
excellent work on Gospel Temperance, says :
"One stands appalled who thinks of the destruction of
multitudes of our youth by the teaching and example of such
men.'
Do not all clergymen and writers for religious periodicals know,
with the example of the victims of moderate drinking lying all
around them, that no young man ever takes his first glass of intox-
icating wine with the thought that it is possible for him to become
a drunkard; but that, step by step, he is lured on by this seductive
fluid; at first only drinking the occasional glass to comply with
the requirement of society or of good fellowship; and then the
gradually increasing amount which he finds is actually necessary
to satisfy the demands of his growing appetite and of his per-
verted organization; and at last when he is shocked and angered
at the intimation that there is danger of his becoming a drunk-
ard, that it is then generally too late; that the first glass has
wrought its deadly work, and he is no longer in the same state
of freedom as when he took that? Do the reverend gentlemen
not know that every drunkard who is not absolutely lost to all
sense of right and shame, after he has had a drunken spree,
or delirium tremens, during which his stomach has revolted at
the approach of renewed potations of the poison, when he takes
his next glass, resolves, oftentimes, as we well know, with prayers
and supplications to the Lord for help, that he will only take
an occasional glass-only "drink temperately?" but that drink,
voluntarily taken, affords a plane for influx from hell; and he
might as well attempt to stem the current of Niagara, forty feet
above the cataract, in a birch bark canoe, as to attempt to stay his
appetite until he has had another drunken bout.
The natural substances around us, Swedenborg shows, derive
their very quality and life either from the Lord or from hell. We
GOOD AND BAD MEN INJURED BY DRINKING.
113
are told by the Swedish seer that all substances which do hurt and
kill men originate from hell. Now it should be perfectly clear to our
Christian brethren that natural drunkenness can only be caused
by a substance or fluid which is a natural receptacle of, and derives
its quality and life from, those false views springing from per-
verted affections which constitute spiritual drunkenness; and this
is beyond question alcohol in some form. One-half, more or less,
of the people of the United States never use intoxicating drinks;
and there is not a single drunkard to be found among this
25,000,000 of people. They may drink all the water or milk, or
even vinegar, they please; they can never become drunkards, so
long as they abstain from alcohol in every form. Many of them
may be spiritual drunkards, and doubtless some of them are; but
they are not natural drunkards—not one of them-any more than
a man who hates, covets, or envies, is a natural murderer. Before
he becomes a murderer he must use some physical agency capable
of killing his fellow-man, it may be a club, pistol, knife, poison,
or his tongue, by uttering foul words of slander; so long as he
simply hates, and never uses any physical instrumentality for
killing the material body, he can never become the murderer of
the physical body of man; and hateful acts do not always kill a
man, any more than the use of intoxicating drinks always cause
drunkenness, or kill a man; but every hateful act, like every glass
containing alcohol, is always injurious to the man who indulges in
such perversions.
It is, then, only when, from a perverted state of either the un-
derstanding or will, the man forsakes healthy food which nour-
ishes and cheers without exciting, and partakes of the natural
symbols of the falses which cause spiritual drunkenness, that
natural drunkenness ever ensues. And a very important truth
should here be borne in mind by every man and woman, before
they allow themselves to partake of intoxicating drinks; and that
is, that neither goodness, intelligence, nor ignorance, shields any
one from a growing appetite, discase, and drunkenness, who par-
takes at all of the natural substances which afford a plane for the
influx of spirits who are in states of spiritual drunkenness. It is
not necessary that the individual himself should be in such a
state, for the same quantity of fermented wine will cause drunk-
enness in the case of a good and intelligent man, as soon as in that
of an evil and ignorant one. The serpent, or the sensual principle,
seduces man; therefore the danger of wine-drinking. The advo-
cates for the use of intoxicating drinks seem to forget these great
114 FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
truths; and further, that there can be no spiritual reformation
of man, which does not ultimate itself in his external life.
Drunkenness can never cease until men stop drinking intoxicating
drinks, as all history proves, any more than murders can cease
until men stop using deadly instruments and bad words. The evil
must first be resisted in external act and from the standpoint of con-
science. We must first stop doing evil, then we may be able to stop
thinking, and only after that can we stop willing evil. Such is
the order of regeneration as taught in the writings of the Church.
Stop drinking intoxicating drinks, and drunkenness inevitably
ceases; and such evil spirits as are spiritual drunkards, having no
natural medium through which to flow into the external life of
man, men will be left in freedom from such influx; and then, and
not till then, we may hope and expect that spiritual drunkenness
will begin to cease on earth; but the work must commence at the
bottom, on the natural plane, and from spiritual motives. In other
words, we must shun the use of those drinks which cause natural
drunkenness, as a sin against God; their use violating the laws of
health, both in our physical and spiritual organizations. This is
our first duty, if we would avoid either natural or spiritual drunk-
enness.
Since writing the above, we are happy to find, in the columns
of the Morning Light, an earnest remonstrance by Mr. T. Platt,
of Burslem, England, against the promulgation of such erroneous
and pernicious views on this subject, as are contained in a sermon
published in a religious periodical. We will add the closing
paragraph:
"The good
would almost seem to have temperance
work upside down in his mind. The abstainer has seen the fiend,
conscience has felt the sin before heaven, and the internal bond of
a high, holy, and pure resolve has ultimated itself in the external
vow and work for the dethronement of the demon, and its banish-
ment by prohibition, if possible, from inside of old England's
national cup and platter, that the outside thereof may also be clean
and fair to the eyes of the peoples of the earth. Thousands of
honest men and true have coupled true temperance with a sincere
acknowledgment of the Lord's truth and power, and have thereby
overcome its spiritual cause! The text (resplendent in its own
truth), but ill-aimed for once from the discourse it was to give
effect to, merely glances along the precipitous heights of modera-
tion, but touches not the temperance tower of refuge, which,
basking in the warm rays of love to God and man, still stands a
(
ALCOHOL INJURIOUS TO HEALTHY ACTION.
115
mighty reclaiming power from that spirit of evil whose potent
spell unmans man, unwomans woman, turns the mother's milk
into a monster's venom, fires men to do things they would revolt
from in their serener moments,' and, let me add, peoples the hells!
Permit me, then, with the memory of a sire a victim to the curse,
the cares of a ruined family devolving upon me in consequence,
the still uneffaced years of misery which marked the track from
the 'allowed' moderation to a grave as yet scarcely closed, to
appeal to
in the name of love and pity not to again
publish a discourse on this question which may be grasped as an
excuse by some poor brother unconsciously nearing the dreadful
vortex! There is, alas! too much truth in the homely lines of the
Preston poet, who wrote:
'Ye men of sups and little drops,
Ye moderation muddlers,
Ye are the men that raised the seed
Of regular drunken fuddlers.'
We are told in a religious serial that:
} })
Many accredited authors acknowledge that alcohol, so far from being
a poison, is a food. The organism may for a variable period subsist exclu-
sively upon even absolute alcohol, one to one and a half ounces, daily, and
actually gain in weight."
Alcohol, like opium, and some other poisons, retards, and,
under certain circumstances, may temporarily stop the waste or
removal of worn-out substances through the kidneys, bowels,
lungs and skin, which is so necessary for the health of the body;
and alcohol, when taken into the stomach, craves water and robs
the tissues, and may even absorb some moisture from the atmos-
phere; but no intelligent physiologist, admitting all that our
opponents claim, would say that such gaining in weight would be
a healthy gain. A man would gain in weight by eating putrid or
decaying animal flesh, or rotting vegetables, or rattlesnakes,
poison and all; but does that make such substances healthy and
proper food? To the dog, decaying animal flesh is natural food,
for his organism is adapted to its use, and he even delights in the
odor arising therefrom; but it is not grateful to the cat nor to
man, any more than the breath of the man who drinks intoxi-
cating drinks is pleasant to the temperate man. It does seem
that the advocates for the use of intoxicants must be very hard
116 FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
pressed for legitimate arguments, when they will descend to such
arguments as the above.
Alcohol, we repeat, and at this day it cannot be repeated too
often, is the "prince of poisons,"-more to be feared and shunned
than the poison which causes diphtheria and typhoid diseases.
Where is the parent who cares for the present and future of his
children, who would not rather see his son sick with diphtheria or
typhoid fever from contaminated water, than to see him drunk,
or suffering from delirium tremens. There is no other poison on
earth which, when voluntarily taken, so perverts, diseases,
pollutes and degrades a man, both physically and spiritually, as
does alcohol. How can any man encourage and justify the use of
such a fluid ?
Still further, an advocate for the use of intoxicants has dis-
covered that a medical writer has declared that alcohol is useful
in some cases of hemorrhage; and therefore he would apparently
have the reader infer that it is a good and useful beverage for the
healthy. That alcohol, like other poisons, may sometimes be used
advantageously as a remedy, we do not question. Its action is
to paralyze the capillary vessels, and thereby fill them with blood;
and in cases of hemorrhage, by thus temporarily storing up the
blood in these minute vessels, and preventing the heart from forc-
ing it out of the body through the ruptured vessels, and by thus
congesting the minute vessels of the brain, it may perhaps pre-
vent fatal syncope or fainting; and when thus used as a medicine
it may be useful. But there are much better and safer remedies.
So is ergot, or spurred rye, useful for restraining hemorrhages;
but its continued use causes gangrene of the feet; a disease no
more peculiarly the effects of this poison, than drunkenness is of
alcohol. It is strange that men of intelligence should bring for-
ward such an argument to justify the use of intoxicating drinks.
We have made several quotations from the writings of Dr. B.
W. Richardson, and we wish to call the attention of teachers and
students, and others, to a recent work of his, entitled " Temper-
ance Lesson-Book on Alcohol and its Action on the Body, de-
signed for Reading in Schools and Families.' It should be studied
in every family and school. The following, at the end of the last
chapter, is a summary of the lessons contained therein, and will
give the reader some idea of the importance of the book. There
is no higher medical authority upon this subject than Dr. Richard-
son, for no one has experimented and watched the effects of alco-
hol more carefully than he has :
DR. RICHARDSON ON INTOXICANTS.
117
"Now that we have learned so much about alcohol as it ap-
pears under the many disguises of strong drinks, we are, I trust,
armed by our knowledge against its evil influences.
We shall,
however, still find many to defend the use of alcohol, for many,
very many, are still ignorant about it; many, very many, are
strongly prejudiced in favor of it; many, very many, are so fond
of it they cannot help praising it as a good thing for themselves,
and therefore as a good thing for everybody. Such is the strange
perversity of the human mind, that numbers of people who are
going wrong, and who know they are going wrong, in the use of
alcohol will still persist in their error, and with their eyes open to
the wrong they are doing, will persist in leading others with them.
It is one part of the madness inflicted by alcohol on its friends,
that deceives them and in turn makes them deceivers.
"You will have often in your lives to listen to the arguments
of these persons. They will tell you a great deal of error, which
you must be ready to hear, and at once recognize as error.
You
will be told that alcohol is a food because it warms the body.
You know what that is worth. You know that alcohol only
makes the body feel warm because it causes more warm blood to
come to the surface of the body, there to lose its heat and leave
the body colder. You know that cold and alcohol exercise the
same kind of influence on the body, and that when working in
the cold, even in the extremest cold, that man will work longest
and best who avoids alcohol altogether.
"You will be told that alcohol is a food because it gives
strength to the body and helps men and women to do more
work. You know what that is worth. You know that the action
of alcohol is to lessen the muscular power; that it weakens the
muscles, and that, carried a little too far, it disables them for
work altogether, so that they cannot support the weight of the
body. You know also from the experience of men who have
performed great feats of strength and endurance that such men
have been obliged to abstain from alcohol completely in order to
succeed in their efforts, and have beaten other men by reason of
their careful abstinence.
"You will be told that alcohol is a food, because it makes the
body fat and plump and well nourished. You know what that is
worth. You know that there is nothing in alcohol that can make
any vital structure of the body; you know that the best that can
be said about alcohol in this matter is, that in some forms in which
it is taken, as beer for instance, it may, because of the sugar in
118
FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
such drink, add fat to the body; and you know that this is really
not a good addition, because much fat interferes with the motion
of the vital organs, makes the body heavy and unwieldy, and
getting into the structure of organs, such as the heart or kidneys,
makes these organs incapable of work, and so destroys life.
((
You will be told that alcohol makes you digest your food, and
helps people with weak digestion to enjoy their food and digest it.
You know what that is worth. You know that every other animal
except man can enjoy and digest food without alcohol, and that
men who never touch alcohol may have excellent digestive power.
You know also that alcohol impairs digestion, and that in thousands
of people it keeps up a continual state of indigestion, and that the
indigestion itself is a temptation to these to take alcohol to a fatal
excess.
You will be told that if alcohol be not a food, in the strict
sense of the word, it is, notwithstanding, a luxury which a man
cannot do without with comfort to himself; that it cheers the
heart, and is necessary for mirth and pleasure. You know what
that is worth. You know that young people, like yourselves, can
laugh and play and be as happy as the day is long without ever
tasting a drop of alcohol. You know that hundreds of men and
women are as happy as they can be without a drop of alcohol, and
are much freer from worry and anger and care about mere trifles
than are those who take alcohol. You know, moreover, that after
men or women have been cheered, as they call it, by alcohol,
they suffer a corresponding depression, and are made often so
miserable that life is a burden to them until once again they have
recourse to their cause of short happiness and long sorrow.
"Lastly, whatever argument you may hear in favor of alcohol,
you are now fully aware of its fatal power; how it kills men and
women wholesale, sending some to the grave straightway, and
some to the grave through that living grave, the asylum for the
insane.
"This is your knowledge. I would not advise you as juniors
to intrude it in argument on your seniors, for that were presump-
tuous. But treasure it in your hearts. Let it keep you in the
path of perfect abstinence from alcohol in every disguise, and
believo me, as a man who has seen much of men, that your example
will be all the more effective with older persons because it is a
young example. Believe, finally, that you yourselves will, under
the rule of total abstinence, grow up strengthened in wisdom,
industry and happiness, and that your success in life will reward
1
DR. RICHARDSON ON INTOXICANTS.
119
you a thousand-fold for every sacrifice of false indulgence in that
great curse of mankind-strong drink."
In the first chapter of the work, the writer says:
"To persons who have never tasted intoxicating drinks many
of them are nauseous when first tasted. Even to grown-up men,
who have never before taken these liquids into their mouths, the
first taste is like that which is felt on taking a medicine. The
taste is said to be bitter in respect to ales, clammy and sickening
in respect to porter and stout, burning and sickening in respect to
spirits, and burning and sour, or burning and sweet, in respect to
the wines.
"In all my experience I never once knew a person who liked
the first taste of any of the drinks we are now thinking about.
This fact seems to me to show clearly that it was never intended
that human beings should take these drinks regularly. If that
had been intended, the drinks would have been made and given to
us in a form that would have been pleasant to the taste, or at all
events in a form that would not be so unpleasant, that the instinct-
ive or natural feeling is opposed to them. Water and milk are
natural drinks. They are neither bitter nor nauseous, nor acid,
nor burning, and therefore even the youngest infants and children
take them without dislike, and look for them with quite a longing
desire when they want to drink.
“It is a lesson early to be remembered, and so I write it down
carly in this book, that although there are so many drinks made
and sold as beers, wines, and spirits, none of them are fitted to
the first natural wants and desires of man. I gather from the
facts before us that the said drinks are therefore not wanted
at all."
We hope all students and the young men and maidens of the
Christian Church will hear and heed these important words.
The editors of a religious periodical say, truly:
"The evil loves which cause both spiritual and natural drunk-
enness seem to bo akin and reducible to love of self and self-
conceit, with such as are 'wise in their own eyes and intelligent in
their own sight.
119
This is strictly true; a man may be surrounded by falses, or
by intoxicating drinks, but so long as he does not drink or appro-
priate them to his life, spiritually or physically, they are simply
falses not from evil, and can never cause either spiritual or natural
intoxication. When, however, from self-love and self-conceit, he
begins to imbibo them, and thinks he can nourish his spiritual and
:
120 FERMENTED WINE AND ALCOHOL ARE POISONS.
*
}
physical organizations by falses and poisonous natural substances
which correspond to such falses; and especially if he has become
so conceited as to think he can do this with safety, then he is in
the greatest possible danger of becoming both a spiritual and
natural drunkard. It is not, then, the existence of falses, or of
intoxicating drinks, which causes spiritual and natural drunken-
ness, but the drinking or appropriating them to our spiritual and
physical organizations.
·
"The condemnation of wine by the leading prophets," says the
Rev. Dr. Samson, "is universal. Jeremiah pictures 'the man
whom wine hath overcome' (xxiii. 9), and 'nations drunk with
wine' (li. 7). Ezekiel reproduces the law 'neither shall any priest
drink wine' (xliv. 21). Zechariah declares that the Israelites in
their moral abandonment at Christ's coming would be like men
'drinking' to drown sensibility, who 'make a noise through wine.'
Zechariah puts the healthful tirosh, 'new wine,' which maidens
at the Messiah's coming will partake, into direct contrast with
the yayin, or intoxicating wine,' which 'noisy' brawlers will
drink (ix. 15, 17). Haggai mentions it among the simple natural
products of the land of Israel in the latter day (i. 11).”
C
"It is worthy of note," says the Rev. W. M. Thayer, "that the
Bible supports the view that alcohol is poison. The Hebrew word
for 'poison' is khamah. This word is found in the two following
passages with others: 'Adder's poison is under their lips.' (Ps.
cxl. 3).
'Their wine is the poison of dragons.' (Deut. xxxii. 33.)
If the idea of 'poison' is found in the first passage, so it is in the
second. Hence some commentators translate the passage in Habak-
kuk ii. 15, thus: 'Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink,
that putteth thy khamah (poison) to him!' Instead of 'bottle,'
St. Jerome's version has it 'poison,''gall.' Montanus has it, 'thy
poison.' Dr. John Gill says, the word is sometimes translated,
'thy gall,' 'thy poison.' Parkhurst defines khamah, 'inflamma-
tory poison.' Archbishop Newcome has 'gall,' 'poison.' The
Bible declares that wine 'biteth like a serpent and stingeth
like an adder.' Dr. John Mair, of Edinburgh, staff-surgeon
to her Britannic Majesty's army, remarks upon this passage:
'Is there not something to be gathered from this singular fact?
Does it not tend to show that alcohol is no ordinary poison;
but that it possesses qualities assimilating it to the poison of ser-
pents, which render it peculiarly the enemy of man, to be shunned
by him as venomous reptiles are, almost instinctively?'"
CHAPTER V.
TWO KINDS OF WINE, ONE UNFERMENTED AND THE OTHER
FERMENTED, BOTH CALLED WINE IN ALL AGES.
THE question as to the existence of two kinds of wine has been
most carefully and fully examined within the last half century by
a large number of distinguished scholars, who have devoted much
time and have critically and carefully examined this subject in all
of its various aspects.
Honest, conscientious, God-fearing men, looking abroad upon
the direful evils which exist all around us to-day, and which the
history of our race shows always have followed the drinking of
fermented wine and other intoxicating drinks, have been moved
by sympathy and love of their fellow-men to inquire, in the increas-
ing light of this new day, if the "customs, traditions and doctrines
of men
upon this subject of wine, have not made the Word of
God of none effect among men until an unclean and poisonous
fluid has taken the place of the good wine of the Word, "the fruit
of the vine," as a beverage, and even in the most holy ordinance
of the Church. It is something for a man to lay aside his precon-
ceived ideas, and his love of the prevailing evils which the truth
condemns, so as to be able to see the truth; and yet the men who
have made the wine question a special, critical and faithful study
in the light of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, ancient history
and customs, and of the sciences of this day, have, with a una-
nimity which would be surprising to one not familiar with the facts,
come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of wine mentioned
in the Bible, one good and the other bad. One of these writers
says:
(
'In all the passages where good wine is named, there is no lisp
of warning, no intimation of danger, no hint of disapprobation,
but always of decided approval. How bold and strongly marked
is the contrast:
"The one the cause of intoxication, of violence, and of woes;
"The other the occasion of comfort and of peace.
"The one the cause of irreligion and of self-destruction ;
122
TWO KINDS OF WINE-BOTH CALLED WINE.
"The other the devout offering of piety on the altar of God.
“The one the symbol of the divine wrath ;
"The other the symbol of spiritual blessings.
"The one the emblem of eternal damnation ;
"The other the emblem of eternal salvation."-Bíble Wines.
Another writer says:
"The distinction in quality between the good and the bad wine,
is as clear as that between good and bad men, or good and bad
wives, or good and bad spirits; for one is the constant subject of
-warning, designated poison literally, analogically, and figuratively;
while the other is commended as refreshing and innocent, which
no alcoholic wine is."-Lees' Appendix, p. 232.
Professor Moses Stuart says: "Wine and strong drink are a
good, a blessing, a token of divine favor, and to be ranked with
corn and oil. The same substances are also an evil. Their use is
prohibited; and woe is denounced to all who seek for them. Is
there a contradiction here-a paradox incapable of any satisfactory
solution? Not at all. We have seen that these substances were
employed by the Hebrews in two different states; the one was a
fermented state, the other an unfermented one.
Is there
any serious difficulty now in acquitting the Scriptures of contra-
diction in respect to this subject? I do not find any.
can only say, that to me it seems plain-so plain that no wayfaring
man need to mistake it.
* *
* **
I
'My final conclusion is this, viz.: that, whenever the Script-
ures speak of wine as a comfort, a blessing, or a libation to God,
and rank it with such articles as corn and oil, they mean-they
can mean-only such wine as contained no alcohol, that could have
a mischievous tendency; that wherein they denounce it, prohibit
it, and connect it with drunkenness and reveling, they can mean
only alcoholic or intoxicating wine.
"If I take the position that God's Word and works entirely
harmonize, I must take the position that the case before us is as I
have represented it to be."
Rev. Dr. E. Nott, late President of Union College, in his fourth
lecture says:
"That unintoxicating wines existed from remote
antiquity, and were held in high estimation by the wise and good,
there can be no reasonable doubt. The evidence is unequivocal
and plenary."
"We know that then, as now, inebriety
existed; and then, as now, the taste for inebriating wines may
have been the prevalent taste, and intoxicating wines the popular
wines. Still unintoxicating wines existed, and there were men who
* * *
TESTIMONY OF DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS.
123
preferred such wines, and who have left on record the avowal of
that preference."-Nott, Lon. ed. p. 85.
"Dr. Adam Clarke, in his note on the butler's dream, says:
'From this we find that wine anciently was the mere expressed
juice of the grape, without fermentation. The saky, or cup-bearer,
took the bunch, pressed the juice into the cup, and instantly
delivered it into the hands of his master. This was anciently the
yayin of the Hebrews, the oinos of the Greeks, and the mustum of
the ancient Latins.' In his tract on the Sacrament he says vinum
in place of mustum.”
At an early period of the temperance reformation, "Mr. E. C.
Delavan, having been referred to the late Prof. George Bush as a
learned Biblical scholar from whom he might obtain correct infor-
mation as to Bible temperance, visited him in his library, and
stated to him his views on the wine question. With promptness
he condemned them, and, referring to a text, he said: 'This verse
upsets your theory.' When asked to refer to the original, he did
so, and with amazement said: 'No permission to drink intoxica-
ting wine here. I do not care about wine, and it is very seldom
that I taste it, but I have felt until now at liberty to drink, in
moderation, from this verse.' Being entreated to make this a
subject of special and particular examination, he said he would.
At a subsequent visit he thus greeted Mr. Delavan: You have
the whole ground, and, in time, the whole Christian world will be
obliged to adopt your views.' At the request of Mr. Delavan,
he published his views in the New York Observer.”—Enquirer,
August, 1869. This testimony is the more valuable as it is not
only the result of a careful examination of the original languages,
but the honest surrender to the force of evidence of a previous
conviction."-Rev. Wm. Patton, D.D.
(
Prof. Bush lived at a period when it was almost universally
believed to be right to drink fermented wine; he felt free to use
it, but was not regularly addicted to its use, nor was he so strongly
confirmed in his belief but that he could in freedom examine the
question in the light of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Can
we really think his opinion, formed after a critical examination of
the subject, is entitled to no more respect than that of the editors
of some of our religious periodicals, who manifestly have only the
most superficial knowledge of the subject.
Similar to the above, as we shall hereafter show in the follow-
ing pages, is the testimony of a host of distinguished scholars,
among whom we will here name Prof. Taylor Lewis, Dr. Norman
124 TWO KINDS OF WINE-BOTH CALLED WINE.
Kerr, Rev. G. W. Sampson, Rev. William Ritchie, Rev. Geo.
Duffield, D.D., Dr. Frederic Richard Lees, F.S.A., Rev. Dawson
Burns, A.M., Rev. C. H. Fowler, D.D., Rev. Wm. Patton, D.D.,
Rev. Wm. M. Thayre, Leon C. Field, A.M., and Rev. J. M. Van
Buren.
All of these have examined this question with great care and
written one or more works in which they have stated the results
of their examination. Some of the above writers have spent years
in their investigations, and have visited Egypt, Palestine and
Syria once or more, seeking for evidence amid the monuments
and tombs, as well as from the traditions and present customs of
the inhabitants. It would seem that the testimony of so large a
number of as able and distinguished scholars as the world has
ever produced, who have made the study of the wine question a
specialty, is worthy of respectful consideration at least; and that
no honest conscientious Christian man, who cares for the welfare
of his fellow-men can totally ignore, or treat with contempt the
testimony of the distinguished scholars named above, especially
upon a question so important as the one under consideration.
A layman writes: "That intelligent people should, in this
nineteenth century, still endeavor to make the example of Jesus
a justification for the use of alcoholic liquors, in the face of His
simple, positive and emphatic declaration, 'By their fruits ye
shall know them,' 'A good tree will not bring forth evil fruit,'
seems almost incomprehensible, and illustrates the potent and
blinding influence of custom and tradition."
Can we for a moment suppose that there is no difference
between the "wine that maketh glad the heart of man ”—the
wine which Melchizedek, priest of the most high God, brought
forth with bread-the wine which we are told "cheereth God and
man," of which we are directed to drink abundantly, and the wine
which is likened to "the poison of dragons and the cruel venom
of asps "-the wine of which we are told the "nations have
drunken and are mad,"-the wine which we are told in ancient
proverbs "is a mocker" upon which we are warned not even to
look with a longing eye, for it causes woe, sorrow, contentions,
babbling, wounds without cause and redness of eyes, and "at the
last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder."
A distinguished clergyman, who has since gone to his reward,
wrote a short time before his death:
"I can never forget the experience already related to you
before, when Mr. my wife's brother-in-law, a gentleman of
A DOCTOR OF DIVINITY'S STATEMENTS.
125
classical education, had become a sober man through my efforts,
and received the heavenly doctrines. He read Swedenborg and
was a happy man. Then came the Lord's Supper, and we had
fermented California wine. I handed him the cup, he drank, and
after church he fled to some place where wine could be had, came
home late in the evening drunk, and continued drinking for three
months, until he died one evening after being brought home beastly
drunk. Unfermented wine is no seducer, and had Mr. been
given such in the Sacrament, he might be living a sober man
to-day. Your books on the 'Wine Question' deserve, therefore,
all that you have done and expended under the Lord's guidance
for their publication and circulation; and God only knows how
much good they will yet have to do.”
And yet, in the face of the testimony of the distinguished
scholars already named and of many others, given after a most crit-
ical examination of the whole subject, we have a Rev. Doctor of
Divinity (and he is not the only Doctor of Divinity who has used
similar language), whose writings manifest not the slightest evi-
dence that he has ever examined the question with any special
care, flippantly declaring to the religious world through a religious
periodical, which enters the homes of the young and innocent,
that:
"This notion of two wines, one fermented, and the other unfermented,
must be dismissed as a pure invention, unsupported by any facts, unsanc-
tioned by any scholarship. There was but one wine 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."
And the above paragraph, and more of a similar character, is
thoughtlessly published by several of our religious papers, as though
its statements and representations were unquestionably true.
How far these statements are from the truth, and from well
known facts, the reader will be able to judge after reading the fol-
lowing pages; and especially if he will obtain and read the author's
larger work on the "Wine Question." Surely if the clergyman just
quoted had made himself familiar with the writings of the distin-
guished scholars above named, modesty—even if he were blinded
so as not to be able to see the truth-would have induced him to
use different language from the above. But it is evident that he
did not realize what he was writing, therefore we may excuse him;
and may the Lord forgive him for the great harm which he has
unquestionably done to the cause of truth and to his fellow-men ;
126
TWO KINDS OF WINE-BOTH CALLED WINE.
and in His boundless love and mercy He may do it; but it will
not be so easy for the poor, suffering, struggling mother or wife,
as she sees her loved child or husband becoming a drunkard
through the influence of this teaching, to forgive the writer for
sending false teachings into her home to be read by her child or
husband, however much it may be her duty to do so.
Another advocate for the use of intoxicating wine says:
"The history of the doctrine of unfermented Bible wine cannot be
carried back beyond a few decades; and this fact furnishes a préjugé légitime
against it."
To the above Leon C. Field, in his work on "Oinos, a Discus-
sion on the Bible Wine Question," published on 1883, by Phillips
& Hunt, New York, says:
"As to the argument from scholarship, it is sufficient to say,
there are many and eminent authorities, inferior to none and
superior to most in scholarship, who do unhesitatingly affirm the
existence and use of unfermented wine in Bible lands and times.
They have as complete access to the evidence in the case, and are
as competent judges of its validity and bearing, as either of the
authors we have quoted or as any of the authorities whom they
have cited. We need only mention Moses Stuart, Eliphalet Nott,
Alonzo Potter, George Bush, Albert Barnes, William M. Jacobus,
Tayler Lewis, George W. Samson, F. R. Lees, Norman Kerr, and
Canon Farrar. As to the préjugé légitime, this is not the first
instance in which it has been appealed to for the sanction of error.
There has rarely ever been a bad cause in whose support it was
not invoked. The almost universal interpretation of the Bible in
defense of the doctrine of passive obedience was pronounced a
préjugé légitime against the right of resistance to tyrants in
Charles the Second's day. That interpretation, however, has gone
for very little since the Revolution of 1688. The almost universal
interpretation of the Bible in support of the system of human
slavery was deemed a préjugé légitime against the right and duty
of abolition, a quarter of a century ago. That interpretation,
also, has been worth very little since the crisis of civil war and
the act of emancipation. But the principle upon which the non-
jurors argued the divine obligation of passive obedience, and the
slave-holders defended the divine authority of human chattelism,
is precisely the same as that now employed in upholding the
theory of a divine sanction for intoxicating wine. The old lesson
must once more be learned, that a traditional interpretation of
THE TESTIMONY OF THE DICTIONARIES.
127
Scripture is not conclusive proof of any doctrine, but is often an
obscuration of the truth of God."
Wine, like cider, is a generic name, given to the juice of grapes--
it may be new or old, unfermented or fermented, concentrated or
diluted, it is still wine. The juice of other fruits and berries is
also often called wine.
Dr. Adam Clarke says: "The Hebrew, Greek, and Latin words
which are rendered 'wine,' mean simply the expressed juice of the
grape." Hence we find that different words in the Bible are
translated “wine," which proves that wine is a generic term, and
covers the stores of all sorts of wine spoken of in Nehemiah, v.
18. At the present day, also, the term is used in precisely this
manner. It may mean grape, currant, raspberry, whortleberry,
elderberry, madeira, port, sherry, and a hundred other wines. It
may refer to new, old, sweet, sour, weak, or strong wines. It may
refer to enforced or unenforced, fermented or unfermented wine.
Pliny says that, in his day (lib. 14, cap. 22), the term covered
one hundred and eighty-five different kinds of wine."
(6
THE TESTIMONY OF DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS.
Webster, speaking of must, says that it is "wine pressed from
the grape not fermented," and Worcester says that must is new
wine; thus both recognize the recently expressed juice of the
grape as wine; consequently that there are two kinds of wine-
one unfermented and the other fermented.
We shall hereafter find that the translators of the Bible into
English have repeatedly recognized the fact that the unfermented
juice of the grape as it is squeezed from the grapes, and trodden
from grapes, and as it flows from the press, is wine; for they have
translated it by the English word wine, thus clearly recognizing
the fact that there are two kinds of wine.
But it is not to recent and English dictionaries alone that we
should appeal. Says a distinguished writer :
Very soon the question arose, May not common honesty
demand that we interpret the Scriptures with the eye, the taste
and the usages of the ancients; and, not with the eye, the taste
and usages of the moderns?'
"As Dr. Beard says: 'It is among the native Aramæan popu-
lation 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. Ten years back only a few philologists
knew that wine, 100, 200, 300 and 1800 years ago, included 'un-
128 TWO KINDS OF WINE-BOTH CALLED WINE.
fermented wines,' but the fact is not less certain because modern
usago and taste have changed. A modern dictionary cannot
destroy the former meaning of antique words, but ought to pre-
serve their respective and successive senses by careful induction of
historical usage. 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.'"-Bible Com.
(
Not knowing these important facts-for knowing them we can-
not for a moment suppose that they persistently ignore them—our
critics continually exclaim: "There is but one kind of wine, be-
cause wine' is defined in the dictionaries as the fermented juice
of the grape.
They ignore totally the fact that must is also
called wine even in recent English dictionaries.
""
Scholars who have the most critically examined this question
tell us :
"This is not true of the oldest dictionaries, and the modern
ones cannot settle the usage of words in ancient times—but only
induction from the literature of antiquity. A modern lexicon
may define wine as 'the fermented juice of the grape,' but what
said the greatest of the logicians of the thirteenth century-Thomas
Aquinas? Discoursing (the original can be seen in 'Migne's Patrolo-
giæ,' 4th book, 74th sec. 5th art.) of the proper substance to be
used in the cucharist, he says: Grape-juice (mustum) has the
specific quality of wine'-speciem vini. The objector falls into
the fallacy of excluding the mare' from the genus 'horse'; for,
though fermented juice is wine,' it is so not to the exclusion of
the first form of wine--namely, the unfermented juice. That the
Angelical Doctor' was right, usage will show :
(6
เ
Hippocrates (B. c. 400), in his work on diet, says :
"Glukus is less fitted to make the head heavy * ** than
OTHER WINE (oinòdeos).'
'Athenæus, the Grammarian (A. D. 280), in his 'Banquet' (lib.
i. s. 54):
"The Mitylenæans have a sweet wino (glukun OINON), what
they call prodromos, and others call it protropos.
"And again (ii. 24), he says to the dyspeptic tippler :
“Let him take sweet wine, either mixed with water or warmed,
especially that kind called protropos, the sweet Lesbian glukus, as
being good for the stomach; for sweet WINE (oinos) does not make
the head heavy.'
TESTIMONY OF THE DICTIONARIES, ETC.
129
“Dioscorides (A. D. 90), in his 'Materia Medica,' expressly ranks
the Roman SAPA, 'boiled wine'-Hebrew sovai or sobai-under
the genus VINI.'
C
"Lord Bacon, in his 'Natural History' (1597), says:
* *
"As wines which at first pressing run gently yield a more
pleasant taste,
so observations which flow from Script-
ure gently expressed and naturally expounded are most whole-
some and sweet.'
"Parkinson (1640), in the 'Theatrum Botanicum,' says: 'The
juice or liquor pressed out of the grape is called VINUM-wine.'
"W. Robertson, M.A., Cambridge (1693), in 'Phraseologia
Generalis '-WINE; vinum, MERUM.-New WINE; mustum. - New
wine that runs out without pressing; mustum lixivium.—WINE
prest; VINUM tortivum.-WINE yet on the tree; VINUM pendens.'
"F. E. J. Valpy, M.A., in Etymological Dictionary' (1838),
says:
เ
"Mustus; new, fresh, young. Hence, Mustum; i. e., VINUM,
fresh WINE-as Merum for Merum VINUM.'
"Baron Liebeg, in 'Letters on Chemistry' (2d series, 1844),
wrote:
* * *
'If a flask be filled with grape-juice, and made air-tight, and
then kept for a few hours in boiling water,
does not ferment' (p. 198).
THE WINE
"The fermentation of WINE and of beer wort are not isolated
phenomena.'
"The WINE is left to ferment.
left to ferment. One of the WINE-growers of
the Duchy,'" etc.
"E. Chambers, F.R.S., in his 'Cyclopedia' (6th ed. 1750),
has the following, a mere translation from an older French dic-
tionary :
"WINE, in France, is distinguishable into — Mère-goutte,
mother-drop"; which is the "VIRGIN-WINE," which runs of
itself out of a tap in the vat. Must, surmust, or stum; which is
the WINE or liquor in the vat, after the grapes have been trod.
Pressed WINE, VIN de pressurage;” is that squeezed with a press
out of the grapes. Sweet WINE, "VIN doux," is that which has
not yet fermented. Natural WINE is such as comes from the grape
without mixture. Burnt WINE is that boiled up with sugar.
There is also a sort of Malmsey WINE, made by boiling of Musca-
dine.'”—Bible Commentary.
“Dr. A. Russell, in his 'Natural History of Aleppo,' considers
its wine (Helbon) to have been a species of sapa. He says: 'The
130
TWO KINDS OF WINE-BOTH CALLED WINE.
inspissated juice of the grape, sapa vina, called here dibbs, is
brought to the city in skins and sold in the public markets; it has
much the appearance of coarse honey, is of a sweet taste, and in
great use among the people of all sorts.'"-Kitto, ii. 956.
"But it is unnecessary to further multiply examples. Every-
where the freshly expressed, unfermented juice of the grape is
recognized and defined as wine by scholars, scientists, lexicog-
raphers, encyclopedists, and the people generally.'
""
So the reader will see that they who advocate the "one
wine theory" are not even sustained in their views by the diction-
aries and encyclopedias, new or old. When this inquiry was first
raised as to what the Sacred Scriptures really teach as to wines, it
became manifest that for a correct understanding of the apparently
conflicting passages, it was necessary not only to study the Sacred
Scriptures in the original languages more critically and carefully,
but also to study the habits and customs of the ancients, at the
various periods when the different books of the Word were written.
Diligent students commenced the careful study of the writings of
the ancients with special reference to the points we are considering ;
and they have gathered an immense amount of information which
shows conclusively that the ancients were in the habit of making
two kinds of wine, one unfermented and the other fermented, and
that they were both called wine. Of one kind, ancient writers say
it will not intoxicate; but of the other, that it will.
The writer in this work has called attention to, and made
quotations from, a large number of such works. Take, for
instance, "The Temperance Bible Commentary," containing 469
pages, written by Rev. Dawson Burns and Dr. F. R. Lees, in which
every word and sentence in´the Bible referring to wine and strong
drink has been most critically examined, both as to the origin of
the words and as to their true meaning; and all fully illustrated
by the habits and customs of the ancients.
The above-named work is the result of years of the most careful
investigation, research and study, and of this work distinguished
scholars have said :
"It is unique in its kind as a collection and fair presentation
of everything in Scripture that can possibly bear on the question.
It sets before us the whole matter-Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac,
Chaldee.
"Regarded simply as a Biblical treatise, having no reference
to a much disputed moral question, it would be pronounced by
TESTIMONY OF ANCIENT WRITERS.
131
scholars a work of high philological value.”—Professor Tayler
Lewis, Union College.
"The more I look into this noble work, the more do I admire
its breadth, depth, and exhaustiveness. It is a truly grand con-
tribution."-Professor Guthrie, Glasgow.
Now, we ask every intelligent reader, if such a work as the
above, and numerous other works, all the result of a special exami-
nation of this subject, to which we shall call the attention of our
readers, are not more reliable and trustworthy than the testimony
of writers who ordinarily write for our religious periodicals, who
manifest by their writings that they have neither given the subject
any critical examination, nor read what has been written by our
best scholars who differ from them?
TESTIMONY OF ANCIENT WRITERS AS TO WINES AND THEIR METHODS
OF PRESERVING THEM.
"The notion so common in this country that unfermented wines
will not keep, that they will soon ferment and spoil, is a most
popular error grounded on ignorance, and is the exact reverse of
the real truth; for the unfermented wines of the ancients were the
only wines that would keep. All the fermented wines speedily
became sour, and the art of distillation being unknown, they had
no distilled spirits to preserve them. It was for this reason that
fermented wines were for the most part looked upon as spoilt wines
by the ancients; they were of little value because they would not
keep, and it became an important object to make unfermented
wines and thus to prevent the vinous fermentation, so that it
might almost be said they would keep forever."-Rev. James B.
Dunn.
"Wine did not always mean the fermented juice of the grape.
The Greek writers frequently apply oivos to the juice of the grape
before fermentation was possible. Eschylus (Agam. 939, 940)
describes Zeus as creating οἶνον within the green grape, ἀπ᾿ ὄμφακος.
Anacreon (Ode 48) speaks of rov olvov пεпηdпμÉvov дпwрαιs πì
kλŋμútwv, 'the wine imprisoned in the fruit on the stems.'
Nicander of Colophon says, δεπάεσσιν Οἰνεὺς δ' ἐν κοίλοισιν ἀποθλίψας
olvov čkλnoe, ‘And Æneas having squeezed (the juice) into hollow
cups called it wine.' Proclus (A. D. 412), who annotated the
'Works and Days' of Hesiod, in his comment on line 611, ex-
plains the process of treading the grapes and 'treading out the
wine,' ¿k0λíßovtes tòv olvov.”—Oinos, by Leon C. Field.
132 TWO KINDS OF WINE-BOTH CALLED WINE.
"Aristotle says of sweet wine that 'it is a wino in name, but
not in fact-it does not intoxicate.' It had the name, therefore,
even in his day. Josephus, the Jewish historian, paraphrasing
the dream of Pharaoh's butler, who dreamed that he took clusters
of grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and gave the cup
to Pharaoh, repeatedly calls this grape-juice wine. Bishop Lowth,
1778, in his 'Commentary' (Isaiah v. 2), says :
2), says: 'The fresh juice
pressed from the grape' was by Herodotus styled oinos ampelinos,
that is, wine of the vine."-Wine of the Word, by Rev. Dr. Her-
rick Johnson.
"Aristotle ('Meteorologica,' iv. 9) says of the sweet wine of
his day (olvos d yλukús), that it did not intoxicate (oỷ µɛdúokεi). And
Athenæus (Banquet,' ii. 24) makes a similar statement.'
Oinos.
"In remote antiquity, grapes were brought to the table, and
the juice there expressed for immediate use."-Nott (London
ed. p. 58).
“Plutarch affirms that before the time of Psammetichus, who
lived six hundred years before Christ, the Egyptians neither
drank fermented wine nor offered it in sacrifice."-Nott (Third
Lecture).
((
Josephus's version of the butler's speech is as follows: He
said 'that by the king's permission he pressed the grapes into a
goblet, and, having strained the sweet wine, he gave it to the
king to drink, and that he received it graciously.' Josephus here
uses gleukos to designate the expressed juice of the grape before
fermentation could possibly commence."— Bible Commentary
(p. 18).
((
Bishop Lowth, of England, in his 'Commentary on Isaiah,' in
1778, remarking upon Isa. v. 2, refers to the case of Pharaoh's
butler, and says: By which it would seem that the Egyptians
drank only the fresh juice pressed from the grapes, which was
called oinos ampilinos—that is, wine of the vineyards.'
"It appears that the Mohammedans of Arabia press the juice
of the grape into a cup, and drink it as Pharaoh did."--Nott
(London ed. p. 59).
"A singular proof of the ancient usage of squeezing the juice
of grapes into a cup has been exhumed at Pompeii. It is that
of Bacchus standing by a pedestal, and holding in both hands a
large cluster of grapes, and squeezing the juice into a cup.”-
Bible Wines.
"Professor Tischendorf has given us a learned edition of the
PRIMITIVE WINE-PRESS.
133
Apocryphal 'Acts and Matthew,' a work which was in circula-
tion in the second and third centuries; and in it we read:
'Bring ye, as an offering, holy bread, and having pressed out

PRIMITIVE WINE-PRESS EXHUMED AT POMPEII.
into a cup three clusters from the vine be communicants with
me.'”—Rev. Joseph Cook.
"Polybius says (sixth book): 'Among the Romans, women
were forbidden to drink wine; they drank a wine that was called
passon (Latin passum), and this was made from dried grapes
or raisins.
As a drink it very much resembled Ægosthenian
and Cretan (gleukos) sweet wine, and which is used for the pur-
pose of allaying thirst.' Elian makes a similar statement in
134 TWO KINDS OF WINE-BOTH CALLED WINE.
Var. His., lib. 2, cap. 38. So, also, Athenæus, in lib. 10, cap. 7.
Also, Valerius Maximus in lib. 2, cap. 1. Also, Pliny, Nat. His.,
lib. 14, cap. 13.
'Here is positive proof that unfermented wine existed, since
Roman ladies, who were forbidden to drink intoxicating wine,
could drink this.
(
"Even Dr. W. H. Rule, in his 'Brief Inquiry,' confesses that
unfermented grape-juice 'was the protropos or prodromos OINOS
of the Greeks' (p. 7). The same hostile writer has the following :
The women of Rome and Latium were called abs-tem-ious,
because they abstained from wine, TEMETUM, prisca lingua,
appellabatur, called temetum in their most ancient language
(Fabri Thesaurus).' But the women did not abstain from must,
either fresh or preserved. * *
He allows, too, that Tirosh
*
(translated, new wine) is also spoken of as in the unfermented
state.' ”—Communion Wine-Thayer.
In "Ramsay's Roman Antiquities," chapter xiv., pages 438,
489, we read:
"When the season of the vintage (Vindemia) had arrived, the
grapes were gathered in baskets (Corbes, Fiscina) and conveyed
to a shed called Calcatorium or Torcularium, where they wero
thrown into a large receptacle forming part of the wine-press
(Prelum, Torcular), and beneath this was a cistern (Lacus, Tor-
cularius). The juice which drained from the clusters in consc-
quence of their own weight was called Protropum (Pliny, H. N.,
xiv. 9). This was collected and set apart. The grapes were then
gently trodden by the naked feet (Calcare), and the juice thus
obtained, called Mustum Lixivium (Columella, xii. 41), was also
set apart. The grapes were then fully trodden, and the force of
the press being moderately applied, they yielded the most of their
juice, which was called Mustum, or sometimes Mustum pressum.
Lastly, water was thrown in among the husks, and the full power
of the press called into action; the liquid thus obtained was
called Mustum tortivum (Columella, xii. 36). These four prod-
The first two were
ucts were kept separate from each other.
usually preserved in their sweet state; the third was fermented
for wine (Vinum); the fourth was also fermented and yielded a
thin acrid beverage called Lora.
*-Pliny, xiv. 10.
* **
"Mustum is strictly the sweet juice of the grape before it had
undergone any chemical change; although this word is sometimes
used loosely for wine.
*-Martial, i. 19.
K *
"Mustum was preserved from fermentation by boiling, and
FURTHER TESTIMONY.
135
was distinguished by different names according to the degree of
inspissation. When boiled down to two-thirds of its original bulk
it became Carenum; to one-half, Defrutum; to one-third, Sapa.
* * * The ripe grapes, instead of being conveyed at once to
the press, were in some cases exposed to the rays of the sun until
partially dried, and from these, sweet wines called Vinum Dia-
chytum and Vinum Passum, were manufactured."
The above work, says a correspondent, "is the text-book on
Roman Antiquities in the Scottish Universities. Its author (Pro-
fessor Ramsay) was one of the ablest classical scholars of
Europe."
Further testimony from ancient writers will be produced while
speaking of the different methods practiced by the ancients for
preserving unfermented wines; which methods, as described by
ancient writers, are in successful use at this day in Europe and
Asia, as well as in this country; and what is more, the present
writer has tested, with the most satisfactory results, three of the
methods described by ancient writers. One of these methods is
carefully described by a writer who lived during the Apostolic
days, as the reader will hereafter notice, and every reader of these
lines can with very little trouble test it for himself.
Rev. William Patton, D.D., in his excellent work on
Wines and Wines of the Ancients," says :
"Bible
"We cannot imagine that Pliny, Columella, Varro, Cato, and
others were either cooks or writers of cook-books, but were
intelligent gentlemen moving in the best circles of society. So
when they, with minute care, give the recipes for making sweet
wine, which will remain so during the year, and the processes
were such as to prevent fermentation, we are persuaded that
these were esteemed in their day. That they were so natural
and so simple as to like these sweet, harmless beverages, is rather
in their favor, and not to be set down against them."
Luke x. 34 : ((
Pouring in oil and wine." This was an exter-
nal and medicinal application. The mixture of the two formed a
healing ointment. Pliny mentions "oleum gleucinum, which was
compounded of oil and gleucus (sweet wine), as an excellent oint-
ment for wounds." "Columella gives the receipt for making it.
---Bible Commentary, p. 297.
What intelligent physician would ever think of pouring into a
fresh wound oil and fermented wine, which would only irritate
and increase the suffering?
CHAPTER VI.
ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS OF PRESERVING WINE SO
AS TO PREVENT FERMENTATION.
THAT fermentation may ensue, certain conditions and circum-
stances are requisite:
"1. There must be saccharine matter and gluten or albu-
men.
"2. The temperature must not be below 45° nor above 75°
Fahrenheit. Under 45° it does not ferment, over 75° it turns to
vinegar by a first and direct fermentation.
"3. It must not be too thick, like syrup. It must be of the
proper consistency.”
"Experience demonstrates that grape-juice never undergoes
vinous fermentation in the grape. Science says that this is pre-
vented by the absence of two conditions."
The gluten is deposited in separate sacs, or cells, and so kept
from the saccharine matter in the grape; and by the skins of the
grapes their whole contents are protected from the germs of leaven;
and without actual contact with these germs fermentation cannot
ensue. Grapes rot on the vine, but do not turn to alcohol.
Nature never produces alcohol."
66
"It is also matter of experience that a warm climate pro-
duces sweet fruits; a cold season gives us sour fruits. The differ-
ence is manifest.
"Palestine is a hot climate. During the season for gathering
the grapes the temperature is seldom as low as 100°. Nature
provides for souring and decaying the grapes, but does not pro-
vide for vinous fermentation, which is impossible at a tempera-
turo above 75°. [Therefore cool cellars are required in Palestine
for the purpose of manufacturing fermented wine.]
"Were the Jews and ancients acquainted with any process for
preserving the juice of the grape-the unfermented wine? They
used various processes to secure this result :
"1. They excluded the air from the sweet wine.
"2. They boiled down the juice to the consistency of syrup.
PRESERVATION OF UNFERMENTED WINE BY HEAT. 137
"3. They filtered it and so broke its power of fermenting by
removing its gluten. :
"4. They kept it cool and excluded from the air till the gluten
subsided; and then drew off the wine, which was safe from fer-
mentation.
"5. They also used sulphur to neutralize the yeast or gluten
[or to destroy the germs of ferment].
"Proof is overwhelming that they did use these modes of pre-
serving the unfermented wines."-Wines of the Bible, by Rev. Dr.
C. H. Fowler.
PRESERVATION OF UNFERMENTED WINE BY HEAT.
There is no more difficulty in preserving the juice of grapes by
heating and sealing, than there is in preserving either fruit or
meat by the same process. We have only to heat the juice up to
180° and retain it at that temperature for a few moments to de-
stroy all the germs of leaven or ferment which have either fallen
into it from the atmosphere, or have been washed into it from the
surface of the grapes and their stems, and then, while thus hot,
bottle it (or what is better, heat it in bottles in a water bath), and
carefully cork and seal while hot, to preserve the wine unfermented
as long as the bottles, corks and sealing remain perfect. In a few
weeks the lees will settle to the bottom and will be light and floc-
culent, and the wine will remain beautiful and clear. If it is de-
sired to have the wine clear for use or free from the lees (which
are entirely unobjectionable, as they are from the grape), the
clear portion of the wine must be carefully removed by a siphon
or otherwise, and then heated and rebottled and corked while hot,
as in the first instance. Of course heating the juice up to the boil-
ing temperature (212°) is perfectly safe and requires less skill and
care, but the wine will not be quite as rich, as more or less of the
albuminous matter is liable to be precipitated by boiling; still this
process makes a very fine wine. The writer has a bottle remain-
ing which was put up three years ago. These methods are used
quite extensively for preserving unfermented wine in this country
and in Europe.
Among the ancients, Pliny, Columella, Varro and Cato were
men of distinction, and they gave minute attention to the preser-
vation of unfermented wines.
Boiling the recently expressed juice of grapes was undoubtedly
one of the earliest and most frequent methods of preserving wine
from fermentation.
138 METHODS OF PRESERVING UNFERMENTED WINE.
Herman Boerhave, born 1668, in his "Elements of Chemistry,'
says: "By boiling, the juice of the richest grapes loses all its
aptitude for fermentation, and may afterwards be preserved for
years without undergoing any further change."—Nott, London
Edition, p. 81.
(
Augustine Calmet, the learned author of the "Dictionary of the
Bible," born 1672, says: The ancients possessed the secret of
preserving wines sweet throughout the whole year."
77
"Archbishop Potter, born A. D. 1674, in his 'Grecian Antiqui-
ties' (Edinburgh edition, 1813, vol. ii., p. 360), says: 'The
Lacedæmonians used to boil their wines upon the fire till the
fifth part was consumed; then after four years were expired
began to drink them.' He refers to Democritus, a celebrated
philosopher, who traveled over the greater part of Europe, Asia,
and Africa, and who died 361 B. C.; also, to Palladius, a Greek
physician, as making a similar statement. These ancient author-
ities called the boiled juice of the grape wine, and the learned
archbishop brings forward their testimony without the slightest
intimation that the boiled juice was not wine in the judgment of
the ancients."-Bible Wines.
Adams' "Roman Antiquities," first published in Edinburgh,
1791, on the authority of Pliny and Virgil, says: "In order to
make wine keep, they used to boil [decoquerre] the must down to
ono-half, when it was called defrutum, to one-third, sapa.”
"Virgil, the sweet poet of nature," says the Rev. Dr. G. W.
Samson, "writing under Augustus, pictures (Georg. i. 295) the
delight of the winter evenings in his own rural home; when the
laborer sat by the fire sharpening his tools; and his wife, beguil-
ing their common toil with her song, was boiling the 'flowing
sweet must' [dulcis musti humorem]; this picture revealing how
the product of the grape was used by the simple children of nature
at that day.
“As artificial heating drives off water, whose presence is essen-
tial to fermentation, the boiling of grape-juice to a syrup, the
debhs of the Hebrews and the dibs of the Arabs, prevents the
formation of alcohol."
(6
(
Pliny says, 'some Roman wines were as thick as honey,' also
that the Albanian wine was very sweet or luscious, and that it
took the third rank among all the wines.' He also tells of a
Spanish wine in his day, called 'inerticulum '—that is, would not
intoxicate — from 'iners,' inert, without force or spirit, more
THE WRITER'S OBSERVATIONS ABROAD.
139
properly termed 'justicus sobriani,' sober wine, which would not
inebriate."-Anti-Bac. (p. 221).
"Columella, who lived in the days of the Apostles, says the
Greeks called this unintoxicating wine Amethyston,' from Alpha,
negative, and methusis, intoxicate-that is, a wine which would
not intoxicate. He adds that it was a good wine, harmless, and
called 'iners,' because it would not affect the nerves, but at the
same time it was not deficient in flavor."-A. B. (p. 221).
Virgil, born 70 B. C., in his Georgic, lib. i. line 295, says:
"Aut dulcis musti Vulcano decoquit humorem,
Et foliis undam tepidi despumat alieni.”
Thus rendered by Dr. Joseph Trapp, of Oxford University :
"Or of sweet must boils down the luscious juice,
And skims with leaves the trembling caldron'
ก
THE WRITER'S OBSERVATIONS ABROAD.
During an excursion lasting one year in Europe, Asia and Africa,
made by himself and wife, while in Vevay, Switzerland, in the fall
of 1884, the writer learned, from parties interested, that there was
a company which was evaporating, by a patented process, the fresh
grape-juice, or new wine, from six parts to one, in Hungary, and
shipping it in large quantities to London; and as we were intending
to visit that country, the owner of the patent made arrangements
for the superintendent of the company to meet us at Buda-pesth,
and to bring us samples of the concentrated wine. The gentleman
brought us three quart bottles full of it. We found it as thick as
honey, slightly acid, and, when diluted with water, a delightful
and nourishing drink which we enjoyed much. We also ate it on
our bread and meat and bread and butter, and found it an excel-
lent article for this purpose. It was so thick that it would
scarcely run from the bottle. This carefully concentrated grape-
juice possessed the flavor of the grapes, and, in the judgment of
the writer, would make an excellent substitute for the fresh
grapes for the cure of diseases in cases where they are likely to
prove beneficial; and it would have the advantage with those not
able to travel to distant lands, that it could be used at home, and
its use extended over a longer period of time; and, if taken in
much smaller quantities during the twenty-four hours, it would
be much more likely to prove permanently beneficial. It does not
140 METHODS OF PRESERVING UNFERMENTED WINE.
readily ferment, it is easily preserved and transported, can be
readily canned, and should be much cheaper than the same
amount of nourishment in the form of unreduced grape-juice or
wine; and it would seem that wine or grape-juice thus preserved
should become a valuable article of commerce and a source of
health, joy and delight to the nations of the earth, instead of, as
in the case of fermented wine, a source of drunkenness, disease,
insanity, poverty, crime and death. The grapes of Switzerland,
and especially of Hungary, are not as acid as those grown farther
north, nor as sweet as those grown farther south, and would seem
to be admirably adapted either for the purpose named above, or
for the "grape cure.'
Knowing that, in the days of the Prophets, the juice of grapes,
concentrated by boiling, was brought down to Egypt under the
name of honey, we inquired of our dragoman or guide, who was a
Syrian, if we could get unfermented grape-juice or wine in Cairo.
He said that he knew of a dealer who kept grape-honey, or dibs,
which was the juice boiled down to a thick syrup, and that it was
brought from Syria. He went out and obtained a sample, and we
found it as thick as honey and partially candied. At Damascus,
in Syria, we saw exposed for sale by the sides of the streets, and in
the bazaars, large dishes of boiled grape-juice, or wine, which
they call dibs, and grape-honcy, and which was so thick, that
when it was cut and removed from one side of the dish, the rest
retained its position and would not flow. Our dragoman said that
the people were very fond of this grape food, and that they use it
upon their bread, and dissolve it in water and use it as a drink,
and that they also use it in preparing certain kinds of food
or delicacies of which they are fond. We obtained a sample,
and found it very sweet and semi-granulated to a greater or
less extent. We obtained at Beyrout some grapes which we
found were very sweet indeed. There is no question but that
this boiled grape-juice or wine is precisely the same kind of wino
as that described by ancient writers, to which attention has been
called in this work; for Aristotle, born 384 years B. C., assures
us that 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 before drinking it.
"Some of
the celebrated Opimian wine mentioned by Pliny had, in his
day, two centuries after its production, the consistence of honey."
Wines of the Bible. "Athenæus states that the Tæniotic
wine has such a degree of richness or fatness, that when mixed
THE HONEY WHICH JACOB SENT TO EGYPT.
141
""
with water, it seemed gradually to be diluted much in the same
way as Attic honey well mixed."-Lees and Burns' Bible Com-
mentary. Now, we know very well that no such wines as the
above can be made either by fermenting or by boiling the fer-
mented juice of grapes, for fermentation decomposes, separates or
casts down and out the gluten, sugar and vegetable salts, sub-
stances which make the wine thick when boiled; and yet we know
that these were among the celebrated wines of antiquity. "Ac-
cording to Homer, Pramnian and Meronian wines require twenty
parts of water to one of wine. Hippocrates considered twenty parts
of water to one of the Thracian wine to be the proper beverage.
Bible Commentary. Now, what drinker of fermented wine would
be satisfied with adding twenty parts of water to one part of the
wine which he drinks? and the reader should remember that the
ancients had no distilled spirits to add to strengthen their wines.
And yet we diluted some of the concentrated wines named above,
which we obtained in Hungary, Egypt and Damascus, in twenty
parts of water to one of wine, and they made a very pleasant
drink-the one which we obtained in Hungary was quite tart,
while that obtained in Cairo and Damascus was sweet; so that,
according to the quality and character of the grapes, such is the
quality, flavor and taste of the concentrated wine. We can readily
understand how men of unperverted tastes would be abundantly
satisfied with one part of the thick boiled wines of the ancients, or
such as we found at Cairo and Damascus, to twenty of water.
After speaking of the pure blood of the grape, the Rev. Dr.
Samson says:
"The second product of the grape, and next in purity, is
doubtless the debsh. When, by English and other translators of
the Reformation period, this word was rendered, according to the
best lights of their day, 'honey,'-the East was shut up to Chris-
tian scholars. It was a striking ordering of Providence that just
before the expedition of Napoleon into Egypt, about A. D. 1800,
which led on to the opening of the Bible lands to Christian explo-
ration, a leader among German rationalists, replied to by Hengst-
enberg, maintained that the writer of the Book of Genesis could
have known nothing about Egypt, or he would not have suggested
that Jacob sent down a present of 'honey' to Pharaoh (Gen. xliii.
11). The modern traveler finds everywhere in the ancient land
of Jacob's inheritance, that the juice of the sweet grape is boiled
down to a syrup, still called by the old name dibs, whose spicy and
nectar-like sweetness makes it one of the most delicious of condi-
142 METHODS OF PRESERVING UNFERMENTED WINE.
ments; while, at the very location whence Jacob sent it to Pharaoh,
at Hebron, it is prepared in great quantities and sent to Egypt as
an article of trade.
“It is this syrup with which it is repeatedly declared by Moses
the land of promise flowed' (Ex. iii. 8, etc.); and though the
honey of bees, gathered mainly from the grapes, is, when flowing
from the comb, called by the same name, because it is substantially
the same article (as Jud. xiv. 8, 1 Sam. xiv. 25, 29), yet the debsh
of Moses is almost always the product of the grape prepared by
boiling. In only three cases, out of nearly fifty, does the word
refer to the product prepared by bees rather than by man.”
"There is abundance of evidence," says the Rev. Dr. Patton,
"that the ancients mixed their wines with water; not because
they were so strong with alcohol as to require dilution, but
because, being rich syrups, they needed water to prepare them for
drinking. The quantity of water was regulated by the richness of
the wine and the time of year."
"Those ancient authors who treat upon domestic manners
abound with the allusions to this usage. Hot water, tepid water,
or cold water was used for the dilution of wine according to the
season.
Homer (Odyssey, Book ix.) tells us that Ulysses took in his
boat "
a goat-skin of sweet black wine, a divine drink, which
Marion, the priest of Apollo, had given him-it was sweet as
honey-it was imperishable, or would keep for ever; that when it
was drunk, it was diluted with twenty parts water, and that from
it a sweet and divine odor exhaled."—Nott, London Ed., p. 55.
Horace, liber i. ôde xviii. line 21, thus wrote :
"Hic innocentis pocula Lesbii
Duces sub umbra."
Professor Christopher Smart, of Pembroke College, Cambridge,
England, more than a hundred years since, when there was no
controversy about fermented or unfermented wines, thus trans-
lated this passage: "Here shall you quaff, under a shade, cups of
unintoxicating wine."-Bible Wines.
“The annexed engraving of the Thermopolium is copied from
the scarce work of Andreas Baccius (De Nat. Vinorum Hist.,
Rome, 1597, lib. iv., p. 178). The plan was obtained by himself,
assisted by two antiquaries, from the ruins of the Diocletian Baths
(Rome). Nothing can more clearly exhibit the contrast between
UNFERMENTED WINE DILUTED WITH WATER. 143
the ancient wines and those of modern Europe, than the widely
different modes of treating them. The hot water was often neces-
sary, says Sir Edward Barry, to dissolve their more inspissated
and old wines."—Kitto, ii. p. 956.
The prohibition of intoxicating wines to women was enforced
by the severest penalties. "Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and others
have noticed the hereditary transmission of intemperate propen-

MUL
SUM
(GHIUM
FALER
NUM
FRIGI
DUM
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[CALIDU
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sities; and the legislation that imposed abstinence upon women
had unquestionably in view the greater vigor of the offspring-the
(
mens sana in corpore sano' (a healthy mind in a healthy body)."
-Bible Commentary, p. 72.
Surely if fermented wine were a good and useful article, neces-
sary for health and happiness, women who are bearing, nursing,
and rearing cnildren would seem to need it if any one needs it;
but the ancients did not think that they needed fermented wine.
PRESENT CUSTOM OF BOILING WINE IN WINE-GROWING COUNTRIES OF
EUROPE AND ASIA.
Boiling is beyond question one of the best of the methods of
preserving wine, as almost the entire substance of the wine is pre-
144 METHODS OF PRESERVING UNFERMENTED WINE.
served, with the exception of the water, which can be readily
restored when it is required for use; but long boiling changes the
flavor to a certain extent, but some prefer the boiled wine. In
some of the other methods, where foreign substances are not used
to prevent fermentation, the gluten, which is an important part of
the fruit of the vine, is removed; consequently we find that in all
ages, even down to the present day, boiling has been a very com-
mon process in wine-growing countries.
Names may change, but substances do not change with the
change of their names. Certain missionaries, a few years ago,
declared that there were no unfermented wines used in Palestine
at that day, and that by careful inquiry they could not hear of
any such wines; but it is evident, from the observations of the
present writer and the testimony which we shall produce from
other travelers and missionaries, that if they had inquired for
boiled grape-juice or dibs, and had been familiar with the writings
of the ancients who describe the method of boiling, and who called
such boiled grape-juice wine, and spoke of it as the best wine,
they would have made no such statements as they did; for they
were undoubtedly honest, but lacking in a knowledge of the ncces-
sary facts, which would have enabled them to speak understand-
ingly. "Pliny says, that intoxicating wine, vinum, was once
called temetum; and in the East now, krasion has displaced the
classical oinos.”—Communion Wine, by Rev. William M. Thayer.
The fact that at the time the above missionaries wrote, fer-
mented wine had come to be the only wine passing by the name of
wine, does not destroy the fact that, notwithstanding their testi-
mony, there is a wine to-day prepared precisely as the ancients in
the days of the Apostles prepared their wine, which they called
wine. Rev. H. Holmes, American missionary at Constantinople,
in regard to the supposition that among the ancients the chief
product of the vine was fermented wine, says: "Now as a resident
in the East, we believe sufficient facts can be adduced to render it
extremely probable that this supposition is erroneous, and that the
fabrication of an intoxicating liquor was never the chief object for
which the grape was cultivated among the Jews."
"Rev. Henry Holmes wrote in the 'Bibliotheca Sacra,' May,
1848: '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 the quantity put in. 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
PRESERVATION OF WINE.
* * *
145
skin to exclude the air,
It, ordinarily, has not a particle
of intoxicating quality, being used freely by both Mohammedans
and Christians. Some which I have had on hand for two years
has undergone no change.' And he adds that, 'in the manner of
making and preserving it, it seems to correspond with the recipes.
and descriptions of certain drinks included by some of the ancients,
under the appellation, "wine."'
"W. G. Brown, who traveled extensively in Africa, Egypt, and
Syria, from A. D. 1792 to 1798, states that 'the wines of Syria are
most of them prepared by boiling immediately after they are
expressed from the grape, till they are considerably reduced in
quantity, when they were put into jars or large bottles and pre-
served for use.' He adds, 'There is reason to believe that this
mode of boiling was a general practice among the ancients.'
"Volney, 1788, in his 'Travels in Syria,' vol. i. chap. 29, says :
'The wines are of three sorts, the red, the white, and the yellow.
The white, which are the most rare, are so bitter as to be disagree-
able; the two others, on the contrary, are too sweet and sugary.
This arises from their being boiled, which makes them resemble
the baked wines of Provence. The general custom of the country
is to reduce the must to two-thirds of its quantity.' 'The most
esteemed is produced from the hillside of Zouk-it is too sugary.'
'Such are the wines of Lebanon, so boasted by Grecian and Roman
epicures.' 'It is probable that the inhabitants of Lebanon have
made no change in their ancient method of making wines.'
Bacchus, p. 374, note.
"Dr. Bowring, in his report on the commerce of Syria, praises,
as of excellent quality, a wine of Lebanon consumed in some of
the convents of Lebanon, known by the name of vino d'or-golden
wine. (Is this the yellow wine which Volney says is too sweet and
sugary?) But the Doctor adds, 'that the habit of boiling wine is
almost universal.'"-Kitto, ii. 956.
"Caspar Neuman, M.D., Professor of Chemistry, Berlin, 1759,
says: 'It is observable that when sweet juices are boiled down to
a thick consistence, they not only do not ferment in that state, but
are not easily brought into fermentation when diluted with as
much water as they had lost in the evaporation, or even with the
very individual water that exhaled from them.'"-Nott, Lond. ed.,
p. 81.
Dr. Thomson says: "The Moslems make no fermented wines;
they boil the juice down to preserve it, and they claim to have
received this custom from the remotest antiquity."
146 METHODS OF PRESERVING UNFERMENTED WINE.
The late Rev. Dr. Duffield, who traveled through Palestine
("Bible Rule of Temperance," p. 180), says: "The modern Turks,
whose religion forbids the use of fermented wine, make use of
the inspissated juice of the grape, or 'must,' and carry it along
with them in their journeys.”
Dr. Jacobus says: "All who know of the wines then used well
understand the unfermented juice of the grape.
The purest
wines of Jerusalem and Lebanon, as we tasted them, were com-
monly boiled and sweet, without intoxicating qualities such as we
here get in liquors called wines. The boiling prevents fermenta-
tion. Those were esteemed the best wines which were least
strong."
Rev. Dr. Eli Smith, a missionary in Syria, in the "Bibliotheca
Sacra" for November, 1846, describes the methods of making
wine in Mount Lebanon as numerous, but reduces them to three
classes. First The simple juice of the grape is fermented.
Second: The juice of the grape is boiled down before fermenta-
tion. Third: The grapes are partially dried in the sun before
being pressed.
Dr. Duff, in the "Missionary Record," 1840, described his
journey through France to India, and says: "Look at the peasant
at his meals in the vine-bearing districts! Instead of milk, he
has a basin of pure unadulterated blood of the grape. In this, its
native original state, it is a plain, simple, and wholesome liquid;
which, at every repast, becomes to the husbandman what milk is
to the shepherd; not a luxury, but a necessary; not an intoxicat-
ing, but a nutritive, beverage.'
""
In 1845, Captain Treatt wrote: "When on the south coast of
Italy last Christmas, I inquired particularly about the wines in
common use, and found that those esteemed the best were sweet
and unintoxicating. The boiled juice of the grape is in common
use in Sicily. The Calabrians keep their intoxicating and unin-
toxicating wines in separate apartments. The bottles were gener-
ally marked. From inquiries, I found that unfermented wines
were esteemed the most. It was drank mixed with water.
Great pains were taken, in the vintage season, to have a good
stock of it laid by. The grape-juice was filtered two or three
times, and then bottled, and some put in casks and buried in
the earth. Some keep it in water to prevent fermentation."
Dr. Lees' Works (vol. ii., p. 144).
Mr. Alsop, a minister of the Society of Friends, wrote to Dr.
Lees in 1861 ("Pre. Dis. of Bible Tem. Com.," p. 34): "The
PRESERVATION OF WINE BY EVAPORATION.
**
* *
147
syrup of grape-juice is an article of domestic manufacture in
almost every house in the vine districts of the South of France.
It is simply the juice of the grape boiled down to the consistence
of treacle.
As to the use of ordinary wine, it is almost
entirely confined to the men. It is proverbial that if a young
woman is known to be in the habit of using it, she is unlikely to
receive proposals of marriage."
"The modern Italian wine known as vino cotto is boiled, and
has been found by chemical analysis not to contain a particle
of alcohol. When drank it requires weakening with water."-Van
Buren.
(
PRESERVATION OF WINE BY EVAPORATION.
Evaporation, or perfect dryness, prevents every kind of fer-
mentation (Watts, ii. 635; Gmelin, vii. 100). This was easily
attained by the wine being put in large bottles and suspended in
the chimney, called fumarium. 'Liquids evaporate at tempera-
tures below their boiling point' ('Fownes' Chem.,' 10 ed., p. 46).
The Oriental traveler, Mr. Buckingham ('Travels among Arab
Tribes,' London, 1825, p. 137), was treated at Cufr Injey to cakes
of wine, which he describes as a very curious article, probably
resembling the dried wine of the ancients, quite hard and dry, in
shape like a cucumber, capable of being kept fresh and good for
many months—a welcome treat at all times, and particularly well
adapted for sick or delicate persons who might require some
grateful provision that could be carried in small compass without
risk of injury on the journey. He also describes (p. 140) this
dried wine as having the consistency of portable soup. Nor is
solidity or perfect desiccation necessary, for fermentation de-
mands a great degree of liquidity, taking place only when the
solution is sufficiently diluted with water (Watts, ii. 630; Gmelin,
xv. 268)."
Dr. Kerr, in his "Unfermented Wine a Fact," says: "The
Persians sometimes boil the duschab (a syrup of sweet wine or
must) so long that they reduce it to a paste for the convenience
of travelers, who lay in a stock of it for the journey, cutting it
with a knife, and diluting it with water to serve as a drink."
Travels in Muscovy, Tartary, and Persia, by Adam Olearius,
Ambassador for Holstein, by Wicquefort (lib. v. 802).
Oleariùs adds: "One can reduce five hogsheads to one, say
some chemists, and, amongst others, the celebrated Mr. Glauber,
by boiling the sweet wine or must down to a fifth part, because
148 METHODS OF PRESERVING UNFERMENTED WINE.
66
there is no apparent sign that the wine loses the character it pos-
sessed before it was boiled; and, after that, by adding as much
water as was evaporated, one could restore it to the same quantity
and give it the same goodness as it formerly had."—Ibid. (803).
Gesenius says that the honey sent by Jacob to Joseph (Gen.
xliii. 11) was (
WINE boiled down to the consistency of syrup.'
The boiling must have taken place before fermentation, since fer-
mented wine cannot be boiled down to a syrup. Whatever
it was, he calls it 'wine.'"-Communion Wine-Rev. W. M.
Thayer.
The writer thinks that he has brought in the preceding pages
an abundance of testimony sufficient to satisfy every unbiased
reader, and every one who is willing to be satisfied, that the
ancients not only preserved the juice of grapes extensively by
boiling, but that they also called the juice, when thus preserved,
wine. The writer can testify. that he has seen this boiled wine
in Europe, Asia and Africa, and has now samples which he
obtained in each of these countries; and what is more, he has a
bottle which he, himself, put up by the boiling process more than
three years ago, which has shown no signs of fermentation.
་
MODERN UNFERMENTED WINE PRESERVED BY BOILING AND HEAT.
Norman Kerr, M.D., of London, in an excellent work just pub-
lished, in reply to Rev. A. M. Wilson, says: "I have, time and
again, examined grape-juice hours after, by the interference of
man, it has been expressed, and found not a trace of alcohol;
and I have, by repeated experiment, proved that nothing can be
casier than the production and preservation of unfermented wine.
The preparation of this nutritious and cheering non-alcoholic
drink is as speedy, simple and easy as the manufacture of alco-
holic liquor is tedious, complex and difficult.
Grape-juice boiled down to a half, a third, or a fourth of its
bulk, does not forment for a very long period, and then only
slightly and on the surface. Three months ago I prepared speci-
mens of these unfermented wines of the ancients, defrutum,
one half evaporated (Plin. N. H. xiv. 9), and sapa, siræum, or
hepsema, two-thirds evaporated (Plin. ibid.; Ramsay in Smith,
Art. Vin.), and I have just finished using them. The blood of the
grape was poured warm into ordinary glass bottles, which were
sealed as wine bottles usually are, and it continued unfermented
and free from alcohol to the last. And I had the pleasure, not
MODERN WINES PRESERVED BY HEAT.
149
long since, of enjoying a refreshing draught from a bottle of
Eastern wine more than four years old, which I found, on chemi-
cal examination, absolutely non-alcoholic."
Rov. Mr. Wilson declared that, "It must have been simply
impossible for the ancients to have preserved their juice liquid
and unfermented, unless they had boiled it in air-tight flasks,
or had expressed it in an atmosphere of hydrogen and carbonic
acid, or had subjected it to a steaming process, and preserved it
in vacuo. But they trode their grapes in an open wine-press, and
pressed out the juice in an open vat, in the open air, so that fer-
mentation was inevitable."
In answer to this statement, Dr. Kerr, after referring to the
various processes by which wine was preserved free from fermen-
tation by the ancients, and is so preserved at this day, says: "It
may be very wrong of me to drink the impossible, but this morn-
ing, and every morning for the last three weeks, I have drank of
a most pleasing and refreshing liquor, cheering to the heart and
nourishing to the body, as thin as any full-bodied Tokay, four
years and a half old-the pure juice of the grape boiled. It was
imported in casks from the East, and, after undergoing the great
heat of a prolonged voyage on the Mediterranean, was poured into
Winchester quarts, the corks being sealed as those of whisky-jars
generally are. A month ago the liquor, after being carefully
examined and found absolutely free from alcohol, was decanted,
and though it has been kept in common wine bottles, it has shown
no appearance of fermenting; there is no ferment in it to set up
fermentation; it has neither, while boiling, dissolved the anti-
septic lining of goatskins, nor cracked the glass that encloses it,
for it was poured into the bottles while COOL.
"Need I add more? And yet I must. The name of this im-
possible, aged, unfermented, unintoxicating liquor in one Eastern
language at this very hour means WINE!"
After stating the fact that grape-juice does not begin to fer-
ment immediately on exposure to the air; and that a period vary-
ing from some hours to several days elapses before the process
of fermentation and the formation of alcohol begin; notwithstand-
ing Rev. Mr. Wilson's statement to the contrary, Dr. Kerr con-
cludes as follows: "Therefore, it is as clear as the light of the
sun at noon, that the existence of unfermented and unintoxicat-
ing wine amongst both ancients and moderns, is not a myth, but
a fact."
Of the modern unfermented wine ho says: "This nineteenth
150 METHODS OF PRESERVING UNFERMENTED WINE.
century non-alcoholic wine (a bottle of which, taken at random
out of my wine-cellar, where it has been for four years, was
analyzed by Mr. Clifford and myself on March 23, 1878, and
found absolutely free from alcohol) I prescribe largely in the
treatment of such diseases as fever, consumption, and that most
depressing malady, dyspepsia, from one of the Protean forms of
which Timothy may have suffered when he received the prescrip-
tion of probably a like wine from the Apostle Paul."
Dr. Kerr, in his "Unfermented Wine a Fact," says: "Mr.
Clifford and I heated a quantity of freshly-expressed juice to 180
degrees Fah., being 32 degrees below point of boiling, 212 degrees
Fah., on 14th March, 1878, poured it, unstrained, at once into a
new pig-skin, and tied the skin tightly close up to the contents.
After this bottle had hung in a mean temperature of 54 degrees
Fah. for two months, in an atmosphere impregnated with yeast
germs, we carefully examined the juice, and found no traces of
alcohol."
So it will be seen that the ancients had not the slightest diffi-
culty in preserving their wine unfermented in their skin bottles,
without even heating it up to the boiling point; and if they heated
it to the boiling point, they had only to let it cool a little to be
able to pour it safely into their skin bottles. We know beyond the
possibility of a doubt that some of their most celebrated wines
described by ancient writers, and noticed in the preceding pages,
which were as thick as honey, so that they had to be scraped from
the skin bottles which contained them, were not only preserved
but also largely reduced by boiling, and those ancient writers
called them wines.
A friend of the writer, a physician, last year put up 4,000
bottles of unfermented wine, without reducing it at all, and
this year (1886) he says that he intends to put up 10,000 gallons.
The writer has drank of his wine, and there was never a child
born into the world which would not prefer it to fermented wine;
and every man, of unperverted taste, when comparing it with the
finest fermented wine, would call it best. And yet our advocates
of the "one wine theory" raise their cry in some of our religious
periodicals, saying, "there is but one kind of wine, and that is fer-
mented wine." Put their vile stuff to the mouth of an uncontam-
inated child, and see what it will say.
This very day the writer has received a circular from Austria,
advertising unfermented juice of the grape preserved by simply
heating it up to 180 degrees, and then bottling, corking and sealing
PRESERVATION OF WINE BY HEATING IT.
151
it. Such wine has been prepared for years in England and in this
country quite extensively; and we well know it is being used by
many religious societies as a communion wine, and prescribed by
many physicians to their patients for their "stomachs' sake" and
their "often infirmities," and to "cheer their hearts." And it is
well known to many physicians who have carefully tried this wine,
that it is immeasurably superior to fermented wine for such pur-
poses. Yet exclaim the advocates of the one wine theory," there
is no true wine but fermented wine. And the man who has
acquired an appetite for fermented wine, unquestionably really
thinks that he is speaking the truth when he says this, and so does
the one who has confirmed himself in the "one wine theory."
We repeat for the benefit of some of our readers who may not
have the facilities and skill for simply heating the grape-juice up
to 180°, and for doing it with sufficient care to be always success-
ful; that they can always succeed by heating the grape-juice until
it boils before corking, always corking and sealing it while hot, as
they do fruit.
No more care is required for preserving wine by this process.
than is required to preserve fruits. It is neither necessary to boil
the juice away perceptibly, nor to boil it long enough to change its
flavor. You can fill your bottles to the brim with the grape-juice,
and stand them in a kettle of cold, or moderately warm, water.
Let the kettle stand on the fire until the water reaches the boiling
point, and retain it at a boiling temperature for a time, as is often
done with peaches and other fruit; or you may carefully scald out
your bottles, heat your grape-juice to the boiling point, and then fill
your bottles full and cork them; first scalding the lower ends of your
corks. Press your corks right into the liquid, and crowd them in
as far as possible, and seal them with sealing-wax or pitch; and if
your corks are tight, vinous fermentation can never ensue. By
heating the wine or grape-juice to the boiling point, you have
effectually destroyed all the germs of ferment; and without them
fermentation cannot take place.
The spores of mould are not destroyed by the temperature of
boiling water; consequently, if there is any air left between your
cork or cover and the wine, you may sometimes notice upon the
surface of your wine a little mould such as is sometimes noticed on
canned fruit, or on preserves that have not begun to "work ;" but
this will not contaminate your wine, and you will not often find it
present; and when you do, you have only to remove it and use the
wine.
152 METHODS OF PRESERVING UNFERMENTED WINE.
Boiling or heating has in all ages unquestionably been one of
the measures most frequently adapted for the preservation of pure
wine; and, in the estimation of the writer, it is one of the best,
as it has some advantages over most other methods. An impor-
tant one is that the germs of ferment in the wine are actually
destroyed; so that if uncorked at seasons of the year when there
are few or no germs of ferment in the air, it should keep much
longer without fermenting than wine preserved by other methods;
excepting that of sulphurization. As the writer has not experi-
mented with this last method he is not able to speak from expe-
rience, though he has confidence in its efficacy when properly
applied.
We are told by Swedenborg that grapes in a good sense mean
goodness, and in the opposite sense evil. (Arcana Cœlestia, 2240,
5117.) To eat sour grapes signifies to appropriate to one's self
the falses of evil. (A. C., 556.) Grapes may not only be sour,
but also wild, or uncultivated, consequently useless as fruit: when
this is the case, as in Isaiah v. 2, they signify, we are told, "evil
opposed to the goods of charity." Grapes of gall and clusters
of bitterness" (Deut. xxxii. 32) signify evils from dire falses.-
Apocalypse Revealed, 438.
((
But the signification of sweet, cultivated grapes is good :
Grapes and clusters signify works of charity, because they are
the fruits of the vine and the vineyard, and by fruits, in the
Word, are signified good works.”—-A. R., 649.
Wine in the Cluster.-"Thus saith Jehovah, as the new wine
is found in the cluster; and He saith, Spoil it not, because a
blessing is in it.' (Isaiah lxv. 8.) The new wine in the cluster
denotes truth from good in the natural principle. (A. C., 5117.)
Surely no one can pretend that this new wine in the cluster is fer-
mented wine, for alcohol is never found in the clusters in the vine-
yard. To produce alcohol from grapes, either the grapes or the
juice therefrom must be manufactured by man. "Clusters of
noble wine" is not fermented wine.
CHAPTER VII.
ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS OF PRESERVING UNFER-
MENTED WINE BY KEEPING IT COOL AND SETTLING IT,
AND BY THE USE OF SWEET OIL, AND BY SULPHURIZA-
TION.
BELOW the temperature of about 45° fresh grape-juice, if bot-
tled and sealed, will not ferment; and fermentation commences
in the gluten, which is a trifle heavier than the rest of the wine;
therefore, if the wine is kept below that temperature and fer-
mentation thus prevented for a few months, or even weeks, the
gluten will settle to the bottom of the bottle as lees; which, in
this case, not having been perverted by leaven, have a good cor-
respondence. This method of preserving wine was well known
and frequently practiced by the ancients.
Cato, the earliest of the so-called 'rustic' or agricultural
writers, about B. C. 200, describes specially this mode of preparing
must, or unfermented wine, thus: 'If you wish to have must all
the year, put the grape-juice in a flask [amphora], seal over the
cork with pitch, and lower it into the cistern [piscina]. After
thirty days, take it out; it will be must all the year' ('De Re
Rustica,' c. 120). It is worthy of note that the word mustum
first appears in Latin literature in the age of Cato, about B. C.
200; after which it is often met till Pliny's day, three centuries
later."
It is thus described by Pliny: "They plunge the casks, imme-
diately after they are filled from the vat, into water, until winter
has passed away, and the wine has acquired the habit of being
cold."
"Columella, the rural writer, who lived during the apostolic
days, more fully than Cato at an early age, describes (xii. 29) the
mode of preparing unintoxicating wine."
Rev. Dr. G. W. Samson, in his reply to his critics, entitled
"Science the Interpreter of History as to Unfermented Wine," in
reply to Dr. Moore as to the teachings of Columella, says :
"There immediately follows (xii. 29) the statement Dr. Moore
154
VARIOUS METHODS OF PRESERVING WINE.
does not quote: 'Mustum ut semper dulce, tanquam recens,
permaneat, sic facito. Ante prelo vinacea subjiciantur, de lacu
quam recentissimum addito mustum in amphoram novam, eamque
oblinito, et impicato diligenter, ne quidquam aquæ introire possit;
tunc in piscinam frigidæ et dulcis aquæ totam amphoram mergito,
ita nequa pars extet; deinde post dies xl eximito. Sic usque in
annum dulce permanebit.' 'That must may remain always sweet,
as when fresh, thus do: before the grape-skins are subjected to
the press, put the must, when freshest from the vat, into a new
flask, stop it up and pitch it carefully, so that no water can enter;
then sink the entire flask in a cistern of cold and sweet water, so
that no part be out; then, after forty days, take it out; thus it
will remain sweet throughout the year.' Dr. Moore admits that
m'ist (p. 104) is thus kept as must during the year, but objects to
its being classified as a wine. It is sufficient to call attention to
the connection of the following paragraph (xii. 30), as also to the
preceding (xii. 28); which, if read in connection with this inter-
ening paragraph, indicate conclusively that Columella, like Cato,
ranks preserved musts as a class of wines."
Here lies the great difficulty with the advocates of fermented
wine. They assume a false position-that there is no wine but
fermented wine-and then ignore everything that conflicts with
their " one-wine theory.”
"Smith, in his 'Greek and Roman Antiquities,' says: 'The
sweet, unfermented juice of the grape was termed gleukos by the
Greeks and mustum by the Romans the latter word being
properly an adjective signifying new or fresh.' 'A portion of the
must was used at once, being drunk fresh.' 'When it was desired
to preserve a quantity in the sweet state, an amphora was taken
and coated with pitch within and without; it was filled with
mustum lixivium, and corked so as to be perfectly air-tight. It
was then immersed in a tank of cold fresh water, or buried in wet
sand, and allowed to remain for six weeks or two months. The
contents, after this process, was found to remain unchanged for a
year, and hence the name, aeigleukos—that is, 'semper mustum,'
always sweet.”
"Chas. Anthon, LL.D., in his 'Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Antiquities,' gives the same receipt and definitions, and fully sus-
tains the position that these preparations of the unfermented
grape-juice were by the ancients known as wine."-Bible Wines.
The modern application of this method of keeping wine unfer-
mented and unintoxicating was thus detailed by Philip Miller,
EXPERIMENTS MADE BY THE WRITER.
155
F.R.S., in 1768: "The way to keep wine long in the must is to
tun it up immediately from the press, and, before it begins to
work, to let down the vessels, closely and firmly stopped, into a
well or deep river, there to remain for six or eight weeks, during
which time the liquor will be so confirmed in its state of crudity
as to retain the same, together with its sweetness, for many
months after, without any sensible fermentation."-The Garden-
ers' Dict. (8th ed.), Art. Wine.
That the sweet, unfermented juice of grapes, either fresh or
preserved by the various processes we are considering, was called
wine by the ancients, is beyond question.
"Aristotle says of sweet wine that 'it is a wine in name, but
not in fact—it does not intoxicate.' It had the name, therefore,
even in his day. Josephus, the Jewish historian, paraphrasing
the dream of Pharaoh's butler, who dreamed that he took clusters
of grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and gave the
cup to Pharaoh, repeatedly calls this grape-juice wine. Bishop
Lowth, 1778, in his " Commentary' (Isaiah v. 2), says: 'The
fresh juice pressed from the grape' was by Herodotus styled
oinos ampelinos, that is, wine of the vine."-Wine of the Word,
by Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson.
EXPERIMENTS MADE BY THE WRITER.
In October, 1882, following the directions of the above ancient
writers, we pressed some Concord grapes and took the sweetest of
the juice, or that which ran first without heavy pressure, and
strained it through a linen cloth. We then took new pint beer-
bottles, having a rubber cork and a wire spring to hold the cork in
position, and scalded them out with boiling water. Having filled
them with the must to the brim, we turned the cork and pressed
down the spring so as to force the cork into the liquid, thus leaving
no air, or as little as possible, on the surface of the liquid. Four
of these bottles we suspended by strings in a well and beneath the
surface of the water; two of them we hung in a press-room, where
by the aid of an ice-machine the temperature ranges from 38° to
45° Fahr.-42° being the intended temperature.
Two months after the bottles had been suspended in the well, in
company with the late Mr. J. B. Wayne, of Detroit, we drew up
one of the bottles from the well. The wine was beautiful, clear
and perfectly transparent, with a large amount of light flocculent
lees, nearly the color of the wine, resting on the bottom of the
156
VARIOUS METHODS OF PRESERVING WINE.
bottle. Wo removed the cork, and there was not the slightest sign
of fermentation. Between us we drank about one-half of the
contents of the bottle, and were delighted with it. In the estima-
tion of the writer, no fermented wine ever compared with it in
aroma and taste. We returned the cork to the bottle and the latter
to the well. At the end of three months and a half from the time
the bottles were first placed in the well, the writer took a second
bottle, and also the one from which we had drank a few weeks
previously, from the well and carried them to his residence in New
York, where, in company with Mr. W. J. Parsons, he re-opened the
partly emptied bottle. A rapid effervescence ensued, showing that
a slow fermentation had been progressing after the admission of
air into the half-filled bottle, notwithstanding it had been kept in
the cool water in the well. The full bottle, on being uncorked,
presented not the slightest trace of fermentation; not a single
bubble of gas could be seen ascending through the wine, and there
was no pressure on the cork. The lees, as they always are in un-
fermented wines, were light, flocculent and floated readily in the
wine as the bottle was moved; they were composed principally of
albumen and other substances which, as they exist in the wine, are
but a trifle heavier than the liquid portions. These lees are among
the most nutritious and valuable portions of the wine, and may be
drank with it. These are the good lees of the Word and the
Writings, of which Swedenborg says: "By lees and lees refined
are signified truths from that good with felicity thence derived."-
A. E. 1159.
There is therefore no occasion, except for the sake of transpar-
ency, to draw the wine off from the lees, as the latter all come
from the grapes and are among the most valuable parts of the wine,
and may be drank with it, or allowed to remain in the bottom of
the bottle.
Contrary to what the writer supposed at the time he wrote his
first work on The Wine Question," his experiments have shown
him that we cannot draw off a portion of a full vessel and thus
expose the wine drawn off and that remaining in the vessel to the
action of the air, without causing fermentation within a few days.
The reader will please bear this in mind. Of the two bottles placed
in the cold room, he brought one into his office after it had been in
the cold room about two months (in Dec.), intending to take it to
his home; but after standing in the warm office for a few hours it
burst, simply from the expansion of the liquid; there were no
signs of fermentation in it. The reader will remember that he
EXPERIMENTS IN PRESERVING UNFERMENTED WINE. 157
filled those bottles up to the brim and pressed the rubber cork
directly into the fluid with the wire spring, therefore there was no
room for the expansion of the liquid when it was placed in a tem-
perature above that of the wine when the bottle was filled. If the
wine were bottled while warmed to a higher temperature than any
it would be afterwards placed in, the danger of bursting bottles by
expansion would be obviated, however tightly the corks might
press on the wine, though the bottles might be broken at once by
the force of the pressure. He would suggest raising the tempera-
ture of the juice to, say, 120° Fahr. before filling the bottles,
which would not change or impair the flavor or quality of the wine
in the least.
The second bottle in his cold room, corked with a rubber cork
and spring, was opened by the writer on the day in which the
first bottle burst in his office, and the wine in it showed no sign of
fermentation. He poured from the bottle enough of the wine to
leave half an inch of space between the cork and liquid, and
replaced the cork, leaving the bottle still in the cold room, where
it remained for about two months. During this time the only
apparent change was that a little speck of mould formed on the top
of the liquid.
In the month of February he examined this bottle again; there
were no bubbles of gas ascending and none upon the surface of
the wine, but on removing the cork very soon bubbles began to
ascend to the surface, only a comparatively few of them, nothing
approaching the rapid effervescence which ensued when the half-
full bottle from the well was uncorked. These experiments show
that the cold of the room or of the well, if there has been an
admission of air to the wine after it has been once corked and
settled, is not sufficient to entirely prevent a slow fermentation.
But when there is no air upon the surface of the liquid, the
pressure of the cork, with the cool air of the above room, or the
cold water in the well, is sufficient to prevent the development of
the germs of ferment; for in no instance has the writer seen any
bubbles or signs of fermentation on first opening the bottles, or
on uncorking them for the first time.
He suspended also several small bottles and one quart bottle in
the cold room, simply carefully corked with good corks, which he
has removed at various times; and none of the contents on being
uncorked, have shown any signs of fermentation. From the quart
bottle he filled small bottles and gave to his friends. Whenever
the contents of these bottles or any portion of them were preserved
158
VARIOUS METHODS OF PRESERVING WINE.
for a few days they commenced fermenting. The reader should
understand that wine preserved by the methods described above or
the one which follows, when uncorked and exposed to the air, is
likely to ferment at any season of the year, for it is quite sure to
contain more or less germs of ferment; therefore it should either
be used soon after opening, or else scalded upon the slightest
appearance of fermentation.
Here we have a process of preserving the pure juice of the
grape during the year-yes, for years-by a process so simple that
every one who has grapes and a well or spring of cold water, can
preserve his own wine precisely as it was preserved by Columella
in the days of the Apostles; and that the ancients called it wine is
beyond a doubt to every one who is willing to examine the evidence
without prejudice.
We take the following from the Northwestern Christian Advo-
cate, touching the Wine Question, by A. H. Ames, D.D.:
"We all know the persistence with which the statement is
repeated that the Greek word oinos means always and only fer-
mented wine. The admission that any other meaning is allowable
would materially diminish the force of the arguments which the
enemies of prohibition draw from the miracle of Cana. A demand
has been made for an example in classical Greek of any exception
to the above statement. The challenge may be met and example
furnished in the writings of Aristotle, who understood his mother
tongue as well probably as our contemporaries. The instances may
be found in his 'Meteorology,' book iv., chap. 9, section 35; and
also in chap. 10. The passage first cited is as follows :
""'Oinos d'o men glukus thumiatai, pion gar kai tauta poiei to elaio
'oute gar apo psuchous pegnutai kaietai te. Esti d'onomati 'oinos, ergo d'
ouk estin; ou gar 'oinodes 'o Chumos: dio kai ou methus kei. 'O tuchon
d' oinos mikran ekei thumiasin, dio aniesi phloga.'
"This quotation fairly proves these things: 1. That there was
a product of grapes which was sweet, which did not have a vinous
taste, which did not intoxicate, and which differed from the ordi-
nary wine to be found in the shops. 2. That while Aristotle,
writing as a scientific man a scientific treatise, did not think that
two products so different in their effects (en ergo) should be called
by the same name; yet he distinctly and emphatically asserts that
the non-intoxicating product was called, in popular usage, 'wine.'
3. That the word 'Oinos was therefore a generic name under which
PRESERVATION OF WINE BY SULPHURIZATION.
159
could properly be included both the sweet and non-intoxicating, as
well as the ordinary species.
"The other passage cited is as follows:
“Aitios d'oti oudeni eidei legetai ‘o 'oinos kai allos allos.' (The reason
for this is that the name of "wine" is not attributed to one species of
liquor alone, but one kind has one property; another another.)
"It appears from all this that the use of the word 'wine' in
the account of the miracle at Cana does not of itself prove that it
was the intoxicating species. Other considerations must deter-
mine the probabilities of the case. The same usage, it may be
said, prevails in the Latin language.
In the epigrams of Martial, book i., epigram 19, the words
vina and musta are used interchangeably just as in Greek glukus
and 'oinos."
PRESERVATION OF UNFERMENTED WINE BY SULPHURIZATION.
Dr. Ure states that fermentation may be stopped by the appli-
cation or admixture of substances containing sulphur; that the
operation consists partly in absorbing oxygen, whereby the elimi-
nation of the yeasty particles is prevented. Adams, in his "Roman
Antiquities," on the authority of Pliny and others, says "that the
Romans fumigated their wines with the fumes of sulphur; that
they also mixed with the mustum, newly pressed juice, yolks of
eggs, and other articles containing sulphur."
""
Count Dandalo, "On the Art of Preserving the Wines of Italy,"
first published at Milan, 1812, says: "The last process in wine-
making is sulphurization; its object is to secure the most long-
continued preservation of all wines, even of the very commonest
sort."-Nott.
Dr. Norman Kerr, in the work referred to above, says:
"Not long ago,' says my lamented friend, Professor James
Miller, the eminent surgeon, 'I made the acquaintance of an
extensive wine-grower on the Moselle.' 'Have you any unfer-
mented wine-juice of the grape?' said I. 'Tons,' said he. 'How
old?' 'Some of it fully ten years.' And then he went on to
explain two modes of preserving it in its pure, natural, unfer-
mented state: one by the boiling process, another by the sulphur
cure--both precisely as practiced in olden times (Nephalism, pp.
147, 148).
"The process is exceedingly simple. The must is poured into
160
VARIOUS METHODS OF PRESERVING WINE.
barrels or bottles which have been strongly sulphured by the
burning of sulphur matches. More matches are burnt from time
to time, and the lid, bung, or cork is securely fastened (Thud. and
Dupré, p. 396; Sutton, pp. 163, 164; Redding, 2d ed., p. 42).
This must never ferments (Muspratt, Chem. II. 1119; Redding, p.
42; Sutton, pp. 163, 164)."
The writer is told that some of the growers in this country
preserve the unfermented wine by this method.
Since writing the above we have conversed with an extensive
wine-grower of New Jersey, who assures us that he preserves
unfermented wine by this process, and furnishes it to the churches
for communion wine, and to hospitals and physicians for medical
purposes.
Chemists, as we have shown above, tell us that sulphurization,
if fairly applied, will prevent fermentation. We do not think that
there are any serious objections to this method, provided it is suffi-
ciently carried out, so as to actually prevent fermentation; which
we are satisfied can be done if suitable care is used. The sulphur-
ous acid gas developed by the burning sulphur, which has a
strong, pungent smell, undoubtedly enters into chemical combina-
tion, and is most likely precipitated in the lees; at all events the
smell entirely disappears from the wine, and however objectionable
the lees may be for use on this account, we do not think that there
is any objection to the wine. It is a very ancient method of pre-
serving wine, and it is frequently used at this day to stay the
progress of fermentation in fermented wine, as well as to prevent
fermentation in unfermented wine.
When the writer stated in his former work that the ancients
used and the moderns use sulphurization to prevent fermentation,
and thus preserve wine unfermented, the editors of a religious
serial accused him of representing that which is "altogether
false."
Mr. Alfred Speer, whose salesroom is at 16 Warren street, New
York, who is a producer of native wines, and has large vineyards
near Passaic, N. J., manufactures quite extensively unfermented
wine from Oporto grapes, and supplies it to many religious societies
for communion purposes. He informs the writer that he preserves
it by sulphurization, a process which the above editors represent
is only used to check fermentation in fermented wine after fermen-
tation has progressed as far as is desirable. The reader can readily
see that to object to wine preserved from fermentation by sulphur-
ization, and yet drink a fermented wine which has had the same
FILTERING WINE TO PREVENT FERMENTATION.
treatment, is to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.
161
The writer
is assured by Mr. Speer that he uses nothing but sulphurization to
preserve his wine unfermented.
The writer obtained from Mr. Speer a bottle of his unfermented
wine in February, 1883, and found it a very pleasant and nutri-
tious wine, without the slightest smell or taste of sulphur. Mr.
W. J. Parsons and the writer put a portion of this wine into a
retort, and distilled and condensed about one-third of the contents.
of the retort. The distillate had neither the smell nor taste of
alcohol, nor did chemical tests indicate any trace of alcohol.
We are satisfied that great care is required to prevent some
degree of fermentation by sulphurization.
FILTERING WINE TO PREVENT FERMENTATION.
The ancients were in the habit of repeatedly filtering their wines
to prevent fermentation. As we have already stated, fermentation
commences in the gluten, or albuminous matter, which is a thick,
jelly-like substance, or the bread portion of the wine, which does
not so readily pass through fine substances like felt, wool, or linen
bags, or whatever material was used by the ancients in making
their filters, as the more fluid portions of the wine; consequently,
by repeatedly filtering, and thus separating the gluten, they pre-
vented fermentation in the wine which passed the filter.
,"Plutarch, born A. D. 60, in his 'Symposiacs,' refers to the way
of preventing the fermentation of wine by filtering, as explained
by Dr. Ure. Plutarch says: 'Wine is rendered old, or feeble in
strength, when it is frequently filtered; this percolation makes it
more pleasant to the palate; the strength of the wine is thus taken
away without any injury to its pleasing flavor. The strength (or
spirit) being thus withdrawn (or excluded), the wine neither in-
flames the head nor infests the mind and the passions, but is much
more pleasant to drink. Doubtless, defecation takes away the
(spirit, or) potency that torments the head of the drinker; and,
this being removed, the wine is reduced to a state both mild, salu-
brious and wholesome.' Here is a writer on conviviality-one who
associated with drinkers-who asserts that these unintoxicating
wines were most esteemed.
"The Delphin Notes to Horace,' lib. 1, ode 2, make reference
to the same mode of preventing fermentation. 'Be careful to
prepare for yourself wine percolated and defecated by the filter,
and thus rendered sweet, and more in accordance with nature,
162
VARIOUS METHODS OF PRESERVING WINE.
and a female taste.' Females, as we have seen, were not allowed
to drink intoxicating wine. It was this kind of wine which Theo-
phrastes so appropriately called 'moral wine.' The mischief
wrought by fermented wine ought, long since, to have earned for
it the title of 'immoral wine.'
"Cato, and other ancient writers, give similar testimony. The
fact that these receipts were furnished to the public is very good
evidence, of itself, that such wine was in use.
"The numerous authorities already cited to show that unfer-
mented grape-juice is wine, also prove that unfermented wine
existed.
(6
'Here, then, in spite of assertions to the contrary, is the thing
which we call unfermented wine. No quibble about the use of
terms can avail, for here is the thing, by whatever name it is
called. The name of it may have been different in different ages;
for, as we have seen, Pliny says, that intoxicating wine, vinum,
was once called temetum; and in the East now,,krasion has dis-
placed the classical oinos."—Communion Wine, by Rev. William
M. Thayer.
Pliny says:
"The most useful wine has all its force or strength
broken by the filter." Repeatedly Pliny as well as Varro speaks
of this filtered wine as being a very sweet wine, highly esteemed,
and conceded to the ladies because it could not intoxicate (lib. xiv.,
chap. 3). And Plutarch, born A. D. 60, tells us that such wine
neither inflames the brain nor infests the mind and the passions,
and is much more pleasant to drink.
The ancients, it will be seen, dreaded the effects which might
be developed in their children if the women also were allowed to
drink fermented wine. They evidently felt that there was danger
enough of their children inheriting a tendency to drink from the
fathers; but when the mothers also drank, not only a tendency
might be inherited, but an actual appetite might also be acquired
by nursing at the breast of a drinking mother.
The only experiment made by the writer in preserving wine by
filtration, was to filter some grape-juice through four thicknesses
of linen cloth; but it did not wholly prevent fermentation. To be
successful it must evidently remove from the juice the substance
in which fermentation commences.
PRESERVATION OF UNFERMENTED WINE BY THE USE OF SWEET OIL.
i
If the fresh juice of the grape, that which results from only a
moderate amount of pressure, is strained through a linen strainer
PRESERVATION OF WINE BY SWEET OIL.
163
once or more; or until all fragments of the pulp are removed and
the wine is perfectly clear, and it is then put into a clean bottle
until it reaches the neck of the bottle, and a stratum of fresh
sweet oil is poured upon its surface until it reaches the depth of
half an inch or an inch, and then the bottle is corked and allowed
to stand in a cool cellar, the wine will not ferment, but will keep
fresh, as has been found by recent experiments; thus confirming
the efficacy of one of the methods of the ancients, as represented
by the engravings on page 164.
"The three cuts," says the Rev. Dr. Samson, “ "present three
distinct processes in the most ancient modes of preparing unfer-
mented wines, alluded to on pages 46, 54-57, and described on
pages 310–313 (of his work on the 'Divine Law as to Wines').
They are copied from sculptures in relief, richly painted, found
on the walls of tombs at Beni Hassan, in Upper Egypt. They
are found in the volumes of Sir Gardner Wilkinson, and were
carefully studied by the writer in February, 1848. The tombs
have at their entrance, the catouche of Osirtasen I., the Pharaoh
of Joseph's day." The following is Dr. Samson's interpretation of
the plate under consideration:
"But another stage of backward transit brings us to the
'protropos' of the Greeks; or the oozing juice of the clusters on
the vine caught in pans as it dripped before the harvest. Thence,
again, we find ourselves in Egypt; especially in the vintage-scenes
pictured on the tomb-walls of Beni Hassan in Upper Egypt, sculpt-
ured and painted in the days of Joseph. We scan the two presses,
and the method of separating and storing the sugary juice with-
out the fermenting pulp. The more carefully prepared is that
from the small twist-press. A sack, about three feet long, is
fastened by a ring at one end to a stout post; a rope at the other
end passes through a hole in another post; a strong staff, about
four feet long, is turned by three men; while a fourth attends to
a large pan into which the juice squeezed from the sack is falling
in drops. The larger press is an immense vat in which ten or
twelve youths are treading the grapes with their feet. From two
orifices, one near the top and the other near the bottom, flow
streams of juice. The upper stream, evidently furnished with an
inside strainer, as Wilkinson intimates (Anct. Egypt., c. v.), flows
into a small tub, whence an attendant dips the fresh and strained
must, with a large-nosed scoop, into jars; over which, when filled,
another attendant pours from a smaller scoop, what we may now
regard fresh oil; while other attendants set away these jars, with
164
VARIOUS METHODS OF PRESERVING WINE.
FIG. I.

川
​山
​FIG. 2.

FIG. 3.
00000
CCC

DR. SAMSON'S EXPERIMENT.
165
or without covers, in the store-house. It is not to be wondered at
that minds, having thus before them the connected facts, see in
this an explanation of the butler's dream, interpreted by Joseph
(Gen. xl. 11), and of the Hebrew 'tirosh,' familiar to Isaac (Gen.
xxvii. 28, 37).”—Science the Interpreter of History as to Unfer-
mented Wine.
“To this custom of preserving must and other fruit products
by oil, Pliny and Columella allude; Columella saying (xii. 19)
that 'before the must is poured into the jars (vasa),' they should
be 'saturated with good oil. "
6
6
“Virgil describes the presses, with strainers, which furnished
the pure juice without ferment; as he in youth worked at them.
First, there were the foot-vats; in which the vintage foamed on
the full brims,' as he with his comrades 'tinged the naked ankles
with new must' (Geor. II. 6, 8). Second, there was the twist or
torcular press; with its cloth-sacks (cola), its twisting staves
(prela); from which, in 'great drops' (guttæ), gathered and
flowing as streams' (unda), the bottles to preserve it were filled
(Geor. II. 240–245). So completely did the straining process of
the twist press prevail, that it gave the specific name 'torculum,'
or 'torcular,' among the 'Rustic' writers, to wine-presses in gen-
eral; as the student of Cato, Varro, Columella and Pliny, whose
observations covered three centuries, will note. More than this:
Jerome, with incomparable facilities for a correct judgment, finds
this method of straining the unfermenting juice from the ferment-
ing pulp, a controlling idea, from Moses to his own day; as his
universal use of the neuter-plural adjective 'torculara,' or twist-
press apparatus indicates."-Divine Law as to Wines.
Nor did Dr. Samson rest satisfied with the above sources of
information; but he has by experiment shown that must can be
preserved free from fermentation for more than a year by the
very process which he believes to be illustrated by the plate
which the writer has copied from his book. He tells us that
in October, 1879, he filled a vial with the juice of Catawba
grapes, from which the pulp had been carefully strained. This he
covered with a film of olive oil, and set away in a closet. On the
31st of June, 1881, one year and four months from the time of the
preparation, the bottle was placed in the hands of a chemist,
recommended by Dr. C. F. Chandler and by Prof. C. F. Joy, of
the School of Mines. The chemist, Dr. C. S. Allen, Ph.B., certi-
fied that, after a careful examination, he could detect no alcohol
in the juice covered with oil.
166
VARIOUS METHODS OF PRESERVING WINE.
In October, 1881, the writer pressed the juice from Concord
grapes and strained it carefully. He filled a bottle up to the neck
with this juice and poured olive oil upon the surface to the depth
of nearly half an inch; then he simply twisted in with his fingers
a good cork which camo within about half an inch of the oil, and
stood the bottle on his dining-room mantel, at a temperature
favorable for fermentation. The bottle remained in this place
until spring. Although ho frequently examined it, he saw no signs
of fermentation; until, after removing the cork several times to
smell of it, he began to notice a few bubbles of gas coming from
lees at the bottom up to the surface through the oil when the cork
was out.
This action ceased when the cork was returned. In one
instance he found the cork pressed out, and it may have been out
some hours. But there was at no time anything like active fer-
mentation, such as occurred in other bottles treated differently.
At the end of thirteen months the writer, assisted by Mr. W. J.
Parsons, drew with a siphon a portion of the wine into a retort,
and distilled about one-third of the quantity put into the retort.
In the distillate they could detect no alcohol either by the smell or
taste; yet on testing it chemically they detected a trace of alcohol.
There was no perceptible amount of yeast in the bottom of the
bottle, as in bottles where active fermentation had taken place,
but the lees were light and flocculent like those in unfermented
wine.
In October, 1882, the writer mashed and pressed enough
Catawba grapes to obtain juice sufficient to fill two pint bottles
and two smaller ones. Ho strained the juice through four thick-
nesses of linen toweling, and filled four bottles, first scalding and
oiling the inside of the bottles. He then poured olive oil upon the
surface of the wine in all the bottles to the depth of about half an
inch. Three of the bottles he left open exposed to the air, but into
one of the pint bottles he pressed and twisted with his thumb and
fingers a good cork. The bottles were all allowed to stand in a
temperature favorable for fermentation. In a few days all the
bottles left uncorked commenced fermenting. The fermentation
progressed rapidly, with a free discharge of carbonic acid gas
through the wine and oil, from the lees at the bottom of the bottle.
The gas frequently buoyed up portions of albuminous matter to
the under surface of the oil, where the gas would separate from
them, and they would fall again to the bottom of the bottle. This
process continued until the lees, from being nearly the color of the
wine and light and flocculent, became white and dense, as in the
THE WRITER'S EXPERIMENTS WITH OIL.
167
bottles exposed to the air without oil. At the end of two months
Mr. Parsons and the writer distilled portions of the wine from
those bottles and obtained alcohol. The distillate was also de-
cidedly acid.
The sample of wine which had been carefully corked was
allowed to stand for two months in the same atmosphere with the
bottles which fermented, but without the slightest sign of fermen-
tation; the lees remaining light, flocculent and unchanged; and,
although frequently examined, not a bubble of gas was ever seen
to ascend. The wine was beautiful and clear, being perfectly
transparent; and, as it had stood for two months after the time of
harvest without any signs of fermentation, the writer is not able
to see any reason why it might not have stood two years, if it had
been left quietly on the shelf. But he rolled the bottle in a paper
and carried it from the banks of the Hudson, in New Jersey, to
his residence in New York, and stood it in his library. In the.
transit it was so shaken up that the lees were diffused through the
wine, which thereby lost its clearness. In two or three days
bubbles of gas were seen ascending through the liquid; and these
increased in quantity, until at length the cork was forced out, and
the wine fermented rapidly. We think the experiments described
above, together with the one described by Dr. Samson in his
work, show clearly that, with suitable care, wine can be preserved
unfermented by the above method. Please remember, in trying
this experiment, to filter the must carefully; scald out your
bottles, cork them carefully, and let them stand quietly in a cool
place.
We would suggest to those who may desire to repeat this experi-
ment of preserving wine by the above method, that the ancients
oiled their earthen vessels inside before filling them; and it would
be well to follow their example. The ancients carefully filtered
their must before putting it into their vessels; and, after filling
the latter, they either tied over them pieces of skin, or corked
them and sealed the cork with pitch. Thus protected, the vessels
were set away in a cellar, or in as cool a place as practicable,
as has been customary in all ages. It is, as we have seen above,
absolutely essential that the bottles should be carefully corked, so
as to exclude the atmosphere; and then the small quantity of air
between the coating of oil and the lower end of the cork seems to
be harmless.
If the juice of the grape is heated either up to the temperature
of 180° or 200°, or up to the boiling point, the germs of ferment in
168
VARIOUS METHODS OF PRESERVING WINE.
it are destroyed; then, if it is put into a bottle or jar, and
covered with sweet oil while hot, fermentation is impossible.
The writer has a bottle of wine thus preserved for over three
years, which has never shown the slightest sign of fermentation;
although the cork has been frequently removed. But a friend
who has experimented with this method assures the writer that
the wine is likely to taste of the oil when preserved by heating
and covering with oil.
The writer has been thus particular in the preceding pages in
describing his experiments in preserving unfermented wine ac-
cording to the directions of the ancients, and the results of his
experiments, for the purpose of showing how easy it is to preserve
the wine free from fermentation; and of encouraging all who have
or can get grapes, to carefully preserve their wine and not let it
spoil by fermenting.
There were various other methods employed among the an-
cients for preserving wine from fermentation, such as mixing it
with sea-water, spices, etc.; but it is unnecessary to refer to them
further, as we have already noticed those most frequently used,
and those least objectionable.
Can the reader imagine it possible that such men as Pliny,
Columella, Varro, Cato, Virgil, Plutarch, Horace and Aristotle
were penning falsehoods in the interest of teetotalers of this day;
when, writing more than eighteen hundred years ago, they either
speak of wines which would not intoxicate, or describe methods of
preserving grape-juice, or wine, by which (as has been proved by
recent practice and experiments) fermentation is effectually pre-
vented? How can Christian men ignore such testimony? and how
can they ignore the fact that unfermented wines are to-day manu-
factured by some of the very processes described by the ancients,
and sold as health-giving fluids, and used as sacramental wines
quite extensively?
"All
"Faith Latimer," in the Sunday School Times, says:
benevolent Christians, anxious to lessen the crime and misery of
the nation, unless blinded by capital invested in the production or
sale of liquor, or expecting profit directly or indirectly, must see
that the most powerful lever to uplift humanity is to withhold all
support or encouragement from that traffic. If every Protestant
Church in America would at once cease its purchases of imported
or fermented wine for sacramental use, it would be the strongest
blow which could be given against the wine-trade, and a giant
stroke of approval in the cause of Christian temperance,”
•
1
CHAPTER VIII.
TWO KINDS OF WINE RECOGNIZED IN THE BIBLE, IN BOTH
ITS SPIRITUAL AND NATURAL SENSES-WINE IN THE
HEBREW, GREEK, LATIN AND ENGLISH LANGUAGES.
THAT there are two kinds of wine spoken of in the letter of the
Bible and in the writings of the Church, the one always good and
the other always evil and pernicious, will be evident to every
reader who, without preconceived opinions, carefully reads his Bible
and the Writings of Swedenborg. It is now, as we have shown in
previous chapters, perfectly clear that, during all the various periods.
when the Sacred Scriptures were written, the ancients were in the
habit of preparing two kinds of wine, both of which were called
wine; one kind fermented and intoxicating, and the other unfer-
mented and consequently unintoxicating; the latter of which
was not only harmless, but a healthy and nutritious drink, and
abundantly capable of making glad the unperverted heart of man.
They also prepared a great variety of unfermented or unintoxicating
wines; and by a great variety of methods which are carefully
described by ancient writers, to three or four of which we alluded
in the chapters on two kinds of wine. And, further, it is now
evident that their best and most celebrated old wines were generally,
if not always, unfermented wines. They had no distilled spirits
to add to their wines to preserve them, as we have at this day;
consequently, even if they had a desire to preserve their fermented
wine, they would have found it difficult, with their imperfect
vessels and casks, to have done so; for fermented wine, if not
most carefully excluded from the air, so readily passes into vinegar,
especially in warm climates; whereas they had no difficulty in
preparing unfermented wine so that it would keep for years, and
even for centuries; as we have seen from the testimony of ancient
authors and from our own experiments.
Now, kind reader, stop a moment and reflect. Here is a view
of the wine question, abundantly sustained by the testimony of
disinterested ancient authors, and of the most distinguished
writers of the early Christian Church, and of as distinguished
170
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
1
}
scholars of this day as are to be found who have critically examined
this question, which reconciles all apparent contradictions to be
found in the Bible; and we ask, in view of the terrible evils you see
around you, is it not worthy of your most serious and prayerful
consideration? It is evident that there is no evil of external life
so fearful in its consequences upon our race, as the drinking of
intoxicating wines, beer, and distilled liquors. Consider the un-
natural and depraved excitement, the discases and drunkenness
which arise therefrom as naturally as a stream flows from its
fountain. Is it not a duty which we owe to the Lord, our fellow-
man and ourselves, to examine this subject most carefully?
""
If there are two kinds of spiritual wine recognized in the Word
of the Lord, and in the writings of the Church, we have a right to
look for two kinds of natural wine; for the philosophy of the New
Christianity teaches us that the spiritual is ever in the effort to
ultimate itself in the natural. Then to the law and testimony:
"Wine and blood of grapes." (Gen. xlix. 11.) "Wine here,'
says Swedenborg, "denotes what is spiritual from a celestial
origin," or "essential faith.
essential faith." (A. C. 1071.) "Wine in the Holy
Supper signifies the divine truth of the Lord's divine wisdom.”
(U. T. 711.) There is no difficulty in bringing a large number of
quotations, both from the Word and the Writings of Swedenborg,
to show that good pure wine has a good signification. This
admitted by all, therefore further illustrations at present are
unnecessary, as there is no controversy on this point. But here,
one class of writers and teachers assume that there is but one
kind of wine spoken of in the Word; and that is fermented
wine, which they claim has a good correspondence; and that
it is never evil, or a poison in itself; but that it may become
injurious, if excessively used, like any other healthy article of
drink. But another class of teachers and writers, and among
them the present writer, claim that there are two kinds of wine:
one unleavened, good and harmless, always having a good signifi-
cation; the other leavened, poisonous and destructive, always
having an evil signification when mentioned in the Word of the
Lord.
We shall find that the latter view is abundantly sustained by the
Writings of Swedenborg. He says : “Whereas several expressions
in the Word have also a contrary sense, so also has wine; in which
sense it signifies tho false principle derived from evil." (Arcana
Cœlestia, 6377.) And, in strict harmony with this, he says: "The
wine of fornication spoken of by Saint John the Revelator, signifies
TWO KINDS OF WINE.
171
""
the adulterated truths of faith, whereof drunkenness is predicated.'
(A. C. 1072.) Again, "By the wine of the fury and the wrath of
God (Rev. xix.) are signified the goods and truths of the Church,
which are from the Word, profaned and adulterated, and there-
fore the evils and falses of the Church." But, say the advocates
of fermented wine, this refers to spiritual wine and not to natural
wine. Grant it; but have we no evidence that there is a corre-
sponding material wine, which is an outbirth from such spiritual
wine; and which therefore necessarily produces similar effects on
the body and mind of man, when he drinks it, that the above-
named spiritual wine does upon his spirit when he adulterates the
truths of faith and appropriates such adulterated truths to his
life? Can we, as rational beings, infer that there is no difference
between the good wine of which we are told to "drink abundantly,
"wine which," we are told in Judges ix. 13, “cheereth God and
man," and of which our Lord said at the Last Supper, "drink ye
all of it,”—and the wine, which we are told in Deut. xxxij. 33,
"is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps?"-the
wine of which we are told in Jeremiah li. 7, "the nations have
drank, ""therefore the nations are mad," or the wine of which we
are told in Prov. xx. 1, that it "is a mocker, and that it biteth
like a serpent and stingeth like an adder?" As the Proverbs have
not a spiritual sense, the advocates for fermented wine cannot
claim that this refers to spiritual wine; and we think they will
agree with the writer that the author of Proverbs did not here
refer to unfermented wine; but we fancy that every one cannot
but see that he did refer to fermented wine; for we can see that,
although the language is figurative, yet as such it most accurately
describes the effects of fermented wine on the mind and body of
man.
But Swedenborg does not leave us in doubt as to there being
two kinds of wine, one good and the other bad; for he says:
"Falses from evil may be compared to wine and strong drinks
which induce drunkenness.” (Apocalypse Explained, 1035.) It
is not the use or abuse, but the article itself which is compared to
falses from evil. It is its inherent quality, clearly described by its
effects on the human body and mind. "By wine," says Sweden-
borg, "is signified truth from heaven, and in the opposite sense
the falso from hell." (A. E. 1046.) Good wino is always a good
it may be abused
bo abused; but abuse, Swedenborg tells us, does not
take away use, excepting in those who abuse it; therefore, the
wine itself, which signifies truth from heaven when unpolluted,
use;
172
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
can never signify "the false from hell;" but the abuse of it possi-
bly may. We repeat, it is of the wine he speaks in the above
language, and not of its abuse. That it is not good wine which
signifies the false from hell, but such wine as has been perverted
and polluted by ferment which we are told signifies "the false of
evil” (Divine Providence, 284) will be clearly seen by the above
quotation and others we have already made, and shall hereafter
make from the writings of Swedenborg. Again, Swedenborg says:
* *
·
* * *
"The same shall drink of the wine of the anger of God, mixed
pure in the cup of his wrath.' That hereby is signified appropri-
ation of the false and evil thence derived, conjoined with falsified
truths from the literal sense of the Word, appears from the signi-
fication of drinking, as denoting to imbue and appropriate to
themselves; and from the signification of wine, as denoting truth
from good, and in the opposite sense the false from evil. *** In
this case, therefore, by drinking the wine of the anger of God, is
signified the imbuing and appropriation of the false and evil thence
derived
** and from the signification of being mixed pure,
as denoting to be conjoined with falsified truths.
From
these considerations it is evident that, by wine mixed pure in the
cup of the anger of God, is signified conjunction with falsified
truths of the literal sense of the Word. *** The reason why
being mixed pure signifies to be conjoined with falsified truths of
the Word is, because by pure [wine] is meant wine which is incbri-
ating; and thence inebriation, consequently, in the spiritual
sense, delirium in truths by falses, for delirium in truth by falses
is spiritual inebriation." (A. E. 887.) There is no known sub-
stance on earth which will, with so much certainty and so uniformly,
cause natural delirium as fermented wine and other liquids which
contain alcohol, that "prince of poisons." How clearly, from its
effects alone on man when he uses it, we may know that it corre-
sponds to "falses from evil;" and the delirium which it causes, to
the "delirium in truths by falses !" We repeat, there is no healthy
food on earth which, like alcoholic wine, and other fluids contain-
ing alcohol, causes delirium when freely used; alcohol always does
this; healthy food never. This fact alone, it would seem, ought
to convince any intelligent Christian that it has its origin from
hell, and not from the Lord. What can be clearer than this?
Owing, doubtless, to the fact that a very different meaning is
attached to the word pure wine at this day, from the original
meaning of the word as it was used in the passage under consider-
ation, and apparently, lest his readers should therefore mistake
:
UNPERVERTED TRUTHS NEVER INTOXICATE.
173
the present meaning for the original meaning, Swedenborg goes
on to explain in the following language: "The word also by which
pure wine [merum] is expressed in the original tongue, is derived
from a word which signifies to be inebriated; inasmuch as this is
signified by pure wine [merum], and they who falsify the Word are
spiritually inebriated, that is, are delirious as to truths, therefore
in the two passages where pure wine [merum] is mentioned in the
Word, the subject treated of is concerning the falsification of
truth, as in the prophecies of Isaiah and Hosea. 'How hath the
faithful city become a harlot; full of judgment, justice lodgeth in
her, but now homicides; thy silver hath become dross, thy pure
wine [merum] mixed with water' (Isaiah i. 21–22).
The
pure wine [merum] mixed with water, signifies truth made vile and
destroyed by the falsification thereof."-A. E. 887.
* *
We know that fermented wine and other intoxicating drinks
cause delirium and insanity, and that of the most fearful char-
acter; and we know that healthy fluids have never this specific
effect, as we have already said; and we know also that spiritual
truth when unperverted never causes spiritual delirium; how,
then, is it possible for a natural fluid, which legitimately corre-
sponds to spiritual truth, to ever cause natural delirium, and that
of a specific character like that from alcohol, characteristic of the
article used? Our friends who advocate the use of intoxicating
wines and whisky seem to forget the philosophy of the Church and
the science of correspondences, which are so clearly and beautifully
taught in the writings of Swedenborg. They seem to forget that :
"The real case is, that in even the minutest things in nature and
in her three kingdoms, the intrinsic agent is from the spiritual
world; and unless such an active principle from that world was
therein, nothing at all in the natural world could act as cause, and
effect [something]; consequently nothing could be produced."
(A. C. 5173.) It is, therefore, perfectly clear that no article of food
or drink which has not an active spiritual principle from hell,
the home of insane and delirious spirits, can ever cause delirium,
as does alcohol.
"As to what respects the insanity which is signified by inebri-
ation and by drunkenness in the Word, it is not from falses, but
from truths falsified.”—A. E. 1035.
"Spiritual truths must be perverted and destroyed, or else they
have no inebriating power. But a perverted and destroyed truth
is a truth no longer; a falsified truth is a truth made false; and
what is made false ceases to be true. Hence it is plain from this
1
174
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
passage that spiritual truth never intoxicates; for that which
intoxicates ceases to be truth, and no longer deserves the name.'
-H. S. Sutton.
That which is true of spiritual truths, is also equally true of the
natural wine which corresponds to such truths; it can never
intoxicate until it has been perverted and destroyed by leaven,
which signifies "evil and the false which should not be mixed
with things good and true." If it is not right to imbibe "the false
which gives birth to evil" temperately, how can it be right to use
temperately the wine which intoxicates physically as the false does
spiritually? No correspondence or comparison can be clearer or
more distinct than the above.
When men engrossed by the love of spiritual dominion, and
the love of self, money, and sensual gratifications, searched the
Word of the Lord, and therefrom framed doctrines which were in
harmony with their perverted affections, such false doctrines were
not falses from ignorance, but they were falses from evil; and all
the delights of such men flowed from their evils and the falses thence
derived. It was therefore utterly impossible that pure, unfer-
mented wine, which simply gratified the orderly wants of the body,
giving true delight, health, and strength thereto, should satisfy
men thus perverted. That which corresponds to good and truth
must be destroyed, and the sugar which corresponds to spiritual
delights must be perverted into alcohol, by leaven and human
manipulation, before the wine could correspond to their spiritual
state; and then it becomes strictly appropriate.
+
But in the doctrines of the New Christianity, the Lord
again calls on all men to repent, and to put away their false
doctrines from their understandings, and evils from their lives, by
a constant effort to keep the Divine Commandments-not in their
own strength, but in the strength which the Lord ever gives to
those who ask of Him in their daily lives-not in words only, but
also in deeds. What place has fermented wine-having its origin
from hell, and corresponding clearly to falses from evils as we
have seen in the true Church of the Lord? It being the natural
emblem of the false, which is infernal, can men of this New Age
who are striving to live the life of the Church, deliberately, and
from choice, use such a perverted fluid as a beverage, and not
thereby be injured both physically and spiritually? And, above
all, can they deliberately partake of the drunkard's cup in the
most Holy Ordinance of the Church, without endangering their
highest spiritual welfare? Fermented wine is a mocker.
HEBREW TÏROSH IS WINE.
175
WINE IN THE HEBREW, GREEK, LATIN AND ENGLISH
LANGUAGES.
The first grand assumption of the advocates of the one wine
theory, and the one upon which all of their arguments rest, is
that the English word wine, when used without any qualification
or qualifying word, always means fermented grape-juice—fer-
mented wine; and that the corresponding words, in Latin (vinum),
Greek (oinos), and Hebrew (yayin), always mean, when thus used
in any of these languages, fermented, and never unfermented
grape-juice; and that Swedenborg always has reference to fer-
mented grape-juice whenever he uses the Latin word for wine-
vinum.
Now, if it can be shown, even in one of these languages, that
this representation is not true, the force of their argument will be
broken; but when we have made it clear to the reader, as we pro-
pose to do, by numerous examples from the Bible, the writings of
the Church, and from ancient and modern writers, that their
assumption is contrary to the facts in every one of these languages,
then the reader will be able to judge how much assumption and
how little of careful, critical scholarship the advocates for the use
of intoxicating wine as a beverage and as a communion wine, have
brought to the discussion of this question.
Now, we have only to take our Bibles and the works of
Swedenborg, and read their pages in these different languages, to
see their tower, erected with so much assurance, crumble into
ruins beyond the possibility of reconstruction. First, as to the
English word, wine. The Bible, which is older than any of our
present dictionaries upon which our opponents rely, has been
translated from the Hebrew and Greek languages. The word
which it is claimed always denotes fermented wine in the Hebrew
language, is yayin. Now the question arises at once, is yayin the
only word in the Hebrew of the Old Testament which is translated
by the English word wine, and by the Greek word oinos, and the
Latin word vinum? (The reader will please remember that, in
this discussion, we have to do with the Bible as well as with Web-
ster and Worcester, although both, as we have seen, agree with us
that unfermented grape-juice is wine.) If it is not, and if i* can
be proven that there are other Hcbrew words, which clearly do not
always mean fermented wine in the Hebrew language, and yet
which are translated into our language by the word wine, and
176
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
into Greek and Latin by oinos ond vinum, what becomes of the
assumptions and arguments of the advocates of the one wine
theory? Let us see. With corn and wine (tirosh, pronounced
teerosh) have I sustained him" (Gen. xxvii. 37). "God give thee
of the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of
corn and wine (tirosh)” (Gen. xxvii. 28). "Therefore, they shall
come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the
goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine (tirosh), and for oil,
and for the young of the flock and of the herd" (Jeremiah xxxi.
12). "And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine (tirosh),
and the oil" (Hosea ii. 22). Swedenborg translates tirosh into
the Latin by mustum; whereas in our English version of the
Bible, it is translated wine in the above passages, and in many
others. How mistaken, in the estimation of our opponents, the
translators of the English Bible, and even the translators of some
of Swedenborg's writings, must have been, to translate the Hebrew
word tirosh (Latin, mustum; English, must), by the English word
wine, when they say wine always means fermented wine. Just
read the following from the A. S. P. & P. Society's edition of the
Apocalypse Revealed. "In presses wine (mustum) is expressed
from clusters of grapes, and oil from olives; and from the wine
(mustum-Swedenborg's Latin) and oil which are expressed, is
perceived the quality of the grapes and olives" (A. R. 651). In
the above quotations from the Word and the Writings, and in a
large number of others which we shall produce in this work, we
have the translators of the Bible and of the Writings, translating
mustum by wine; must as it exists in the grape, and as it is trod-
den from the grape in the press, and as it flows from the press,
translated into English by cur word wine. Why do not the advo-
cates of the one wine theory send these translators a copy of
Webster's and Worcester's dictionaries?
But the above is not the worst the advocates for fermented
wine will have to encounter; for Swedenborg himself, over a cent-
ury ago, and many of the most distinguished scholars of this day,
as we shall show the reader, distinctly recognize the juice of the
grape as it is squeezed from the cluster, as it is trodden from the
grapes, and as it flows from the press, as wine (vinum); and yet
it is claimed that wine in English, and vinum in Latin, always
mean fermented grape-juice. Now, there is a great lack of
knowledge somewhere; that is certain; and we trust the reader
will be able to judge where it lies before he gets through with his
examination of this question."
HEBREW TIROSH IS WINE.
177
It is sometimes well to go back of the dictionaries; and by so
doing it has become manifest to some of our best scholars that the
Hebrew word tirosh does not always mean a fluid or the expressed
juice of grapes, either fermented or unfermented; but that, as used
in the Hebrew Scriptures, it often means the grapes themselves.
Professor Tayler Lewis, in a letter to Dr. F. R. Lees, of Eng-
land, says: "I regard Gesenius' derivation of tirosh, from yarash,
'to possess,' because 'it possesses the brain of the one who drinks,'
and must therefore be intoxicating, as one of the most absurd
etymologies ever offered. Had it come originally from some
English or American scholar, instead of our 'learned German,' it
would have been hooted as utterly unworthy of notice. Still more :
Gesenius himself, in Isaiah xxiv. 7, gives to 'tirosh' the sense of
'clusters,' thus denying his own etymology, 'to inebriate.'”.
Thayer.
[Corn and wine] "The 'dew of heaven' included all kinds of
moisture necessary to the 'fatness of the earth'; and this 'fat-
ness' is partially defined by the concluding clause, 'and (or even)
plenty of corn and wine.' The Hebrew is dahgan ve-tirosh—not
corn made up into bread, not vine-fruit made into wine-but the
actual growth of the field.”—Bible Commentary.
'That thou mayest gather in thy corn, thy wine (tirosh), and
thine oil" (Deut. xi. 14)...."By the corn, wine (mustum), and
oil, which they should gather, are signified every good and truth
of the external and internal man" (A. E. 376). Can any kind of
corn, wine, and oil signify anything more to man than every good
and truth of the external and internal man?
"The word tirosh occurs thirty-eight times in the Hebrew
Bible. It is connected with corn and the fruit of the olive and
the orchard nineteen times; with corn alone, seven times; with
the vine, three times; and is otherwise named five times; in all
thirty-eight times. It is translated in the Authorized Version
twenty-six times by wine, eleven times by new wine (Neh. x. 39,
xiii. 5, 12; Prov. iii. 10; Isa. xxiv. 7, lxv. 8; Hos. iv. 11, ix. 2;
Joel, i. 10; Hag. i. 11; Zach. ix. 17); and once (Micah vi. 15), by
'sweet wine,' where the margin has new wine."
It is translated into Greek, in the Septuagint, by distinguished
Hebrew scholars, about three centuries before the Christian era,
as follows:-"The Lxx. renders tirosh in every case but twice by
oinos, the generic name for yayin; the exceptions being Isa. lxv.
8, where rhox, 'grape-stone,' is given, and Hos. iv. 11, where the
rendering is methusma, 'strong drink.' Aquila's version in Deut.
178
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
vii. 13 has oporismon, 'autumnal fruit,' and in Isa. xxiv. 7, paro-
rismos, 'fruit out of season;' but very possibly paror is a tran-
scriber's error for apor, the reading in Deut. vii. 13."
It is translated into Latin-"The Vulgate, though as a rule
translating tirosh by vinum, ' wine,' has some exceptions :-Deut.
vii. 13, vindemia, vintage-fruit;' Neh. x. 37, vindemia; Isa.
xxiv. 7, vindemia; Isa. lxv. 8, granum, 'a grain,'-young grape ;
Hos. iv. 11, ebrietas, 'drunkenness.'"-Bible Commentary.
So it will be seen that there are two Hebrew words at least,
yayin and tirosh, which are translated into the English Bible by
the word wine; one of which (yayin), as we shall see, is a strictly
generic name, and may represent either fermented or unfermented
wine, and the other (tirosh) rarely means, but occasionally may,
fermenting wine; perhaps in not more than one or two instances
in the whole Bible.
In addition to the words yayin and tirosh, there are several
other words in the Hebrew Bible which are translated into English
by our word "wine;" and it is reasonably certain that all these
words do not always mean fermented wine. A more accurate
knowledge of their Hebrew, Greek, Latin and English Bibles even,
would have saved the advocates of the one wine theory from mak-
ing such assumptions, and from using arguments, as they do, so
entirely unsustained by the facts in the case.
We will turn now to the Greck New Testament. Here we find
but two words used for the juice of the grape; oinos, which is like
yayin in Hebrew, a generic term covering all kinds of wine; and
gleukos, translated sweet wine, which occurs but once. We have
seen above that both yayin and tirosh are generally, but not
always, translated into the Greek Bible by oinos, and into the Latin
Bible by vinum; showing conclusively that in both of these
languages oinos in the Greek and vinum in Latin are generic
words, covering both the Hebrew yayin and tirosh, or fermented
and unfermented wines; and, as already shown, both of these
words are translated into English by the word "wine," which
therefore of itself renders our English word wine, so far as the
Bible is concerned, a generic word, meaning both kinds of wine,
unfermented and fermented.
Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his "System of Logic," has truly said :
"A generic term is always liable to become limited to a single
species, if people have occasion to think and speak of that species
much oftener than of anything else contained in the genus. [As
our brethren of the one wine theory seem to have of fermented
WINE IN HEBREW, LATIN AND ENGLISH.
179
wines as wine.-E.] The tide of custom first drifts the word on
the shore of a particular meaning, then retires and leaves it there."
"The following are the thirteen words of the Original Scriptures
which, unfortunately for the English reader, have all been com-
mingled and confused under the translation of the single term
WINE, either with or without an adjective of qualification, such as
'new,' 'sweet,' 'mixed' or 'strong,' namely: In Hebrew, yayin,
khamar, shakar, mesek, ahsis, soveh, tirosh, ashishah, shemarim;
in Greek, oinos, gleukos, oxos and akraton. There are, besides,
closely associated with these words, two others-the Hebrew
adjective khemer (foaming) and khometz, translated 'vinegar.'
When persons attempt to argue from the Authorized Version [and
the English and other dictionaries as do our advocates of the one
wine theory.-E.] the merits of the wine question, no wonder they
fall into inextricable difficulties and pernicious delusions. Mr.
De Quincey's observation, in his article on 'The Philosophy of
Herodotus,' is exceedingly apposite: 'How often do we hear
people commenting on the Scriptures, and raising up ærial edifices
of argument, in which every iota of the logic rests, unconsciously
to themselves, upon the accidental words of the English version,
and melts away when applied to the original text! so that, in fact,
the whole has no more strength than if it were built upon a pun or
an équivoque.' Nor is it the unlearned alone who are apt to fall
into this fallacy."-Bible Commentary.
So far as the Latin of Swedenborg is concerned, we will here
give but a few quotations, translated into English, to show how
far the assumptions of the advocates of the one wine theory are
from the truth, when viewed from the standpoint of his writings.
"This
"And I took the grapes and squeezed them into Pharaoh's cup,
and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand" (Gen. xl. 11).
(the last statement) signifies the appropriation by the interior
natural, as appears (1) from the signification of to give the cup,
thus wine (vinum) to drink, as denoting to appropriate" (A. C.
5119-20). Here Swedenborg calls the juice of the grape, just
squeezed from the grapes, vinum. Again: "As grapes repre-
sent charity, so does wine (vinum) the faith thence derived, be-
cause it is obtained from grapes." (A. C. 1071.)-[Not from the
destructive action of leaven after the juice has left the grapes.-E.]
"And the truths of good are understood by the vintage and by
the wine (vinum) in the wine-presses" (A. E. 376). [Not in the
fermenting vats.—E.]
Swedenborg stands not alone in classing unfermented grape-
180
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
juice, just as it is pressed, as wine. Dr. Adam Clarke, as we
have noticed on page 123, does the same in his note on the butler's
dream.
"Matthew Henry, the prince, of practical commentators, ob-
serves: 'Probably it had been usual with them to press the full,
ripe grapes immediately into Pharaoh's cup, the simplicity of that
age not being acquainted with the modern art of making the wine
fine.' Bishop Lowth (on Isa. v. 2) observes: 'See Gen. xl. 11, by
which it should seem that they (the Egyptians) drank the fresh
juice pressed from the grape, which was called oinos ampelinos-
Herodotus ii. 37.' But in the opinion of some critics the phrase
oinos ampelinos, 'wine of the vineyard,' is used simply to distin-
guish, not one kind of grape-juice from another, but grape wine
from palm wine, barley wine (beer), etc. Sir G. Wilkinson, how-
ever, has obviously an eye to vineyard wine freshly made when he
speaks of it as one of the offerings to the gods of Egypt, and as
'one of the most delicious beverages of a hot climate, and one
which is commonly used in Spain and other countries at the present
day' ('Anc. Egypt,' v. p. 366). As to palm wine, he remarks :
'The modern name of it in Egypt is lowbgeh. In flavor it resem-
bles a very new light wine, and may be drank in great quantity
when taken from the tree, but as soon as fermentation has com-
menced its intoxicating qualities have a powerful and speedy
effect.'".
'”—(Ibid. iii., p. 375.)—Bible Commentary.
"A conversation with a young Armenian from Eastern Turkey,
who was in this country studying medicine, convinced me that as
it is now so it must have been in ancient times. He told me that
every one in his country who has a home has grape-vines in his
yard, bearing fruit much more juicy, sweeter, and larger than our
grapes. When the Armenian wants a drink of wine, he squeezes
into a cup the abundant juice and drinks it at once. This is the
way the chief butler of Pharaoh did in his dream, as he related to
Joseph."-C. T. L. in The Witness.
It does seem that a little better knowledge of their Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, and English Bibles, and of Swedenborg's works in
Latin, would have saved the gentlemen who advocate the one wine
theory from such fearful mistakes upon this great practical ques-
tion of life as they have made in some of our religious periodicals
-all in the interest of intoxicating drinks, and thus of drunken-
ness; for all history and experience show that if such drinks are
used as beverages, drunkenness will certainly follow in a fearful
number of cases. We have clearly seen in the preceding pages,
WINE IN THE HEBREW LANGUAGE.
181
that so far as the Bible in the above languages and the Writings of
the Church are concerned, the representations that yayin in
Hebrew, oinos in Greek, vinum in Latin and wine in English,
always mean fermented wine-are not true in regard to any one of
these languages. In Job xxxii. 19, we read: "Behold, my belly,
like wine (yayin), has no vent; like new bottles, it is rent." Here,
it is certain, yayin is not applied to fermented wine but to must,
and fermenting must. So in Nehemiah v. 18, we read of "all
sorts of wine" (yayin). So in Isaiah xvi. 10, "the treaders shall
tread out no wine (yayin) in their presses.' "Yayin is here.
applied either to the grapes yielding yayin, or to the expressed
juice as it flows from under the treader's feet. The treading is
also said to take place in the yeqeb, showing that the yeqeb included
the place of treading as well as the reservoir into which the liquor
ran."-Bible Com.
11
Again, in Jeremiah xlviii. 33, “And I have caused wine (yayin)
to fail from the wine-presses; none shall tread with shouting;
their shouting shall be no shouting."
"And the truths of good are understood by the vintage and
by the wine (vinum) in the wine-presses."—A. E. 376.
The above illustrations will, for the present, speak for the
Hebrew Bible.
In the Hebrew, as has already been stated, we have tirosh, which
occurs thirty-eight times in the Hebrew Bible, and which unquestion-
ably means must, either in the grapes or as pressed from them, and
if the latter, it may be either unfermented or fermenting. The
writer thinks, after a somewhat careful examination, that Sweden-
borg rarely, if ever, translates this word into the Latin by vinum
(wine), but by mustum. Yet this word is translated in the Greek
Bible, with the exception of once or twice, by oinos, which is the
Greek generic name for wine. So we see that the Greek word oinos
does actually include the Hebrew word tirosh in all but two
instances in which the latter occurs in the Old Testament. How
does this accord with the representations of the gentlemen who
advocate the one wine theory? Let us look a moment at the Latin
Bible, and here we shall find that, with five or six exceptions out
of the thirty-eight in which tirosh appears in the Hebrew Script-
ures, it is translated in the Latin vulgate by vinum, the Latin for
wine; and yet some of the editors and writers for our religious
periodica would try to make us believe that vinum always means
fermented wine. Now, let us come to the English Bible and see what
truth there is in the representation that the word wine always means
182
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
fermented wine. We find that the Hebrew word tirosh, which
Swedenborg so uniformly translates by mustum, in the authorized
English version of the Scriptures, is translated twenty-six times
by the word wine, eleven times by new wine, and once by sweet
wine. Is it not strange that, among all the editors, conductors,
and writers of some of our religious periodicals, there is not a
single man possessing sufficient knowledge of the Hebrew, Greek,
Latin and English Bible, to know that their writings and repre-
sentations in regard to wine are not true, but are entirely con-
trary to the accessible facts in the case.
The writer admits that there are to-day, and have been in all
past ages, two kinds of must, two kinds of new wine, and two
kinds of wine; one kind unfermented, unintoxicating and harm-
less when temperately used; and always in itself having a good
signification, although its abuse may not have a good signification;
the other kind of must, new wine and wine either fermenting or
fermented and intoxicating, is injurious, however temperately used
by a healthy man, and that in itself it never has a good significa-
tion, as it clearly, according to Swedenborg, has its origin from
hell. It may be applied to a good use as a remedy, and in the
arts, when its use may have a good signification. The reader has
seen in the preceding pages, that science to-day recognizes these
two kinds of must-new wine and wine; and that the Word of the
Lord distinctly recognizes and describes them clearly by their
effects on man, so that there can be no mistake as to which is
meant; and that a large number of ancients who wrote during the
prophetical and apostolic days recognized these two kinds of must
—new wine and wine; and that the writings of the Church dis-
tinctly recognize them.
We are told in a religious serial that: "Even this must, in the only
passage in which it is found in the New Testament, signifies feriented and
intoxicating wine: Others mocking said, These men are full of must
(gleukos). But Peter
These are not drunken
(methuouson), seeing it is but the third hour of the day.'”—Acts ii. 13–15.
* * *
said
X
"water
A French writer accused Prudhomme of being a
drinker," really meaning the opposite-namely, a brandy tippler.
So others, mocking, said: “These men are full of gleukos-sweet
wine! Meaning, on the contrary, that they were full, not of
gleukos (unfermented wine), but of some more potent drink," is
the interpretation given by some writers. So that it is not only
possible, in view of the above, but rendered certain by other
WINE IN THE CLUSTERS.
183
evidence, that our advocates of fermented wine are mistaken in
their positive declaration that fermented wine is referred to in this
only passage which is found in the New Testament" where
gleukos is named.
"YAYIN (by some written Yin, Yain or Ain) stands generically
for the expressed juice of the grape-the context sometimes indi-
cating whether the juice had undergone or not the process of fer-
mentation. It is mentioned 141 times.'
"As a generic term yayin became applicable to wine of four
species:
(C
(a) It is used sometimes in the sense of the vinum pendens of
the Latins. As Cato speaks of the 'hanging wine' (de re rustica,
cxlvii.), so Deut. xxviii. 39 refers to yayin as a thing to be gath-
ered by men or eaten by worms. In Isa. xvi. 10 and Jer. xlviii. it
is used for the grapes to be trodden in the vat (see Gesenius). In
Psa. civ. 15, Jer. xl. 10, 12, possibly in Isa. lv. 1, probably in Deut.
xiv. 26, it is applied to 'the grape in the cluster.' The Rabbins
have a similar use of the word. Baal Hatturim, in Deut. xvi. 11,
says, 'At Pentecost, when corn is reaped, and wine is now in the
grapes.' In wine countries, the common language applied to the
growing grapes is, 'the wine blooms.' The grape cure is called
the 'wein cur.' In Spain they say, una buena cosecha de vino, ‘a
good gathering of wine.'-(Father Connelly's 'Diccionario Nuevo,'
Madrid, 1798.) A traveler in the Pyrenees says: Flocks of sheep
and goats enliven the hills; corn and wine, flax and oil, hang on
the slopes.'-Collins' Voyages, 1796, p. 82.
(6
(b) Yayin, as used very frequently for the 'foaming blood of
the grape,' was, as we have said, probably applied to the expressed
juice because of its turbid appearance. Perhaps the claret grape,
which has red juice, suggested the metaphor, 'He washed his
garments in yayin, his clothes in the blood of grapes.' (Compare
Gen. xlix. 12 with Isa. lxiii. 1-3.) In Job xxxii. 19 the word is
applied to the must-wine, translated by the Septuagint gleukos.
Cant. v. 1 (compared with vii. 9) refers to a sweet, innocent yayin,
which might be drunk' abundantly' by young women. A peculiar
use of the corresponding Chaldee term, khamar, is occasionally
found in the Targums. 'Wine reserved in its grapes' (Targum on
Cant. viii. 2). On Cant. i. 14 we fall back on the other sensc:
'They took clusters of grapes and pressed wine out of them.'
(C
'(c) In Prov. ix. 2, 5, yayin seems to point to a boiled wine, or
syrup, the thickness of which made it needful to mingle water
with it before drinking; while, unmixed with fluid, it was prob-
184
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
ably consumed with milk (Isa. lv. 1; compare v. 23, Ezek. xxvii.
18).
(d) There was also the yayin mixed with drugs of various
sorts;
the mixed wine of the sensualist, spiced and inebriating; a
cup of still stronger ingredients, used as the emblem of Divine
judgments, 'the cup of malediction' (Psa. lxxv. 8); the 'turbid
wine' full of poison."-Temperance Bible Commentary.
And yet some of our one wine theory writers boldly claim that
the Hebrew word yayin, never means anything else than fermented
wine. How strange, for in Jeremiah xl. 10, 12, we read :
"But
gather ye wine (yayin), and summer fruits and oils," and we read
that they “gathered wine and summer fruits very much.” Chap-
ter xlviii. 33, "And I have caused wine (yayin) to fail from the
wine-presses." In Isaiah xvi. 10, "The treaders shall tread out
no wine (yayin) from their presses. Isa. lv., "Ho, every one
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money ;
come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine (yayin) and milk
without money and without price." Now, can any sane man
believe that in the above passages a reference is made to a wine
which has been polluted by leaven-a fermented and intoxicating
wine? We know to the contrary.
The light which is thrown upon this whole subject by the science
of correspondences renders it perfectly clear, as we have seen in
the preceding pages and shall see hereafter, that there are two
kinds of wine, both called wine in the Word and in the Writings,
one unfermented and unintoxicating, and the other fermented and
intoxicating. Swedenborg tells us that "Whereas all truth is
from good, as all wine (vinum) is from grapes, therefore by wine
in the Word is signified truth from good" (A. E. 918). If all wine
is from grapes, and the grapes do not contain any alcohol which
is the essential ingredient in fermented wine, and the one for
which man aided by leaven ferments it, how can we claim that
fermented wine, which is full of alcohol, is the fruit of the vine,
or that it has a good signification; especially when we know, as
'we do, that the alcohol is not even the product of the vine, but
that it is produced by the actual destruction of the gluten and
sugar, both good and useful ingredients of the wine, by ferment
or leaven, which signifies "the false of evil," and "the evil and
the false," which we are told "should not be mixed with things
good and true?"
Again, we are told that, "By the produce of the wine-press
was signified all the truth of the good of the Church, the same
TÏROSH A GOOD GIFT OF god.
185
as by wine" (A. E. 799). Can we have anything more than
all?
Not a single drop of fermented wine was ever pressed by a
wine-press from sound, healthy grapes just trodden.
Can any-
thing be plainer than this? Yet all this, and everything else,
which militates against their pet theory, and which condemns the
use of intoxicating beverages, the writers who represent the " one
wine theory" ignore absolutely.
A writer, speaking of the various passages of Scripture where
unfermented wine is signified, says truly in regard to the good
wine of the Word; and Swedenborg, we have seen, fully sustains
him: "Here, then, is frequent reference to the pure, unfermented
juice of the grape, just trodden out of the presses, just gathered for
the vintage, even found in the cluster. And here this grape-juice
is repeatedly, and by the Jews themselves in their own Scriptures,
called WINE, both yayin and tirosh.
((
Now, by no possible device of reason or fetch of logic can
this be made the wine that is 'a mocker.' Wine fresh from the
cluster or the press mocks or deceives no man. The guile of the
serpent has not yet entered it, for alcohol requires time and a
process for its formation."
Rev. J. M. Van Buren says: 'The one wine theory affirms
that there is but one kind of wine recognized in the Bible, that
which is fermented and intoxicating; and that this is the wine of
blessing-God's gift to man. Wines in the Bible are called two
different names, tirosh and yayin. Tärosh is repeatedly men-
tioned as one of God's blessings. It is associated with other food,
with corn (wheat) and oil (olive), as Deut. vii. 13, 'The fruit of
thy land, thy corn, thy wine (tirosh) and thy oil.' These triplets
in other places also, stand together, as the three principal foods
of the country. We notice the fact here that tirosh is called wine
almost uniformly, in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the
Old Testament, made by seventy learned Jews, three hundred
years before Christ, and that this was an authority recognized by
Christ and the Apostles and the early Christian Church. This
settles the question that tirosh was wine. That it was the simple
juice of the grape is evident. It was a natural product, 'the
fruit of thy land.' There is not a particle of alcohol in any nat-
ural product. Tirosh stands here, in its integrity and purity,
unfermented and uncorrupted; on a perfect equality in this
respect with the wheat and oil as one of the staple foods of the
186
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
land. The analysis of grape-juice reveals the fact, that as a food
it is a food of the very highest order.
"Tirosh unfermented (wine) is a fluid food, and for all the
purposes of human nutrition ranks equal to wheat. Its glutinous
material is not inferior as a building food; its sugar as a heat
food is superior to starch in wheat for this purpose; the bitartrate
of potassa and other elements are equal to the phosphates in
wheat. The bold and absurd presumption of the advocates of the
one wine theory, receives its death-blow by a reasonable and
candid presentation of the truth in this matter, showing that
tirosh (wine), as a product of the earth, has all the characteristics
of a Divine blessing; and further, it is evident that the destruc-
tion of all these grape-foods by fermentation, to produce alcohol,
a poisonous, intoxicating drink, is a perversion of this gift of God,
an act of ingratitude and shame. They who do this pervert the
Bible, and make this blessing a curse, by trying to induce the
belief that this wine (tirosh) was intoxicating.
(C
Again, tirosh is represented as being both drank and eaten
as a food; Isaiah Ixii. 8:
Isaiah lxii. 8: 'The sons of the stranger shall not
drink thy wine (tirosh), for which thou hast labored; but they
that have gathered it shall eat it and praise the Lord; and they
that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of My
holiness.' Like milk, it was both caten and drank. Tirosh is
represented in the same way in Deut. xiv. 22, 'And thou shalt
eat before the Lord thy God in the place He shall choose, the tithe
of thy corn and wine (tërosh).' This concerns the provision made
for the priests and the Levites. Every view of this subject makes
it plainer.
Ordinarily this wine (tirosh) was expressed from the grapes
when used. Through the long period of the vintage, four months,
and for months after, the grapes are now kept for this purpose.
Much is preserved in its pure state by boiling.
"The advocates of the one wine theory cannot escape by saying
that tirosh was not wine at all. The Jews, in their translation in
the Septuagint, uniformly call it oinos, the general and strongest
term for wine in the Greek language. The English translators
follow their example and call it wine. It was and is wine, and
we prove it was unfermented simple grape-juice.”
Rev. Wm. Ritchie, of Scotland, an able scholar, who has
examined the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures with great care,
gives in his work as a result of his inquiry, the following strong
words:
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
187
THE RESULT OF INQUIRY ON YAIN.
"We have thus carefully examined all that the Bible says
about yain, and what is the result? We have not found, in all
these passages of the Word of God, the shadow of a sanction for
the use of intoxicating wine. We have looked at Scripture warn-
ings respecting wine; we have seen them to be distinct and
emphatic against inebriating drink. We have considered Script-
ure promises and permissions of wine; we have found them
affording no countenance to the use of intoxicating drink. We
have reviewed every mode of Scripture expression regarding wine ;
we have discovered nowhere either an explicit or implied sanction
of intoxicating drink. Our car has been attentive to the Divine
Oracle to hear approval of this, if approval is given; but in all
these one hundred and forty-one utterances of the Almighty voice,
we have found not one sanction of the use of intoxicating or
inobriating wine. Yet this word we have considered is the key to
our position. If a breach in the defense we offer can be made, it
must be here, on what the Bible says about yain. Here the argu-
ment must be made good for the sanction of intoxicating drink, if
it is to be established at all. Nevertheless, as seems to us, it here
most signally fails; and our conclusion is, that no countenance is
given, by any one of these texts, to the use of wine which intoxi-
cates. On this branch of our inquiry, then, we have set aside
one hundred and forty-one of the Bible witnesses; and by prov-
ing their silence as to an opposite testimony, we have shown that
the truth lies on our side.
'Nor must those opposed to us be allowed here the benefit
of a subterfugo to which some do not scruple to flee. They
appeal to these warning texts in proof that Scripture wines
were intoxicating, and then they refer to the approval texts
for the Divine sanction of it. They quote the one to find the
quality of the liquor; they quote the other for the approbation of
God on it. Who does not see that this is to join what God has put
asunder, and to build an argument on a foundation of sand? Go,
if you will, to both these parts of the Word of God, but take heed
that you say not you find anything there but what He has put in
it! Go to the one part, and find there, if you will, the intoxica-
ting principle of a liquor as apparent in its specified effects. Stand
there; listen with profound awe to God's warning against the use
of this soul-destroying thing. Go to the other part, and find there,
if you will, expression of Divine approval, as apparent in word or
188
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
emblem. Abide there, mark well the voice of the Holy One, yet
say if you can find here a syllable of approval of what intoxicates.
Here, then, you have got two things in the Bible—the intoxicating
quality of a drink defined, the Divine approbation of a drink
expressed; but what you still want is these two things joined
together, so as to show that that Divine approbation rests on that
intoxicating drink. Till you can show the connection between
these two things, we protest against their alliance; we protest not
less against your going to one class of Scripture texts to prove one
thing, and repairing to a second to prove quite another. Once
more we say, it is in the approval texts where your argument must
stand or fall. Go to these they are not many in number-exam-
ine them one by one. We concede to you, God in these approves
of wine; and we demand of you proof in these texts that that wine
is intoxicating. We require this proof, not in vague inference or
far-fetched argument, but established by intelligible deduction
from the plain words of God. Surely, if the Author of the Bible
meant to give His sanction to intoxicating drink anywhere in His
Word, some hint of it will be found in His expressions respecting
wine, which He distinctly approves. Yet where is there one word
or hint to this effect throughout the entire Scriptures? We believe
the Divine Book will be searched for this in vain. There is
warning, there is admonition, there is reproof, but there is, wo
believe, not one word of approval or sanction of the use of intoxi-
cating liquor in the whole Bible."
Impelled by a conviction of the practical importance of this
question, the writer has devoted much time and labor to an exami-
nation of the Writings of Swedenborg, and before doing this he
put away the false doctrines of the dark ages upon this subject;
and he does not hesitate to say, as the result of his labor, that
there is not a single passage in Swedenborg's writings which,
fairly interpreted in the light of the fundamental principles incul-
cated therein, will justify the use of fermented wine as a beverage
or as a communion wine; but there are, as ho has already shown
and will hereafter show, a large number of passages, which either
directly or indirectly clearly teach that a wine which will intoxi-
cate is a perverted wine, and is "unholy and unclean," and that
it is justly compared by Swedenborg to falses from evil, and
beyond all question, being an unclean and poisonous substance, it
has its origin or life from hell, according to the philosophy of the
New Christianity.
How can intelligent Christians, with the clear light which is
་
WINE IN THE BIBLE A GENERIC WORD.
189
thrown upon this subject by the spiritual sense of the Word, the
science of correspondences, and the express teachings of Sweden-
borg, continue to justify the use of fermented wine as a beverage
and as a communion wine ?
The advocates of the one wine theory do not seem to understand
how pure, unfermented wine can cheer and warm the heart of
man, nor how corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new
66
wine the maids."—Zech. ix. 7.
"I am sorry," says the Rev. J. M. Van Buren, "to say an
attempt has been made to justify the use of intoxicating drinks for
the purpose of exhilaration by an appeal to the Bible. As this is
the very thing that leads to drunkenness, and is the beginning of
it, we may be sure that the passages supposed to prove it, may
have another meaning. And so we find it (Eccl. ix. 7): 'Eat thy
bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart.' The
Hebrew word rendered 'merry,' means 'good,' 'upright,' 'virtuous.'
Put either of these meanings in the place of 'merry,' and instead
of the idea of an alcoholic exhilaration, we have a sentiment of
piety consistent with Gospel temperance.
Jeremiah xxxi. 12: "For wheat and for wine (tirosh—mustum)
(A. R. 315). Hebrew, tirosh; Latin, mustum; English, wine.
This is very bad for those who believe in fermented wine, with
their idea of there being but one kind of wine, which is called
wine.
"Holy truth is also signified by new wine, and wine (mustum
et vinum) in other parts of the word."-A. R. 316.
The reader will please always bear in mind that the word wine
in. Hebrew, Greek, Latin and English, is a generic word, often
used instead of must, for the juice of the grape, as it is squeezed
from grapes, as it is trodden from grapes, and as it flows from the
press; as has been abundantly shown in the preceding pages. It
also includes the juice of grapes, as it is preserved by boiling,
settling in cold water, sulphurization, etc., as well as the fer-
mented juice. All these forms of grape-juice are covered in all
the languages named, by the word wine, or rather by the word
used for wine in each of the above languages.
It is perfectly clear from the above quotations from the Word
and the Writings, that must, or unfermented grape-juice, has the
full signification of wine; in no respect does it come short. It is
certainly very remarkable that so many of our Christian brethren
should have overlooked the fact that the Hebrew tirosh, the Latin
mustum, and the English must, or new wine, so almost universally
190
THE WINES OF THE BIBLE.
has a good signification when used in the Word, that there are not
more than one or two exceptions out of the thirty-eight occasions of
its use. The bad signification given to grape-juice is, with these one
or two exceptions, confined to yayin and Hebrew words other than
tirosh-must. And now, as we know that many of the wines
which were regarded as the very best wines by the ancients were
preserved without fermentation by the various processes hereto-
·fore named, have we not every reason to suppose that the good
wine of the Word and of the Writings is always unfermented
wine? The new wine for the New Christianity is unfermented
wine, pure as it comes from the hands of our Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ, in the fruit of the vine, and not a leavened wine.
And when men return to its exclusive use, multitudes now en-
slaved, diseased and insane from leavened wine, will be set free,
cured and restored to their right mind by the Great Physician; by
the inflowing life from Him through this physical representative
of His blood.
The New Christianity is not a new sect or organization, but a
new faith and a renewed life resulting from a revelation of Divine
Truth, made by the Lord through Emanuel Swedenborg, for the
benefit of all sects and all men, that the Christian Church may
revive again" and be re-united in the bonds of Charity, by
worshiping the one God whose name is one-even the Lord Jesus
Christ-and by striving to live a life according to His command-
ments.
CHAPTER IX.
COMMUNION WINE.
SHOULD the Communion be administered.in unfermented wine?
is an important and practical question.
If we examine this subject carefully, uninfluenced by precon-
ceived ideas, in the light of the letter of the Word, the testimony
of ancient writers, the philosophy of the Church, the science of
correspondences, and the sciences of this day, we shall find, from
all these sources, but one answer; and that is that either unfer-
mented must or new wine, or unfermented wine alone, is the wine
which should be used in this most holy ordinance, and never a
wine that "biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder," or a
fermented wine.
That during the various periods when the Sacred Scriptures
were written, the ancients prepared and used two kinds of wine--
the one unfermented and the other fermented-which were both
called wine, in the Hebrew yayin, in the Greek oinos, and in Latin
vinum, is beyond question; for, as we have seen, we have the
testimony of Plato, Columella, Pliny, Aristotle, Virgil, Horace
and Plutarch that unfermented and unintoxicating wines were
prepared and used; and the processes by which such wines were
prepared and preserved, as described by some of the above writers,
are the very processes used successfully at this day, as has been
shown in preceding chapters.
We also know that the same kinds of unfermented wines, pre-
pared precisely as the ancients prepared theirs, but sometimes
called by other names, have been used from their time until the
present; and are even now extensively manufactured and used.
Many religious societies are using these wines for sacramental pur-
poses. Such are the historical facts running parallel with divine
revelation, which cannot be ignored in a fair and intelligent con-
sideration of this subject.
If we bear in mind that Palestine is a warm country, and how
difficult it is in warm weather, even by the aid of our strong bot-
tles and casks, to prevent fermented wine from changing into
!
192
COMMUNION WINE.
vinegar; we can readily perceive how much more difficult it must
have been for the ancients to preserve, for any considerable length
of time, fermented wine in their leather bottles, earthen jars, and
imperfect casks; especially as they had no distilled alcohol to add
to it. Understanding their methods of preparing unfermented
wines, as described by ancient writers, we can readily see that
they could have had no difficulty in preserving unfermented wine,
entirely free from alcohol, for years and even for centuries, as
they claim to have done. We are, therefore, driven to the con-
clusion that much, if not most, of their really old wines were
unfermented.
Leaven, and all substances leavened, were strictly prohibited
in the most holy ordinances of the Jewish Church; excepting in
the free-will offerings and in the wave offering, where the leaven
in the bread was destroyed, and the alcohol driven off by heat.
And many, if not most, of the conforming Jews, even at this day,
do not use leavened or fermented wine in such ordinances; pre-
ferring to use wine made from raisins, when they cannot get other
unfermented wine.
If we examine this subject in the light of science, we find that
there are two kinds of must or new wine; the one unfermenting,
and the other fermenting; and that there are two kinds of wine
and of old wine. The one kind is preserved from fermentation by
heating or boiling, or by settling the substance in which fermenta-
tion commences, in casks or bottles kept cool in springs or pools
of water or in the cool earth, or by sulphurization, or by some of
the other processes described by ancient and modern writers;
the other kind of wine is fermented wine. These two kinds of
wine are entirely distinct in their essential chemical composition.
Unfermented wine contains almost, if not all, of the constituents
which are required to nourish the body of man. In a well fer-
mented wine, all of these nutritious substances have been either
destroyed, precipitated, changed, or polluted by the presence of
alcohol, glycerine, vinegar and other substances which are never
found in the healthy fruit of the vine. In their effects on man-
when taken into the stomach as beverages-these two kinds of
wine are as distinct as light is from darkness, or as good is from
evil. Unfermented wine supplies the orderly wants of the body,
giving substance, strength, cheerfulness and health; and it never
causes drunkenness, nor any specific disease. Fermented wine,
on the other hand, gives little or no substance or strength; and
when used freely, as we use other beverages, it causes an unnatu-
EARLY TEMPERANCE INVESTIGATORS.
193
ral appetite, which healthy fluids will not satisfy, and then
requires to be taken in increasing quantities to satisfy the appe-
tite which itself has created; and it causes specific diseases as
characteristic of its chief ingredient-alcohol-as are those caused
by any other known poison. It hangs out its sign upon the face;
it shows itself in the haggard frame and trembling limbs; it pro-
duces gout and many other serious and fatal diseases; it inter-
feres with the freedom and rationality of man, by causing mental
confusion, unnatural excitement, drunkenness and insanity. To
our race as a whole, viewing its effects in the past and present on
the body and mind, it has proved itself by far the most fearful
and deadly poison known to man. All this is beyond question;
and even in our day the alcohol contained in fermented wine,
beer and distilled liquors, is hurting and killing more of the
human family than all other poisons put together. "Yes, equal-
ing," as Mr. Gladstone has asserted, "the combined calamities of
war, pestilence and famine." Looking at this question in the
light of human reason, common sense, and of science, as well as
of Divine revelation, is there, can there be, any doubt as to which
of these two kinds of wine should be used in the most holy ordi-
nance of the Church? Swedenborg tells us, in the Divine Love
and Wisdom, 339, that "all things that do hurt and kill men
have their origin from hell, and we know very well that fermented
wine will do and does this, every day, all around us.
"It is not surprising, therefore," says the Rev. Dr. Samson,
speaking of the early temperance investigators of the wine ques-
tion, "that such a flood of light dawned on the earnest and labo-
rious reformers who penetrated more or less into this history of
facts. All the translators, Roman and Protestant, Italian, Spanish,
French, German and English, saw in the tirosh of the Old Testa-
ment, the Grecian gleukos and the Roman mustum. Castell, with
the whole range of Syriac and Arabic translations, of the Rabbinic
Targums and Tulmud, before him, not only rendered tirosh must,
but he argued that the translation of the Hebrew cheleb (Num.
xviii. 12) by aparche in the Greek, was intended to present the idea
of Herodotus (iii. 24), and of Xenophon (Hier. iv. 2), which pre-
vailed alike among the carly Ethiopians of Central Africa, and of
primitive Asiatics; their offerings were FRESH, that they might be
untainted with decay. Language could not have been constructed
more definitely to represent the product of the vine acceptable in
religious offerings than that used by Moses when he added a prefix
to the unfermented grape-juice offered to the Lord; requiring that
194
COMMUNION WINE.
1
(
it be 'the fresh of tirosh.' It was natural that this expression,
rendered in English by 'best of the wine,' should recall to Castell
and Cocceius the nature of the best' wine made by Christ, and,
therefore, drunk by Him; and that it should have prevented such
men from introducing, from the spirit of custom,' any perversion
of the requirements of Christ as to the Supper, imagining that
' inebriating wines' should take the place of His own twice repeated
description, 'the fruit of the vine.' When attained, unfermented
, wine at the Supper will certainly be the first appointed by Christ.
"Philo, a learned Jewish writer of Alexandria, who lived
during the first half of the first century, is full of important
statements.
"In his treatise on 'Monarchy' he cites, as indicating the
duty of entire abstinence from wine, the prohibition to the priests ;
and says it was given for 'most important reasons; that it pro-
duces hesitation, forgetfulness, drowsiness and folly.' Dwelling
on each of these bodily, mental, and religious evils, he says: 'In
abstemious men all the parts of the body are more elastic, more
active and pliable, the external senses are clearer and less obscured,
and the mind is gifted with acute perception.' Further: 'The use
of wine * * * leaves none of our faculties free and unem-
barrassed; but is a hindrance to every one of them, so as to
impede the attaining of that object for which each was fitted by
nature. In sacred ceremonies and holy rites this mischief is most
grievous of all, in proportion as it is worse to sin with respect to
God than respect to man.'"-Divine Law as to Wines.
A writer in a religious periodical says:
"It may be observed that the Last Supper of our Lord with His dis-
ciples, which was the first and pattern of the ordinance as a rite, was when
He ate the Passover with His disciples. At the Passover leaven and any-
thing leavened was strictly prohibited. Unleavened bread was therefore
broken by our Lord when He said, 'Take, eat.' Now the difference be-
tween fermented bread and wine is that in the former the ferment remains
in its very substance, while in the latter it has been rejected and thrown
down so that none remains. This is indicated in the invitation to the
Holy Supper in that text which speaks of wine on the lees well refined.'
Now it is a fact which I do not remember to have seen noticed by your
correspondents, that the condition thus described is only possible in a fer-
mented wine."
The difference between fermented bread and wine is not fairly
stated above. The truth is directly the opposite, in essential points,
WINE USED AT THE LAST SUPPER.
195
to what is there claimed. In the bread the leaven is destroyed by
heat, and the vile products of fermentation-alcohol, vinegar,
carbonic acid gas, fusel oil, etc.—are driven off, so that the bread
is purified by heat, and there is no objection, or comparatively
none, to its use as food; whereas in fermented wine all these
products of fermentation, with the exception of the carbonic acid
gas, are retained in the wine, and consequently it will cause drunk-
enness, which fermented bread will never do. Fermented wine is
therefore pre-eminently a leavened fluid or substance. Wine on
the lees well refined can never be a fermented wine; because fer-
mentation is not a process of refining, but a process of decompo-
sition and destruction. The "fact" which the above writer does
not remember to have seen noticed, is not a fact. The ancients
refined their wines by filtering; by straining and settling in
bottles sunk in wells and streams of cool water; and also by
boiling and skimming and straining; and these were all processes
of refining. When wines thus refined are allowed to stand, there
is always a more or less free deposit of lees, which are simply the
heavier portions of the juice which settle. In such lees there is
nothing but what has been organized by the Lord in the grape for
the sustenance of man; therefore such lees have a good significa-
tion; whereas lees which result from fermentation never have a
good signification. The writer has preserved during past seasons,
by various processes which he has already described, unfermented
wines, and these wines all contain more or less lees; in some of
them the lees are very abundant. It seems unfortunate that any
one should write thus authoritatively and positively upon such an
important question, without a knowledge of existing facts in the
case.
THE WINE USED BY THE LORD AND HIS DISCIPLES IN THE ORIGINAL
INSTITUTION OF THE SACRAMENT.
It is generally, if not universally, admitted by even the most
strenuous advocates for the use of intoxicating wine as a commu-
nion wine, that the Lord took the Passover cup when He adminis-
tered the Last Supper; therefore the question as to the quality of
the wine used at the Passover at the time the Lord was on earth,
becomes a very important one.
In a recent work (1879) written by a Jewish Rabbi, the Rev.
E. M. Myers, entitled "The Jews, their Customs and Ceremonies,
with a full account of all their Religious Observances from the
Cradle to the Grave," we read that among the strictly orthodox
196
COMMUNION WINE.
Jews, "During the entire festival (of the Passover) no leavened
food nor fermented liquors are permitted to be used, in accordance
with Scriptural injunctions" (Ex. xii. 15, 19, 20; Deut. xvii. 3, 4).
This we think settles the question so far as the orthodox Jews are
concerned; and their customs, without much question, represent
those prevailing at the time of our Lord's advent.
The editor of the London Methodist Times lately witnessed the
celebration of the Jewish Passover in that city, and at the close of
the services said to the rabbi: "May I ask with what kind of
wine you have celebrated the Passover this evening?" The answer
promptly given was :
“With a non-intoxicating wine. Jews never use fermented
wine in their synagogue services, and must not use it on the Pass-
over, either for synagogue or home purposes. Fermented liquor
of any kind comes under the category of 'leaven,' which is pro-
scribed in so many well-known places in the Old Testament. The
wine which is used by Jews during the week of Passover is sup-
plied to the community by those licensed by the chief rabbi's
board, and by those only. Each bottle is sealed in the presence of
a representative of the ecclesiastical authorities. The bottle stand-
ing yonder on the sideboard from which the wine used to-night
was taken was thus sealed. I may also mention that poor Jews
who cannot afford to buy this wine make an unfermented wine of
their own, which is nothing else but an infusion of Valencia or
Muscatel raisins. I have recently read the passage in Matthew in
which the Paschal Supper is described. There can be no doubt
whatever that the wine used upon that occasion was unfermented.
Jesus, as an observant Jew, would not only not have drunk fer-
mented wine on the Passover, but would not have celebrated the
Passover in any house from which everything fermented had not
been removed. I may mention that the wine I use in the service
at the synagogue is an infusion of raisins. You will allow me,
perhaps, to express my surprise that Christians, who profess to be
followers of Jesus of Nazareth, can take what He could not possi-
bly have taken as a Jew-intoxicating wine-at so sacred a service
as the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper."
The editors of a religious serial affirm that the Passover wine
was fermented grape-juice; and they quote from an article of
Rabbi Isaac M. Wise to sustain their position. So far as the
writer is able to judge from the evidence before him, there are now
two classes of Jews-the conforming Jews, most, if not all, of
whom do not use fermented wine; and the non-conforming Jews,
THE PASSOVER WINE UNFERMENTED.
197
some of whom, at least, use fermented wine. The writer thinks
he is safe in saying that a large majority, if not all, of the con-
forming Jews never have used, and do not now use, fermented
wine at the Passover. He will present, in addition to that which
has already been noticed, some of the testimony which, he thinks,
justifies this conclusion, and the reader can judge for himself.
"Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel ('Vindiciæ Judæorum,' printed
in 1656) says: 'Here, at this feast (Passover), every confection
ought to be so pure as not to admit of any FERMENT, or anything
that may fermentate.' Judge Noah, a leading Jew of New York,
informed Mr. Delavan that the use of wine prepared from steeped
raisins, in order to avoid fermented wine, was general among
American Jews at the Passover. Mr. A. C. Isaacs, a teacher of
the Jews, having lived among them twenty-six years before his
conversion, wrote, in 1844, 'All the Jews with whom I have ever
been acquainted use unintoxicating wine at the Passover—a wine
made in this country expressly for the occasion, and generally by
themselves. Some raisins (dried grapes) are steeped in water for
a few days previous to the Passover, the vessel being placed near
the fire. This liquor is bottled off, and used at the feast of unleav-
ened bread as the 'fruit of the vine.' Sometimes, when time does
not permit of steeping, the raisins are boiled on the same day on
which the feast is to be celebrated at night; and when the whole
of the saccharine matter is thought to be extracted, the decoction
is bottled off and corked; and this is the Passover wine.' Dr.
Cunningham, the learned Hebraist, says: 'What is now chiefly
used by the Jews at the Passover for wine, is a drink made of an
infusion of raisins in water.'"- Rev. W. M. Thayer's "Commu-
nion Wine.”
The Rev. Wm. Ritchie, a distinguished Scotch writer, says:
"We believe satisfactory evidence can be adduced that no fer-
mented thing was allowed in symbolic sacrifices among the Jews.
Everything leavened or fermented was forbidden in the offerings
which had a typical meaning. There was, indeed, a class of offer-
ings-free-will offerings, as well as the offerings of the first fruits
-in which leavened bread [purified by heat.-E.] was appointed,
being, in part, consumed by the offerers as food (Lev. vii. 13, xxiii.
17; Num. xv. 20; Amos iv. 5).
Leaven or ferment is
a substance in a state of putrefaction; and everything in this
state is unfit to represent that 'Eternal Life, which was with the
Father, and was manifested unto us.'”
**
*
Dr. Norman Kerr, in his pamphlet, "Unfermented Wine a
198
COMMUNION WINE.
Fact," says in regard to raisin wine, "The natural qualities of the
fruit are quite restored on the absorption of water by the dried
berries, and thus raisin wine is a perfect specimen of an unfer-
mented and unintoxicating drink.
"Accordingly, we find from abundant evidence that many
ancient and modern Jews have employed this wine at the Passover.
In proof of the general practice of the most orthodox modern
Jews, it is sufficient to quote the 'Encyclopedia Britannica,' 'The
Rabbins would seem to have interpreted the command respecting
ferment as extending to the wine as well as to the bread of the
Passover.' The modern Jews, accordingly, generally use raisin
wine after the injunction of the Rabbins," (8th ed., Art. Pass.,
p. 333).
Rev. Charles Beecher, in the New Englander, treats of "The
Emblems in the Lord's Supper," and believes that the wine was
the "unfermented" juice of the grape. His reasoning is kind,
fair, full and conclusive. He consulted two leading Jewish rabbis
in New York of both the "liberal" and the "orthodox" school,
and the first says:
"All fermented liquids made from the five species of grain-
namely, wheat, barley, spelt, oats and rye—are excluded under
the term leaven. This is undoubtedly orthodox Jewish law, all
statements to the contrary notwithstanding."
แ
The other said:
Fermented wine, as everything fermented, is rigidly ex-
cluded from our Passover fare, in accordance with the spirit of
the divine command."
Mr. Beecher, after a long discussion of the matter, says:
"So the fruit of the vine fresh pressed from the cluster was,
perhaps, the most beautiful specimen of a pure and perfect
product of ascending change or vital elaboration to be found in
the whole realm of nature. Like the crimson tide then pulsing
through his veins, there was in that cup not the first trace of
decay. 'This,' said He, 'is my blood.' And His blood, whether
in His veins or in the cup, was the Life, and in it no beginnings
of Death."
"Matt. xxvi. 26, 27. Having finished the Passover, our Lord
'took bread,' unleavened, unfermented bread, and blessed it.
This was done always at the Passover, and was by Christ trans-
ferred to the Supper. He gave it to His disciples as the symbol of
His body. Then He took the cup, and gave thanks. This also was
done on giving the third cup at the Passover. This He also trans-
THE PASSOVER WINE UNFERMENTED.
199
ferred, and gave it to His disciples as the symbol of His blood,
'shed for the remission of sins.' The bread and the cup were
used with no discrimination as to their character. To be in har-
mony with the bread, the cup should also have been unfermented.
It was the Passover bread and wine that Christ used. In Ex. xii.
8, 15, 17–20, 34, 39, and other places, all leaven is forbidden at
that feast and for seven days. The prohibition against the pres-
ence and use of all fermented articles was under the penalty of
being cut off from Israel.""-Bible Wines-Rev. W. Patton, D.D.
"The law forbade scor-yeast, ferment, whatever could excite
fermentation-and khahmatz, whatever had undergone fermenta-
tion, or been subject to the action of seor."-Bible Commentary,
p. 280.
(
Professor Moses Stuart, p. 16, says: "The Hebrew word
khahmatz means anything fermented." P. 20 :
P. 20: "All leaven, i. e.
fermentation, was excluded from offerings to God.-Levit. ii.
3-14."
"The great mass of the Jews have ever understood this pro-
hibition as extending to fermented wine, or strong drink, as well
as to bread. The word is essentially the same which designates
the fermentation of bread and that of liquors.”
Gesenius, the eminent Hebraist, says that 'leaven applied to
the wine as really as to the bread.'”—Thayer, p. 71.
"The Rev. A. P. Peabody, D.D., in his essay on the Lord's Sup-
per, says: 'The writer has satisfied himself, by careful research,
that in our Saviour's time the Jews, at least the high ritualists
among them, extended the prohibition of leaven to the principle
of fermentation in every form; and that it was customary, at the
Passover festival, for the master of the household to press the
contents of "the cup" from clusters of grapes preserved for this
special purpose.'"-Monthly Review, Jan., 1870, p. 41.
'The great Bible student of this and all ages," says the Rev.
Dr. G. W. Samson, "was Jerome [born A. D. 332]. As a repre-
sentative of the early Church at Rome, yet spending half his life
in the land of Jesus and of the first Apostles, his translation of
the Greek New Testament into Latin became the foundation of the
Latin Vulgate; while his voluminous commentaries and epistles
are an invaluable treasure in every department of Biblical science.
On Hosca ii. 9, he defines tirosh as the fruit of the vintage'; his
comment corresponding with his translation already noted. In
commenting on Amos ix. 14, he compares the blood of Christ'
to the 'red must' flowing into the wine-vat. Upon Matt. ix. 17,
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COMMUNION WINE.
he says that new skins [utres] must be used for wine that is to
be preserved as must, because the remains of former ferment
attaches to the old skins; and he regards this to be the essential
point in Christ's comparison; that the soul [anima] in which
His truth will be safely deposited must be entirely renovated and
freed from all remains of former corruption, so as to be 'polluted
with no contagion of former vice.' In commenting (Matt. xxvi.
26-29) on Christ's choice of language: 'I will not drink hence-
forth of this fruit of the vine,' he takes for granted, as under-
stood by all, that must is referred to; and he cites as illustrative
of the wine at the Supper, the fresh grape-juice of Gen. xl. 11,
and the 'noble vine' of Jer. ii. 21, as indicating the character of
the vine, as well as of its product, which is referred to in Christ's
words, 'I am the vine.' On Gal. v. 16-21, among the 'lusts of
the flesh,' Jerome mentions wine-drinking, and urges the duty of
abstinence from wines. He says: 'In wine is excess; as taught
in Eph. v. 18, youth should flee wine as they would poison.'
Alluding to the plea that Christ used wine at the Supper, and
that St. Paul recommended the use of wine to Timothy, Jerome
says: 'Elsewhere, we were made acquainted with both the wine
to be consecrated into the blood of Christ and the wine ordered
to Timothy that he should drink it.'”
The Rev. Thomas Snow, of England, in a discussion with an
American in the Orillia Packet (Ontario) in regard to the institu-
tion of the Sacrament, quotes from his opponent, and replies as fol-
lows: "What was "the fruit of the vine" which our Lord used
in instituting the Sacrament? It was, we unhesitatingly assert,
the ordinary fermented juice of the grape.' He allows no consid-
eration for the phraseology in which the contents of the cup are
described. 'If we must accept the theory that the fruit of the
vine was literally the "natural product as it is gathered and
stored," by parity of reasoning we must maintain that the Pass-
over bread was simply the grain as it is reaped and brought
in from the field.' Must we? Does the case run on all fours?
In all the accounts and references to this ordinance in the New
Testament, the bread is plainly called bread, but the contents of
the cup are never once described as wine. So the 'parity of rea-
soning' does not hold. And even if it had been called wine, that
would not have proved it to be alcoholic wine, for I have, in for-
mer letters, irrefragably shown that tirosh in the Hebrew Bible,
oinos in the Greek Septuagint, and wine in the English version,
are applied to the 'fruit of the vine' in cases which exclude all
PASSOVER WINE AND THE LAST SUPPER.
201
idea of fermentation. And there is another great disturbance of
the 'parity of reasoning.' The grinding of corn into flour, and
the kneading and baking of it, do not effect any substantial change
in its specific properties. But the fermentation of the 'fruit of
the vine' causes a chemical change. The sugar, gluten and albu-
men are destroyed, and alcohol is produced, which is another
thing altogether, possessing widely different properties. The:
Passover occurred six months after the time of grape harvest:
(called in the Pentateuch the gathering in of the tirosh). Wine
then used must have been from the nature of the case * * *
a fermented liquor.' It is strange that Dr.
should be
totally ignorant of the fact that in the vine countries grapes.
are preserved from one vintage to another."
And still stranger that he should not know that ancient writers,,
some of them born within a century of the birth of Christ, de-
scribe wine which would not intoxicate and methods of preserving
unfermented grape-juice.
"All," says the Rev. A. S. Wells, "that relates to this subject
(viz., the institution of the Lord's Supper), in the New Testament,
may be found in Matt. xxvi. 17-29; Mark xiv. 12-26; Luke xxii.
7-20, and 1 Cor. xi. 23-29."
•
"Take your Bible and carefully read and consider these words
They contain the historical account and the express directions
and commands of Jesus Christ on this subject, and all that He or
His Apostles have said or written upon it, except some allusions
to this ordinance which are found in 1 Cor. v. 6-8, and x. 16-21.
This matter is contained within a small compass, and can, there-
fore, be easily comprehended. From these passages we see:
First, That the Lord's Supper was appointed at the close of the
Passover feast, and before our Saviour and His disciples had
arisen from the table. Matthew says: 'And as they were eating·
(i. e., the Passover), He took the cup and gave thanks, and gave:
it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it.' Second, Notice also,,
that our Saviour used the same elements of bread and wine which:
they had used in the feast of the Passover. No new cup was:
brought in at the time He instituted the memorial of His death..
He took the Passover cup, and it was of the wine which it con-
tained that He expressly commanded His disciples; saying,
'Drink ye all of it.'
'Now we have abundant evidence that the wine of the Pass-
over was unfermented.
'First: This is seen in the name which our Saviour gave to the
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COMMUNION WÌNË.
contents of the Passover cup. Neither He nor His Apostles, in
speaking of this element in the sacramental emblems, call it wine
at all. Our Saviour foresaw how, in after ages, the term wine
would generally be understood to mean that which was fermented
and intoxicating, and, therefore, wholly inappropriate as a symbol
of His precious blood; and to guard the Church against this
danger He employs a term which, in all ages and languages,
could not be misunderstood, and He calls that wine He would
have us use in this ordinance the fruit of the vine.' This
term truly describes the new, sweet, unfermented wine which God
Himself creates in a cluster, and which He pronounces a bless-
ing (Isa. lxv. 8), like the oil and the bread with which it is asso-
ciated as an article of diet. This was, indeed, a good creature
of God, and to be received with thanksgiving. But when God's
wine has been, by man's invention, subjected to a chemical proc-
ess, and becomes fermented, it is no longer the fruit of the vine,
but another substance altogether: it has been changed in its
essential principles, and is now a poisonous compound of alcohol
and carbonic acid. Its sugar and gluten which were in the fruit
›f the vine, both of which are nutritious and help to build up and
repair the waste of our bodies, are now, by fermentation, con-
verted into alcoholic poison and other substances, all of which
are almost, if not utterly, destitute of any nourishing qualities
whatever.
"Again we know that the Passover wine was the new, sweet,
and unfermented wine, not only by the name our Saviour gave it
as the fruit of the vine, but
"Second: By the express law of the Passover, excluding all
leaven from the elements used at that feast. Read carefully the
following passages, and you will see the proof is full and unan-
swerable; Ex. xii. 15–20; xiii. 6–7; xxxiv. 25; Lev. ii. 11; x. 12,
and Amos iv. 5. Here you will notice that there is an utter pro-
hibition of leaven and of all that has been leavened or fermented,
not only from the Passover feast, but from everything offered in
sacrifice to God. This included fermented wine as well as the fer-
mented bread. If it is said that wine is not mentioned in these
passages, we reply, it was included in the prohibition of the un-
leavened bread; else there is no divine warrant for its use at all in
the Passover; but as our Saviour used it, His example settles its
divine appointment.
"In his commentary on John ii. 10, the Rev. Albert Barnes
says: 'The wine of Judea was the pure juice of the grape, without
WINE USED AT THE PASSOVER.
203
any mixture of alcohol, and commonly weak and harmless. It
was the common drink of the people, and did not tend to produce
intoxication.'”
The Rev. Dr. Duffield says: "For the Jews, in observing the
Passover-which feast He was celebrating when He instituted the
sacrament of His Supper-were prohibited from the use of any-
thing whatever, whether food or drink, that was fermented (Ex.
xii. 15); and to this day they rigidly observe the original regula-
tion."-Bible Rule of Temperance (p. 181).
The Rev. Dr. C. H. Fowler says: "The sacrament of the Lord's
Supper is rescued by the simple fact that this was the feast of the
Passover which Jesus set apart as His memorial, and that the
Jews ate nothing that had yeast or ferment in it at this feast.
They were forbidden to offer anything that had leaven or yeast in
it to the Lord. There is no indication that Jesus sent out and
procured intoxicating wine, when He had a supply of unfermented
wine. Jesus even called it 'the fruit of the vine,' not the fruit of
decomposition and fermentation.
6
“God promised that His Holy One should not see corruption.
God said to the sacrificing Jews: Thou shalt not offer the blood
of my sacrifice with leaven.' Jesus gave the wine as His blood of
the New Testament. It is not reasonable that He sought out a
forbidden element for the purpose of exposing His sacrament to
perpetual criticism. It is enough that Jesus called it 'the fruit of
the vine.'"
66
The Hon. J. P. Joachimsen, whose intelligence as a judge, as
well as the eminent culture and charities of his esteemed lady, are
well known in New York," makes the following reply to a letter of
inquiry from Dr. Samson :
"No. 336 EAST 69TH STREET, February 15, 1881.
"REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,-In answer to your favor of yester-
day's date, I repeat that the great majority of conforming Jews in
this city use wine made from raisins at the Passover feast. Of
course the raisins are fresh. Such raisin-wine is used in all con-
forming synagogues for the sanctification of Shabbat and holy
days; i. e., for Kiddush and also for services at circumcisions and
weddings. Some, but not many, people use imported wine-Ital-
ian, Hungarian, or German-which is certified as 'Perach'or
( Kosher wine.'
"I am, yours most truly,
"J. P. JOACHIMSEN.”
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COMMUNION WINE.
The Rev. W. M. Thayer, in his work on "Communion Wine,"
says: "The Saviour's language implies that He continued the
practice of using the unfermented juice of the grape. At the
institution of the Supper, He did not use the word 'wine' [oinos]—
the word in general use among the people; but he employed a
phrase which is translated 'fruit of the vine.' We have His lan-
guage recorded three times (Matt. xxvi. 27-29; Mark xiv. 23-25;
Luke xxii. 19, 20), and in each instance it is fruit of the vine.'
As if He would distinguish the wine which was used on that occa-
sion from that which the people were taught not to look upon,'
and which would 'bite like a serpent and sting like an adder'!
As if He meant that no man should ever point to His example on
that sacred occasion to defend the use of intoxicating wine on a
secular occasion. It has the appearance of a studied, consistent,
Christian arrangement to discard the 'mocker.' If the Saviour
used oinos at the Supper, it is singular, at least, that He avoided
the name by which it was known, and called it 'fruit of the vine.'
เ
"We submit, too, that the grape itself, or the newly expressed
juice, is the fruit of the vine' in a truer sense than fermented
wîne can be. For all chemists say that fermentation destroys the
nutritive element of grape-juice, while the unfermented juice is
highly nutritious. The latter is innocent and healthful, while the
former is dangerous' and harmful to persons in health.
เ
"It is objected that Christ said: 'Verily I say unto you, I will
no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it
new in the kingdom of God' (Mark xiv. 25). And these words are
supposed to imply the use of alcoholic wine. The remarks of
Professor Moses Stuart upon this passage furnish a good reply:
"Is there not a sanction here of drinking ordinary wine? Far
from it. It is beyond all reasonable doubt that orthodox Judaism
has ever and always rejected alcoholic or fermented wine at sacred
feasts. Even now, as I have abundantly satisfied myself by inves-
tigation, the Passover is celebrated with wine newly made from
raisins, where unfermented wine cannot be had. This would seem
to explain that difficult passage in Matt. xxvi. 29: "I will not
drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new
with you in my Father's kingdom.” "New" alludes to the wine
then employed on that occasion. The meaning seems plainly to
be this: “I shall no more celebrate with you a holy communion
service on earth; in heaven we shall meet again around our
Father's table, and there we will keep a feast with wine appropriate
to the occasion-that is, new wine." Of course, we are to under-
DR. B. W. RICHARDSON'S VIEWS.
205
But
stand the language in a spiritual, and not in a literal, sense.
the imagery is borrowed from the wine then before them. Scarcely
a greater mistake can be made than to rest the use of alcoholic
wine at the sacramental table on the example of our Saviour and
His disciples.'”’
We have selected the following extracts from the report of a
lecture and remarks in the Glasgow (Scotland) League Journal :
At a select meeting which comprised many clergymen and
physicians, Dr. B. W. Richardson, speaking on the subject of un-
fermented wines for sacramental purposes, said: "I think I might
say in reference to Dr. Kerr's remarks about the constitution of
these wines, that if there is anything in what you may call simili-
tude and in pure symbolism, as represented in the use of wine on
the solemn occasion to which he refers, all the question of simili-
tude turns toward a wine that is expressed simply from the grape.
I think there is a passage in the service which says: 'This is My
blood.' Now, if you take that at all as meaning anything sym-
bolic, then you have a common-sense view in the similitude which
does really exist between the expressed juice of the wine and His
blood. That is strictly true. If you look at this table on the wall
showing the compositions of the two kinds of wine, the one fer-
mented, the other unfermented, you will see that the constituent
parts actually of blood and of the expressed wine are strictly
analogous. One of the most important elements of the blood, that
which keeps it together, that which Plato speaks of as 'the plastic
part of the blood,' is the fibrine, and that is represented in the
gluten of the unfermented wine. If we come to the nourishing
part of the blood, that which we call the mother of the tissues, we
find it in the unfermented grape, in the albumen, and that is also
present in the blood; and if we come to all the salts, there they
are in the blood, and the proportion is nearly the same in the un-
fermented wine as in the blood; and if we come to the parts of
the wine which go to support the respiration of the body, we find
them in the sugar. Really and truly on a question of symbolism,
if there be anything at all in that, the argument is all in favor of
the use of unfermented wine. But, again, I would put it in this
way in support of Dr. Kerr: Presuming that you want the real
thing that was fermented for your purposes, I should say scien-
tifically that you could not go to that thing in its purest form. If
you really do want to put a fermented substance forward, then
you should put it forward in all its purity. The logical argument
would be not to take an irregular substance which is called wine,
206
COMMUNION WINE.
and which may contain half a dozen things that are altogether
apart from the real thing, but the point would be to take an
actually pure, simple, fermented substance, altogether free from
everything except the fermented substance, the completed process
and water. Yet, I suppose, if anything of that kind were put
forward in the Church, it would be rebelled at universally. No
one would think of doing it. Yet that is what should be done
logically if this is to be the thing. You either want a fermented
or unfermented agent. If it be decided that a fermented agent is
wanted, take it in all its purity; if an unfermented agent, take
that which is the natural, simple expression of the juice of the
grape-the rich wine.”
Dr. Norman Kerr said: "That at all periods in the history of
the Christian Church, in necessity unfermented juice of the grape
had been held to be wine for the purpose of the sacrament.
Witnesses were cited in the original from the second, fourth,
seventh, ninth, thirteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth
centuries. Unfermented, unintoxicating wine was, at the present
day, recognized as a lawful element of communion by the Metho-
dist Episcopal, and other bodies in America; by the Established
Church of Scotland, by a large number of Nonconforming congre-
gations throughout the kingdom, by a considerable array of Estab-
lished Churches and their mission charges in England, and by the
annual Mildmay Conference. One bishop had sanctioned its use,
while several bishops had communicated in it and had made no
sign."
In concluding his essay on "Communion Wine," the Rev. W.
M. Thayer says: "We ask the reader to compare the evidence
upon which we rest our view of the Temperance Cause, with that
on which the cause of liberty rests. Is the proof that the Bible
denounces American slavery more direct and explicit than the
proof that it denounces American drinking customs? Does not
the Bible support slavery as clearly as it does the use of inebriat-
ing beverages? And more, do we not discard certain customs and
habits as sinful on less evidence than we ask men to discard
intoxicating wine? Do we not accept many theological tenets as
Scriptural, on less evidence than we adduce for Total Abstinence
Communion Wine? Let reason and conscience answer. Espe-
cially let the Church be true. No virtue will rise higher in the
world than it is in the Church. If there be a place of safety on
this subject, let the Church occupy it. 'Lead us not into tempta-
tion'i the prayer; let God's people live as they pray. Tempt no
WINE IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
207
(
man with the intoxicating cup, at any time, or in any place. Let
the standard be as high at the Lord's table as it is at man's table.
A vicious thing in a holy place is out of place. The Church is
bound to set a pure and safe example on temperance as really as
on religion. 'Abstain from all appearance of evil,' binds us not
to drink beverages that may entice others to ruin. 'Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself' suggests that it is not a loving act to
set the dangerous example of drinking intoxicating liquors to our
neighbor, or his children. 'Do thyself no harm.' Abstinence is
the only sure way to prevent harm to one's self. Watch and
pray, that ye enter not into temptation.' There is no more em-
phatic way of disregarding this lesson, than by tampering with
the intoxicating cup. So, also, the exhortations to lay your
bodies a living sacrifice on the altar of God,' to 'crucify the lusts
of the flesh,' and many others, are wholly inconsistent with defil-
ing the body by using that which inflames the passions (Isa. xxii.
13), excites to violence (Prov. xxiii. 29), and overcomes and
demoralizes many who drink it" (Isa. xxviii. 1; Prov. xx. 1;
Isa. xxviii. 7).
(
Professor Stuart says: "I cannot doubt that chamets, in its
widest sense, was excluded from the Jewish Passover, when the
Lord's Supper was first instituted; for I am not able to find
evidence to make me doubt that the custom among the Jews of
excluding fermented wine, as well as fermented bread, is older
than the Christian era. That this custom is very ancient; that
it is now almost universal; and that it has been so for some time
whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, I take
to be facts that cannot fairly be controverted."
SACRAMENTAL WINE IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
The editors of a religious serial claim that Paul's reproof to the
Corinthians is evidence that the wine used was fermented.
"When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to
eat the Lord's Supper. For in eating every one taketh before
other his own supper and one is hungry and another is
drunken."
Adam Clark says in his comment on this passage, quoted
above in proof that the wine used was fermented wine, "and one
is hungry and another is drunken; methuei, was filled to the full;
this is the sense of this passage in many places of Scripture." He
does not believe it contains any assertion or charge of drunken-
208
COMMUNION WINE.
ness, but rather of repletion or excess in the use of food and
drink. The Corinthians wrongfully made a meal of what should
have been purely a holy ordinance, and in partaking of this meal,
the richer members unkindly put to shame by their excess and
abundance those poorer members who lacked. Thus eaten, it
was not a communion or bond of fellowship, but rather a pro-
moter of pride, gluttony and division. Of pride, because the
Apostle says of the rich, that they "shame them that have not ;
of division, because "in eating, every one taketh before other his
own supper; " and the natural consequence of this separate par-
taking is, as the Apostle continues, "one is hungry, and another
is drunken; one has had barely sufficient, the other is "filled to
the full."
>>
""
We think it not unlikely that men who would eat the Holy
Supper in such a spirit, might even use fermented wine, but there
is nothing in the passage above to prove it.
In 1 Cor. x., Paul tells us that we should not lust after evil
things, and intimates that by tempting Christ, we may be destroyed
by serpents, and he inquires if "the cup of blessing which we
bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?" Now what
relation has well fermented " generous wine" to blood? We
know that it has scarce any relation; and that it makes men see
serpents where none exist in the material world, has become a
proverb. Verily, as Paul says: "Ye cannot drink the cup of the
Lord and the cup of devils," and simply because they are distinct.
Can we think that a cup of fermented wine which so frequently
makes men see devils, is not the devil's cup?
For the following we are indebted to the Rev. Dr. Samson's
able work.
"Clement, of Alexandria, presided from A. D. 191 to 202, over
the earliest Christian school established at Alexandria, the seat of
Greek learning, made illustrious from the days of the second
Ptolemy, whose library had invited the Greek translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures nearly five centuries before Clement lived.
Trained in a complete knowledge of Egyptian science preserved in
hieroglyphics, thoroughly versed in the whole range of Grecian
wisdom, and learned in the Old and New Testament Scriptures,
Clement has enriched all subsequent ages by his works. Their
value was realized when the Greek monks, who in 1828 entertained
Champollion, showed him on a single page of Clement the correct-
ness of his system of hieroglyphic interpretation, by the earlier
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA.
209
reading of which single page he might have been saved years of
exhaustive study. In his treatise on 'Education' (Paed. L. II. c.
53), Clement dwells at length on the natural and revealed law as
to wines; and urges abstinence on youth. He gives a list of wines
of different kinds; mentioning among them a sweet (edus) Syrian
wine. He describes the effects of these different wines on the
brain, heart and liver; he says men do not seek wine when really
thirsty, but pure water; and he declares: 'I admire those who
require no other beverage than water, avoiding wine as they do
fire. From its use arise excessive desires and licentious conduct.
The circulation is accelerated, and the body inflames the soul.'
“He cites the fact that men who need unimpaired energies, as
kings, must be abstemious. Following up these teachings of
reason by Scripture references, he glances over the entire Old
Testament, Apocryphal and New Testament testimonies. He
quotes Prov. xx. 1, as showing that wine is not a fit companion
(akolouthos). He cites the wisdom of Seirach (Eccles. xxxi. 22–31),
as the summary of worldly wisdom as to wine-drinking. Coming
to the New Testament, he challenges those who perverted the New
Testament statement as to Christ. He asks: What was the wine
He blest?' Then, citing the special statement of Luke as to the
Passover wine, and the words of Matthew and Mark as to the wine
of the Lord's Supper, he makes their meaning more specific for his
Greek readers. In the words of Mark and Luke, 'of the fruit of
the vine' (tou gennematos tes ampelou), and in those of Matthew's
fuller statement, of the fruit of the vine;' (toutou tou gennema-
tos tes ampelou), Clement regards Christ as pointing to Himself, as
He did in His declaration, 'I am the vine;' and in order to bring
out Christ's emphatic thought, he quotes as if they were Christ's,
this fuller statement, 'of the fruit of the vine, even this' (tou gen-
nematos tes ampelou, tes tautes). To add yet greater force, he
asks again : ‘And what, indeed, was the wine drunk by the Lord
when they said, 'behold a gluttonous man and a wine-drinker.'
His reply implies that it must have been the same 'fruit of the
vine' used at the Supper. Coming to the case of the Corinthians
who preceded the Lord's Supper by a common feast, as the Supper
instituted by Christ was preceded by the Passover, Clement con-
tradicts the assertion that intoxicating wine was there used. He
indicates that it is the food, rather than the drink of the feast to
which Paul refers, and that he reproves them for 'clutching at the
delicacies,' for 'eating beyond the demands of nourishment.' He
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COMMUNION WINE.
farther intimates that servants brought into the Christian Church,
and to the table set for Christian masters, unaccustomed to a
common and well-furnished table, would naturally be ignorant of
the laws of propriety. That Paul refers to the food rather than
intoxicating wine, he thinks manifest for these several reasons :
that women are present to whom, according to Greek sentiment,
wine was prohibited; that unseemly eagerness 'in eating' is the
fault reproved; and that the contrast made is between those
'hungry' and those 'surfeited.' The main point, therefore, of
the apostle, he thinks, was to rebuke the more wealthy contributors
to the feast for tempting their weaker brethren to gluttony.
While these comments of Clement, living only a century after
John had closed his teachings, are, in many respects, interesting
and instructive, they are especially confirmatory of the fact that
intoxicating wine was not used by Christ, or introduced at the
Lord's Supper in the early Church.
(6
Origen, at the head of the same Alexandrian school, A. D.
228, is equally explicit.”—Divine Law as to Wines.
Now, we doubt not the intelligent reader will agree with the
author that Clement and the other writers named above, living so
soon after the Apostolic days, knew what forms of grape-juice
were then regarded as wine or oinos, and what kind of wine was
used as communion wine in their day, and what kind the Lord
and His disciples used quite as well as do the advocates of the
one wine theory" to-day.
((
(6
son:
(
'Coming down a century or two later we have," says Dr. Sam-
'Basil, the recognized head of the ancient as well as modern
Greek Church, bishop of Cappadocia, in Asia Minor, A. D. 374 to
379, in commenting on the songs of deliverance of men re-
deemed,' as was David when he wrote Psalm xxxii. 7, as con-
trasted with the songs of midnight banqueters, cites this allusion
of David as illustrating Christ's spiritual principle in the figure of
the 'new wine in old bottles;' and he follows it with severe de-
nunciation of those who seek pleasure from the use of intoxicating
wine. On Isaiah v. 22, after dwelling on the 'woe' that falls on
a people when their rulers drink wine, he cites the duty of absti-
nence taught in Moses' Law for the Nazarites, and in Solomon's
counsel, 'Look not on the wine.' Applying this truth to ministers
of the Christian religion, he says: 'It is becoming (preper) that
ministers of the New Testament, in like manner, abstain from
wine.' Going farther, he states this as a fact in Grecian history:
Rulers (hoi dynastai) do not drink wine;' and he adds: 'We
COMMUNION WINE.
211
who are rulers (dynastai) likewise, to the people, should not yield
in the least to vice."
In Ps. civ. 14, 15, we read: "He causeth the grass to grow for
the cattle, and herb for the service of man that he may bring
forth food out of the earth [Not out of the fermenting vat.-E.] ;
and wine (yayin) that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to
make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's
heart." Again, we read (Judges ix. 13): "And the vine said,
Should I leave my wine (tirosh-must), which cheereth the heart
of God and man?"
The good wine of the Word always stands, as in the passages
above, for food and blessing, and cheerfulness and strength; but
how do these qualities apply to wine to-day, if we restrict the
term to fermented wine only? Instead of classing it with grass,
and herb, and cattle, and bread, and with the blessings of man, it
can only be called, at best, a destroyer of food, a curse, an immi-
nent danger to every one who uses it even occasionally, and the
cause of misery and woe to families innumerable.
There is no sorrow on earth equal to that which results from a
drunken husband, wife, son or daughter, for it is life-long, and
attended by unspeakable mortification and vexation; and all this
is caused by temperate drinking. Stop this unnecessary habit and
drunkenness will disappear.
A correspondent in "The Morning Light" (an English period-
ical), in an excellent article on communion wine, says:
"There are those amongst us who see so much of the dreadful
consequences of drinking, that we dare not on our consciences do
anything to maintain the dire delusion that alcohol is not what
Dr. Andrew Clark says it is, 'an enemy to the human race.' We
should taste in it, if we tasted it, the tears of countless orphans;
we smell in it, when we smell it, the blood of murders without
end. To us it is the 'cup of astonishment' that any thoughtful
Christian man or woman can bear to drink of it, seeing what mis-
eries its use is bringing everywhere upon mankind; and it is to
us a 'cup of trembling,' lest we ourselves, by failing to discourage
its use in every possible way, should be guilty of prolonging the
popular delusions calling it into being.
'Is it nothing to you, O Christians,
As ye sit around the board,
Where the feast is spread before you,
And the rich-hued wine is porred,
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COMMUNION WINE.
That a mighty spirit of evil
Dwells in that bright wine's flow,
That pleasure floats on the surface,
But danger is hiding below?
'Is it nothing to you though that spirit
Walks to and fro through the land,
Scattering the seeds of mischief
Broadcast on every hand?
Those seeds are yielding a harvest
Of poverty, death, and woe,
Of ignorance, crime, and madness,
And you are helping to sow!'
"Shall we help to sow such seeds at all? Above all, shall we
help to sow them in our most solemn act of religion? No, Mr.
We will not, we cannot do it. And if our ministers and
our church committees insist that we shall receive from them
either the intoxicating cup or none other, I foresee that there will
be some amongst us laymen who will reluctantly be driven to
administer the Holy Supper in the true fruit of the vine to our
neighbors and ourselves.
H. S. SUTTON.”
The writer cannot for a moment harbor the thought that any
such resort as the one intimated above will ever be necessary. A
little patience is all that is required, for no church committee can
long refuse to provide unfermented wine for those who have con-
scientious scruples against partaking of fermented wine. And it
will not be long before all the intelligent members of Christian
societies will not only be willing to use unfermented wine as a
communion wine, but will be anxious to do so. For a careful
investigation of this subject will satisfy every one that, taking the
Word of the Lord and the Writings of the Church as our guide,
fermented wine is never suitable for this purpose; whereas, on
the other hand, there can be no doubt but that the unfermented
juice of the grape, new or old, is suitable; and, as a dernier
resort, we can always prepare raisin wine, such as has been used
by the Jews from time immemorial, and also by some of the
Eastern Churches, from the days of the Apostles; so that we
can have no excuse for using a leavened wine.
"A few years since an English clergyman," says the Rev.
William M. Thayer, "who had been intemperate, reformed. At a
public meeting in Manchester, he said, confessing his guilt: 'My
DANGER OF MODERATE DRINKING.
213
greatest sin is not found where I brought the most disgrace upon
my Master's cause in the public view; my greatest sin, in the sight
of God, was when I entered upon the course which led to drunken-
ness.' Was he not right? The intemperate man has incurred
guilt somewhere. Was it when he first staggered under the influ-
ence of strong drink? Nay, it was before that. Was it when he
had been a moderate drinker one year, two years, or more? Was
it when he drank his tenth, hundredth, or five hundredth glass?
Was it not rather when he quaffed the first glass which lured him
to all that followed? It is the first step that ruins.' 'Enter not
into the path of the wicked' (Prov. iv. 14). Watch and pray,
that ye enter not into temptation' (Matt. xxvi. 41). The divine
prohibition is laid upon the first step to ruin.”
The danger is always with the first glass; the reformed inebri-
ate who is looking to the Lord and striving to shun this evil
realizes this. Hence," says the Rev. Dr. Samson, "reformed
inebriates, with one voice, have asked for an unintoxicating wine
at the Lord's Supper; and, when this provision has been thought
impossible, they have conscientiously abstained often from partak-
ing of the cup.'
11
'It is plain," says the Rev. W. M. Thayer, "that the prohibi-
tion of drunkenness prohibits all indulgence which leads to drunk-
enness as Dr. Duff says, 'In condemning murder, the Bible of
necessity condemns the use of any and all of those means which
naturally and inevitably lead to it.' Reference may be made to
the unfermented juice of the grape, and the word much used to
guard them against over-indulgence, since Pliny, Columella, and
others say with Dr. Rule, that many Romans were so fond of it
that 'they would fill their stomachs with it, then throw it off by
emetics, and repeat the draught.' Thus it was with 'honey.'
'Hast thou found honey?' asks Solomon; 'eat so much as is
sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it'
(Prov. xxv. 16). Bible temperance is 'moderation' in the use of
good things, and abstinence from injurious things.”
(C
The Rev. C. H. Fowler, in his excellent work on The Wines
of the Bible," says:
"Let me give you for a moment an inside look. Here is a
young man, gentle, cultured, with his nerves on the surface and
his heart in his hand and his soul in his eye, pushes within the
reach of this great charmer. It may be in your house on New
Year's day he takes his first taste. He finds that that did not
kill him; he tries it again; he is pressed with work; he drinks
214
COMMUNION WINE.
Nearly one hundred thou-
But that is not all.
The wife is as gentle
to strengthen himself, and soon the old story is repeated over in
his case-friendless, homeless, ragged, blear-eyed, bloated, oozing,
staggering, creaking in every joint, covered with filth, making hist
way down to death. That is one process.
There is an army of
nearly two millions of cases like this.
sand annually drop into a drunkard's grave.
Go to that home; what is the process there?
as any woman in the land, trained with the utmost care, never has
known what it is to feel the pressure of any need, goes out into
that home; soon she finds that there is a shadow by the door.
She shudders; she is anxious. Late hours when the husband
comes home alarm her; she smells his breath; she misses the
accustomed luxuries; ornaments cease to come in, the old orna-
ments by and by move out; the spoons are sold and gone; the
forks follow; one article after another vanishes; the Bible goes,
the fence is broken down, the windows are broken out, the gate
falls off, the sidewalk is torn up-it is shabby and wretched; then
somebody else wants even this house, and the one in the alley is
cheaper, and they move into the alley. Now go in. No furniture
but a bench; no fire, and it is winter, and the children are huddled
together trying to keep warm. The father comes in only half
drunk, mad for more liquor; abuses the woman he had sworn to
protect; the children cower in the corner, and the last words they
hear are the oaths of their father, and the last sight they see is the
pale and patient face of the mother. Her friends have left her
long ago, lost sight of her; she has dropped out of social life ; she
has almost forgotten the girls she knew when she was a girl;
there she is! In the morn the father is gone, and the children see
her cold face clotted with her blood. That is the work of this
monster.
"You may take any one of the great army of haggard women
that groan and stagger on without hope under the load of shame
and in the grip of perpetual want; or any one of the great multi-
tude of children worse than orphans, inheriting a bondage of
disease and corruption, bred in alleys, dandled in the lap of sin,
trained to crime, and doomed to ignorance and infamy; you may
take any one of these human tatters, torn loose from all social
restraints and left to flutter in the gales of passion and burn in the
fires of delirium, and I will stake this case for the condemnation
of this hoary infinite evil at the bar of eternal justice upon a single
sigh or sob from any one of this great host of victims. If sentence
against this monster was not instantaneous and overwhelming in
GENTILE GODS AND FERMENTED WINE.
215
the light of human thought, the good Christ would be shut up to
open an almighty war for the capture and purification of the
eternal throne. It is not thinkable that God can either approve
these crimes or stand idly by in this great conflict."
We appeal to you, dear brethren and sisters of the Christian
Church, who see the truth upon this subject, to arise and let your
light shine; to combine or organize and exert your utmost power,
looking to the Lord for strength and wisdom, to overthrow this
fearful evil, which is ruining the bright prospects of the young,
and making so many homes desolate, and destroying the germs of
heavenly life in so many souls.
The moment the drunkard's cup is banished from the commu-
nion tables of our churches, its power for evil will be, in a great
measure, destroyed, its use as a beverage will then be recognized
as a sin, and we may look for the overthrow of the present drink-
ing habits; and never until then.
Shall we, as Christians, retard that consummation so devoutly
to be prayed for, by continuing to use, in the most holy ordinance
of the Church, a wine which is so unclean and vile that even the
heathen would not offer it to their gods?
•66
* * *
'Pliny says (c. 18): 'The wines of the early ages were em-
ployed as medicine.'
'Wines began,' he continues, 'to
be authorized in the six hundredth year of the city.' He adds
that even then it was used 'sparingly;' that women never drank
it except 'for health;' and that 'since this is consistent with
religion (constat religione) it was held impious (nefastum) to offer
wine to gods.'
"Athenæus (Deipn. I. 25) mentions especially 'sweet, light,
and boiled' Egyptian wines; and states that the Egyptians, like
the Greeks, in worshiping the sun, the deification of pure light,
'make their libations of honey (grape-syrup), as they never bring
wines to the altars of the gods.' Philo the Jew and Clement the
Christian indicate the religious spirit of the Egyptians, in describ-
ing the abstinence of the specially devout of their respective
religions.
"The laws of the Brahmins of India, embodied in the twelve
chapters of the Institutes of Menu, indicate that modern reform is
behind the ancients, who, in the earliest ages, had embodied in
law the duty of abstaining from intoxicating liquors. The open-
ing chapter declares that 'immemorial custom is transcendant
law' (I. 108).
"Among persons to be shunned in society is 'a drinker of
216
COMMUNION WINE.
intoxicating spirits' (III. 159). Repeated lists of articles of food
which may be presented as oblations to the Deity, and which the
Brahmin may receive and cat, such as milk, clarified butter and
honey, are given; but no 'spirituous liquor' is admitted.
"The penance required varies according to the knowledge or
ignorance of the drinker. Any twice-born man who has inten-
tionally drunk spirit of rice may drink more of the same spirit
when set on fire, and atone for his offense by severely burning his
body; or he may drink boiling, until he die, the urine of a cow,'
etc. (XI. 91). While the penalty of intentional drinking is so
fearful as well as disgusting, it is added: 'Or, if he tasted it un-
knowingly, he may expiate the sin of drinking spirituous liquor
by'—a long list of humiliating penances lasting 'a whole year'
(XI. 92). Farther on, wearisome penances are prescribed for a
Brahmin who shall even smell the breath of a man who has been
drinking spirits' (XI. 150); or shall have tasted unknowingly
** anything that has touched spirituous liquors' (XI. 151).
Proceeding then to the penalties to be followed in the future
world, we read (XII. 56): 'A priest who has drunk spirituous
liquor shall migrate into the form of a smaller or larger worm or
insect, of a moth, or a fly feeding on ordure, or of some ravenous
animal.'
'"'—The Divine Law as to Wines.
A curious fact, it is said, has been noted by Professor Van
Tieghem. The cells in the root of an apple-tree underwent alco-
holic fermentation when the soil was very damp, but he tells us
it made even the tree look sick. The Church of the Future is not
to be a whisky-drinking, wine-bibbing and beer-guzzling Church.
Whisky, fermented wine and beer perform no use in the healthy
human body which cannot be much better performed by legitimato
food and drink; and all true philosophy teaches us that use, and not
our perverted appetites, should govern our cating and drinking ;
that we may have a healthy mind in a healthy body. The Lord
has so ordered that the man who lives on the plainest and most
healthy food actually enjoys the most in eating and drinking; for
stimulating and poisonous articles soon blunt the taste for healthy
food, and do not themselves satisfy. We will simply intimate to
the advocates for the use of intoxicating wine as a communion
wine and a beverage, that there is a vast difference between the
excitement and delight which follow the use of healthy articles of
food and drink, and the excitement and delight which follow the
use of intoxicating drinks; and that difference is to the body and
mind what the difference between heaven and hell is to the soul.
FERMENTED COMMUNION WINE DANGEROUS.
217
The delights which flow from the use of the former are natural
and orderly, and correspond to heavenly delights; whereas, we
know very well, by every day's observation, that the delights
which flow from the latter are unnatural and disorderly, and
correspond to infernal delights.
DUTY TO THE RECLAIMED.
Wine: Ecclesiastical.-Dr. Kerr, of England, in a recent
lecture, said he stood on sure ground, for he was on his own'
domain of medicine. As a physician of some experience in the
treatment of habitual drunkenness, he knew that it was not safe for
the dipsomaniac to taste intoxicating drink in any circumstances,
while in a state of consciousness; and, therefore, he (the lecturer),
Churchman though he was, even when a drinker himself, never
allowed a reformed drunkard under his care to go near a com-
munion table where intoxicating drink was presented. He was
supported in this line of treatment by Dr. A. Fergus, of the
General Medical Council, and recently President of the Faculty of
Physicians and Surgeons, by Surgeon-General Francis, and by
other experts in the higher ranks of the medical profession. A
typical instance of the relapse of a reformed inebriate through
fermented wine at the Sacrament was adduced, the authority for
the facts being at the disposal of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The lecturer also said he would be disloyal to truth if he did
not honestly testify to the serious risk of communion in an intoxi-
cant to the reformed inebriate, and to the yet unfallen subject of
the hereditary drink crave. At present what was the fact? Some
reformed drunkards had been expelled from the Church altogether;
some had deprived themselves of the privilege of communion,
and some, while worshiping regularly at an Established Church,
communicated at some Nonconformist place of worship where
unfermented wine was used. He implored the clergy, as a mere
matter of justice and of right, to render the most sacred rite of
their venerable Church safe for the weakest of the victims snatched
from the fatal embrace of drink.
Does not the poor, reformed inebriate, who is struggling to
shun this evil, need the aid to be derived from partaking of the
wine at the Holy Supper as much as any one? We ask the
thoughtful reader, if the wine of which it is thus dangerous
to even take a single swallow, can by any possibility be the same
kind of wine of which our Lord and Master said "drink ye all of
it"?
218
COMMUNION WINE.
A PRACTICAL QUESTION AS TO COMMUNION WINE.
As unfermented wine, prepared and put up, may not always
be readily accessible to religious societies at present, what shall
they do when they give up fermented wine? Unfermented wine
is now preserved of a good quality by several vine-growers, so that
by a little effort and reasonable forethought there will be no diffi-
culty in obtaining a supply whenever it is needed. When, how-
ever, for any reason this is not to be had, if they can get fresh
grapes, they have only to squeeze out the juice and they have a
new wine, suitable beyond all question. In an emergency they
have only to do as is done by the remnants of the Christian Church
in Egypt and other countries; take raisins, wash them and steep
them over night, then mash and press them, and they have a pure
wine; very likely the identical kind of wine used by the Lord in
the administration of the Last Supper.
But in any country where fresh grapes can be had, any intelli-
gent man or woman can in a few hours prepare directly from the
grapes, all the wine any society will need for a year. It only
requires that the wine shall be pressed from the grapes-which
can be done by the hand-heated to the boiling point, and bottled
and sealed while hot. The wine will be sweet, or sour, and in
flavor according to the kind of grapes used.
As long as our Churches continue to use fermented wine as a
communion wine, so long will it be regarded by their members, and
especially by the young, as a good gift from God, to be used
temperately. They will, in the future, as in the past, reason that
"if fermented wine is suitable for use in the most Holy Ordinance
of the Church, it cannot bo an unclean, poisonous and dangerous
fluid to drink, only it must be drank with moderation.”
How can
conscientious Christian men continue to celebrate the most Holy
Supper with such a fluid and thus furnish the manufacturer of
intoxicants and the saloonist with their chief argument; and also
thus throw a stumbling-block in the way of temperate and con-
scientious men who are looking toward the Church as a city of
refuge in the evil times which are upon us? Not one word can
be found in the Bible which will justify the use of fermented wine
either as a communion wine or as a beverage.
Professor Tayler Lewis, in a pamphlet on "Wine-drinking and
the Scriptures," says:
"Our third class of texts, tho directly ethical, where wine and
its effects, instead of being incidentally mentioned, form the
SEEKING UNNATURAL EXCITEMENT WRONG.
219
principal subject, are easily disposed of. They are all one way.
Among others in the Old Testament see Prov. xxiii. 29–35, xxxi.
4; Isa. v. 11, xxviii. 1, 3, 7, 8; Jer. xxxv. 1, 19; Dan. i. 8;
Hos. iv. 11; Joel i. 5; Amos vi. 6; Hab. ii. 5, 15. They condemn,
with no reference to excess or moderation. Wine-drinking is
spoken of as a bad thing, leading to ruinous consequences.
“There is one evil state of the soul condemned throughout the
Bible. It is that state to which we give the name of intoxication,
or inebriation; but which, having no term corresponding to it in
the Hebrew, is described and most vividly set before us (Prov. xxiii.
29, 35) in its phenomena and effects. It is the act of a person in
health, voluntarily and without any other motive or reason than
the pleasurable stimulus, using any substance whatever, be it solid
or liquid, to produce an unnatural change in his healthy mental
and bodily state, either by way of exciting or quieting the nerves
and brain, or quickening the pulse. This was wrong—a spiritual
wrong, a sin per se-not a matter of excess merely, but wrong and
evil in any, even the smallest measure or degree. Although there
might be much ignorance in respect to its real internal causation,
the outward substances known to produce this effect-above all,
which were used for the very purpose of producing it (for here was
the spiritual crime)—are denounced as something which men are
not to touch, not even 'to look at.' The description may be
scientifically correct or erroneous; it may also be difficult to
determine, precisely, what is meant by certain Hebrew phrases in
this remarkable passage; but the general sense, as well as the
precise point intended, is unmistakably clear. It is intoxicating
drink that is meant-intoxicating in any degree—drinks sought
for that very purpose of producing such unnatural change in the
healthy human system. There was to be no moderate drinking (or
desire) here. However gentle, exhilarating, convivial or pleasantly
soothing might be its first effects, at the last 'it biteth like a
serpent and stingeth like an adder.'
According to the ethics so noted for its condemnation of all
fanaticism, we should have expected from the experienced and
conservative Solomon some wise inculcation of prudence, modera-
tion, avoidance of excess, rational use of the good gifts of God,
etc. Nothing of the kind. Abstinence, total abstinence, is the
lesson, if language can convey that idea. 'Do not look upon it,'
my son; turn away immediately, as from a venomous serpent;
think of its biting, stinging, maddening end, and let not thine eye
yield for a moment to its ruby fascination. It was undoubtedly
220
COMMUNION WINE.
(
purer wine than is now to be found on many Christian sideboards ;
but the better it is, the more sparkling its hue, the more delightful
to the palate as it goes smoothly down,' so is it all the more dan-
gerous. The language of the whole passage is most urgent, re-
minding us of that used (Prov. iv. 15) in respect to other tempting
sins that lead to a dreadful end: Avoid it, pass not by it, turn
from it, pass away.
"""
Temperate drinking, or using of intoxicants-substances which
excite an unnatural appetite which no healthy food will appease
-drinks which by the very law in accordance with which they
act, require to be taken in increased quantities; which are well
known to excite disease and to cause premature death; why! the
very word temperance applied to the use of such beverages is a mis-
nomer; we might as well talk of temperate stealing, temperate
lying, or temperate bearing of false witness; for not more surely
do the latter violations of the moral law, when continued in, per-
vert man's spiritual nature, than do stimulants man's natural
organism. The one class of violations is poisonous and destruc-
tive to the soul when indulgence is permitted, the other to the
body and soul; both alike are forbidden fruit.
Let no man pride himself in his ability to walk in the road that
leads to destruction, without entering the gates of the pit. We
have seen that a natural law leads the so-called temperate drinker
on to delirium tremens, by requiring him to increase the quantity
used. For this reason firmness of will and endurance are no safe-
guards against drunkenness. An Alexander who had the energy
to conquer the world, could not control his appetite, but died an
inebriate. Do we not manifest a lack of wisdom when we imag-
ine ourselves possessed of a strength of intellect and self-control
which will enable us to drink moderately without becoming
drunkards? Have we more power of intellect or of will than
any of the long list of distinguished statesmen who have died
drunkards within the last few years? Nor is even piety joined to
these a safe-guard against drunkenness if a man permits himself
to continue the use of stimulants, for not a few who were emi-
nent for judgment and learning have gone from the sacred desk to
fill a drunkard's grave.
DUTY OF THE CLERGY.
Major C. B. Cotten, in an article on social drinking in the
Pioneer, says:
"In this work of temperance reform, a great responsibility
EFFECTS OF A BAD EXAMPLE.
221
rests upon our clergy, to preach total abstinence from intoxicating
beverages, as well as from the other evils and excesses of the
day.
"We have reason to believe that, as a class, they do preach in
this way; and while a majority practice what they preach, a large
minority do not practice total abstinence. True, many, like Dr.
are temperance men in the abstract, but practically advo-
cate the drinking of the lighter alcoholic beverages, such as beer
and wine, and also, it is said, many make a practical application
of their theory by imbibing these beverages more or less.
,
* * *
"At an ecclesiastical convention a few years ago, a discussion
on temperance brought up the wine question. A part of the clergy
advocated its entire disuse, and a part took the other side. At
length an influential clergyman rose and made a vehement argu-
ment in favor of wine, denouncing the radical reformers for
attempting to banish this token of hospitality from use. When
he had resumed his seat, a layman, trembling with emotion, rose,
and asked if it was allowed for him to speak.
"The chairman having signified that he would be heard, he
said: 'Mr. Moderator, it is not my purpose in rising to answer
the argument you have just listened to. My object is more
humble, and I hope more practicable. I once knew a father in
moderate circumstances who was at much inconvenience to edu-
cate a beloved son at college. His son became dissipated, but
after he had graduated and returned to his father, the influence of
home acting upon a generous nature, actually reformed him.
"His father was overjoyed at the prospect that his cherished
hope of other days might still be realized.
"Several years passed, when the young man, having completed
his studies and about to leave his father for the purpose of estab-
lishing himself in business, was invited to dine with a neighboring
clergyman distinguished for his hospitality and social qualities.
At this dinner wine was introduced and offered to the young man
and refused, pressed upon him and again firmly refused. This was
repeated, and the young man was ridiculed for his singular absti-
nence. He was strong enough to overcome appetite, but could not
withstand ridicule. He drank and fell, and from that moment
became a confirmed drunkard, and not long since filled a drunkard's
grave. Mr. Moderator,' continued the old man, with streaming
eyes, 'I am that father, and it was at the table of the clergyman
who has just taken his scat, that this token of hospitality ruined
the son I shall never cease to mourn.""
CHAPTER X.
COMMUNION WINE IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW DISPEN-
BLOOD OF GRAPES-CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES
SATION
OF THE EAST-ACTION OF RELIGIOUS BODIES.
WHEN the wine question is viewed in the light of the New
Christianity, and carefully examined, there would seem to be no
question as to the kind of wine which should be used at the Holy
Supper.
The vine has a good signification, for it signifies "good and
truth spiritual." (Apocalypse Explained, 403.) Vine or vineyard
signifies the Church where the Word is by which the Lord is
known, consequently, the Christian Church. (Apocalypse Revealed,
650.) Grapes have a good signification, for they signify the goods
of charity, which are the goods of life. (A. E. 375.) Grapes and
clusters signify works of charity, because they are the fruits of
the vine and the vineyard; and by fruits in the Word are signified
good works. (A. R. 649.) The blood of the grape, or the juice
which flows, when the skin is punctured or burst, with little or no
pressure but the weight of the cluster, and which is the sweetest
portion of the grape, has the highest signification.
"The blood
of the grape signifies spiritual-celestial good, which is the name
given to the divine in heaven proceeding from the Lord; wine is
called the blood of grapes, since each signifies holy truth proceed-
ing from the Lord; wine, however, is predicated of the spiritual,
and blood of the celestial; and this being the case, wine was en-
joined in the Holy Supper." (Arcana Calestia, 5117.) "By the
blood of the grape is also signified truth from spiritual good, the
same as by wine in Deut. xxxii. 14."-A. E. 918.
That unfermented wine, which is produced by crushing and
pressing the grapes, also has a good signification is beyond ques-
tion. "Thus saith Jehovah, As the new wine is found in the
cluster; and He saith, spoil it not, because a blessing is in it'
(Isaiah lxv. 8): the new wine in the cluster denotes truth from
good in the natural principle." (A. C. 5117.) This new wine
found in the cluster is not fermented wine, for alcohol is not found
WINE THE FRUIT OF THE VINE.
223
in a cluster of grapes. "Whereas all truth is from good, as all
wine is from grapes, therefore by wine in the Word is signified
truth from good." (A. E. 918.) If all wine is from grapes, as
Swedenborg has assured us, and the grapes do not contain any
alcohol, how can we claim that fermented wine, which is full of
alcohol, is the fruit of the vine, or that it has a good signification ;
especially when we know, as we do, that the alcohol is not even
the product of the vine, but that it is produced by the actual
destruction of the gluten and sugar, both good and useful ingre-
dients of the wine, by ferment or leaven, which signifies "the
false of evil," and "the evil and the false," which, Swedenborg
tells us,
"should not be mixed with things good and true?" And
yet in the case of fermented wine, by the ingenuity of man in pro-
viding vessels, keeping it at a proper temperature, and with the
necessary exposure to the air and no more, this substance-leaven
-has been mixed with the new wine, and has disorganized and
destroyed the vegetable compounds which the Lord had so care-
fully organized in the grape for the sustenance of man, until, in the
end, there is scarcely a trace of some of the most important and
useful of the natural ingredients of the wine left; and until by
the destructive action of the leaven there has been substituted for
the gluten, sugar, and other organic ingredients of the wine, the
most to be dreaded, and which has proved to the human race the
most deadly poison ever produced by man, it having destroyed
more human beings than all other poisons put together. Sweden-
borg tells us, as we have already quoted in a previous chapter, that
all substances which hurt and kill men have their origin from
hell. Thus, then, there can be no question as to the origin of the
alcohol in fermented wine. In fact, as we have elsewhere shown,
Swedenborg in his work, "Apocalypse Explained" (No. 1035),
compares "falses from evil," which we know are from hell, to
wine which will induce drunkenness; and we know that the wine
which will induce this fearful state, in which reason and self-
control are overthrown, is never unfermented wine, but that
it is always fermented wine; and history shows that it has in-
duced drunkenness in all ages of the world, even for countless ages
before distilled liquors were known. Is there can there be-
any excuse for the use of an intoxicating wine in the sacrament
of the Holy Supper, gentle reader? But do not be over hasty
to condemn all wine. Please bear in mind that the vine, the
grape, the blood of the grape, all have a good signification,
unquestionably good, when unpolluted by fermentation.
The
A
224 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
same is true of must; for Swedenborg tells us that "must
signifies the same as wine, namely, truth derived from the good
of charity and love."-A. E. 695.
""
Webster, as we have seen, defines must [Latin, mustum] as
"wine pressed from the grape, but not fermented." Worcester
defines it, "the sweet or unfermented juice of the grape: NEW
WINE. So that both authorities say that the unfermented juice
of the grape is wine. Must has the same signification because it
is new wine. It is only when leaven or ferment commences its
fearful work of disorganization, destruction, and pollution in the
new wine or must, that it ever has a bad signification; but after
it has been so mixed with leaven and polluted by it, it is perfectly
clear that it never has a good signification, for the wine then
becomes a perverted and poisonous fluid, as we should naturally
expect. Swedenborg says: "Leaven signifies the evil and the
false, whereby things celestial and spiritual are rendered impure
and profane.”—A. C. 2342.
And yet it is wine, the noble fruit of the vine, corresponding to
things spiritual and celestial, which has been rendered by the
action of leaven impure, and the natural symbol of spiritual
impurity and profanity, which is to-day, with only here and there
an exception, being used as communion wine in the organized
societies of the Christian Church in this country, and of which
men and women, who clearly see the truth, are compelled to par-
take.or stand aloof from the most holy ordinance. Of this wine
so generally used, one of the editors of a religious periodical says :
"If one has acquired a depraved taste for it, it may be well for
him to deprive himself of it altogether, not excepting its use at the
Holy Supper." Do men acquire a depraved taste for healthy
articles, such as bread and fruit ?
Is it not sad that, through the perversion of an ordinance, a
teacher in the Church should feel it to be his duty to suggest to
some who desire to partake of the Holy Supper, the expediency of
remaining away from the heavenly feast, of which the Lord com-
manded all to partake? And this, not because of unfitness in
themselves, but lest the Supper may lead them into temptation;
and sadder still, that he should not see from the teaching of the
Word, and from the philosophy of the Church, and the science of
correspondences as contained in the Writings of Swedenborg, that
the Lord never placed this temptation before any; and that it is
impossible that He could do so in any ordinance which He insti-
tuted for the benefit of His people, and the use of which He makes
COMMUNION WINE GOOD OR BAD.
225
obligatory upon them? As the Holy Supper came to us from the
Lord, there was nothing about it to incite or minister to a depraved
taste.
That men of the Christian Church, who have simply a knowl-
edge of the literal sense of the Sacred Scriptures, should advocate
and use fermented wine is not so surprising; but that any man, with
the knowledge which he can readily obtain from the Writings of
Swedenborg of the spiritual sense of the Sacred Scriptures, and of
causes, and the correspondence which exists between all natural
and spiritual things, habits, and effects, and the express teaching
of Swedenborg upon this subject, to which we have referred in
this work, can for a moment attempt to justify the use of fer-
mented wine as communion wine, is beyond the comprehension of
the writer, upon any other supposition than that he has not care-
fully examined this subject; and to bring this question fairly
before his brethren, and to ask their most serious consideration of
it, is the object of this chapter.
Says the Rev. Dr. Nott: "Can the same thing in the same state
be good and bad; a symbol of wrath and a symbol of mercy; a
thing to be sought after and a thing to be avoided? Certainly
not. And
And is the Bible, then, inconsistent with itself? No, cer-
tainly."
(
Here, then," says Dr. Rich, "is the rational and righteous
basis for the discriminating statutes of God. The beverage that
was characterized by power to produce a sensible stimulation, a
nervous excitement, was forbidden; the beverage that satisfied a
natural appetite and afforded strength without stimulation was
commended."
Dr. Rich's special conclusion is thus stated:
thus stated: "There is no
threatening, or prohibition, or visitation of judgment, as I can
remember, based on the discrimination between an excessive and
a limited or temperate use (as it is called) of intoxicants.
""
"I think," says the Rev. Joseph Cook, "it is beyond dispute
among the scholars of the first rank, that at the Passover the
wine used was non-intoxicating, and that our Lord instituted the
Holy Supper with such wine."-Encyc. Brit., 8th ed., art. "Pass-
over."
A
In one of his former tracts, the writer purposely avoided a full
consideration of this subject; for he felt that the impropriety of
using an intoxicating wine in the most Holy Supper was so
manifest that it was unnecessary to say more than barely to allude
to the subject, and to call the attention of Christians to it. But
226
THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
some rather rough experience, and further consideration of the
subject, has satisfied him that he was mistaken as to the necessity
and too hopeful in his expectations; and to-day he is thoroughly
convinced that nothing is more necessary or desirable for the welfare
of the Church, than that this subject should be discussed fully and
fairly. So long as intoxicating wine is used for sacramental pur-
poses, drunkenness will never cease in the Church; for many of its
members, and the young people who are looking toward the
Church, will reason that "if it is suitable for such a purpose, it
cannot be bad in itself; and it will not harm me to drink a little-
temperately,' of course. Among those who begin to drink this
seductive fluid, a goodly number will inevitably become drunkards ;
and many more will richly deserve the name, and die from the
effects of drinking, whose fall may not be so complete and open as
to cause them to be generally recognized as drunkards. All who
drink intoxicating drinks, as we have seen, will be injured thereby,
in mind and body, to a greater or less extent; for they are almost
sure to become "moody in mind and diseased in body, sooner or
later," however "temperately" they may use such beverages.
""
"When a reformed drunkard," says the Rev. Joseph Cook,
'sits down in a pew, and finds his neighboring Church member a
moderate drinker, and his pastor holding up the Bible in one hand
and the glass of moderate drinking in the other, the struggling,
converted inebriate has not come into a place of safety. The
Church is not a fold that is securing him from the wolves; it is not
a place where he can repose."
The cultivated grape, as we understand it, is, beyond question,
a "good gift of God," and has no impurities; for with the excep-
tion of the seeds and skin, it contains nothing but what is useful
to sustain, nourish and build up the body of man. There is, so
far as we know, no other vegetable fluid which so perfectly con-
tains all the constituents required to nourish the human body as
unfermented wine, and it is for this reason that it has a similar
signification to that of blood; whereas, chemistry demonstrates
that fermented wine, with the exception of a portion of the sugar-
and even this is not always present-contains few, if any, of the
valuable vegetable compounds which were organized for the sus-
tenance of man, in the fruit of the vine, which have not been
either entirely or partially changed in the direction of decay; and
we have in their stead, resulting from the destruction of the
gluten and sugar, alcohol, the most pernicious poison known to, or
used by man. It would seem that the great change which is
MUST OR UNLEAVENED WINE.
227
wrought upon the pure grape-juice by leaven, should satisfy every
Christian that fermented wine is not suitable for a drink or for
sacramental purposes.
From the whole of the Jewish representative worship these two
ordinances, Baptism and the Most Holy Supper, were passed over
into the first Christian Church; and then continued into the New
and Everlasting Church now being built up.
"Of all those repre-
sentatives the Lord retained but two, which were to contain in one
complex whatever related to the internal Church. These two are
Baptism instead of washings, and the Holy Supper instead of the
lamb which was sacrificed every day, and particularly at the feast
of the Passover."-True Christian Religion, n. 670.
It will be seen, then, that the Holy Supper was wholly represent-
ative and correspondential, and that the correspondences which
pertained to the Jewish Passover, so far as leaven, which always
has an evil signification, is concerned, belong to this in every par-
ticular.
We know that in the Passover everything leavened was strictly
prohibited, and we have every reason to suppose that the Lord took
the Passover cup when He instituted the Holy Supper, and conse-
quently that it was unfermented wine which He styled the fruit of
the vine. The following is Swedenborg's formula for preparing
bread for the Holy Supper:
"That in the Holy Supper, bread (which is there fine flour
mixed with oil) and wine signify love and faith, thus the all of
worship."-A. C. 4581.
There is no leaven here, and nothing leavened, for Swedenborg
draws the above from the meat offerings and drink offerings
described in Leviticus xxiii. and Numbers xv. Will our Christian
brethren please note this? Swedenborg, in speaking of our Lord's
remarks after He had instituted the Holy Supper, says: "Good
from truth and truth from good, whereby the intellectual principle
is made new, or the man is made spiritual, is signified by the fruit
of the vine; the appropriation thereof is signified by drinking.
To drink denotes to appropriate, and is predicated of truth. That
this is not done fully but in the other life, is signified by, 'until
that day when I shall drink it new with you in My Father's king-
dom.' That the fruit of the vine does not mean must or wine
[non mustum nec vinum], but somewhat heavenly of the Lord's
kingdom, is very manifest." (A. C. 5113.) It is perfectly clear
from the above that Swedenborg did not understand that the
material wine which the Lord and His disciples had been using
228
THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
when He instituted the Holy Supper, was fermented wine. It is
certain that he had in mind unfermented wine by his using the
terms must or wine. So that if we accept Swedenborg as authority
as to the kind of wine used by the Lord and His disciples in this
Holy Ordinance, we must admit that they used unfermented
wine.
Why should we not follow the Lord's example, and use unfer-
mented wine instead of fermented or leavened wino? Why should
we persist in using an intoxicating wine which will cause stupor,
drunkenness, insanity, disease and death, and which we know,
according to the philosophy of the Church, has its origin from hell,
and which Swedenborg directly compares to falses from evil, as we
have seen? (Apocalypse Explained, 1035.) Can we imagine it
possible that Swedenborg would have compared a wine which is
suitable for use in the most Holy Supper, to the worst kind of
falses falses from evil? Please remember that he gives us no
chance to doubt as to the kind of wine to which he refers in this
comparison; it is the wine that causeth drunkenness. Is it possi-
ble that the Christian Church can prosper while it uses such a
wine in this most Holy Ordinance, and while many of its preachers,
writers and members justify and advocate its use as a beverage,
and set the example of using it? Is it not time that we, as
Christians, put a difference between holy and unholy, and
between clean and unclean"? "Do not drink wine, nor drink
that maketh drunken."-Lev. x. 8, 9.—A. C. 1072.
66
The Writings tell us that, "To prevent also the celestial princi-
ple of the Lord, which is the Lord's proprium, and which alone is
celestial and holy, being commixed with man's proprium which is
profane, in any representative rite, they were enjoined not to
sacrifice or offer the blood of the sacrifice on what was leavened
(Ex. xxiii. 18; xxxiv. 25), what was leavened signifying what was
corrupt and defiled." (Arcana Cœlestia, 1001.) "Whereas, the
conjunction of the Lord with mankind is effected by love and
charity, and faith thence, those celestial and spiritual things were
represented by the unleavened bread which was to be eaten on the
days of the Passover, and it was to prevent the defilement of those
things by anything profane, that what was fermented was so
severely prohibited, that they who ate it should be cut off; for
they who profane things celestial and spiritual must needs perish."
-A. C. 2342.
How wonderfully clear the science of correspondences makes
this entire subject. "The false," says Swedenborg,
does not
(
LEAVEN DESTROYS THE GOOD WINE.
229
accord with good, but destroys good; for the false is of evil, and
truth is of good."—A. C. 7909.
"Leaven denotes the false," we are told by Swedenborg.
(4.
C. 7906.) And as good in truth, which nourishes and gives sub-
stance to the regenerating spirit of man, is destroyed by the false,
if man imbibes and appropriates the false; so leaven in its action
on unfermented wine, to the extent that fermentation proceeds,
perverts, destroys, separates, or precipitates everything which
nourishes the material body of man as good does his spirit. It
destroys the gluten, the albumen, the sugar, the phosphorus, the
malic acid, bitartrate of potash, and the tartrate of lime, which
give substance to the wine, and which cause it, when boiled, to
form a rich, thick syrup, and if boiled a sufficient length of time,
a comparatively solid body, capable of being restored to its original
integrity by the addition of water. You can get no rich syrup,
and little or no valuable solid body of food substance from what is
regarded as good, well-fermented wine; for the bread portion
which nourishes the material body of man as good in truth does
his spiritual body, has been mostly destroyed by leaven. Surely,
an intelligent Christian need not go beyond the clear correspond-
ences in this case to be satisfied that fermented wine is in no way
a suitable article for any one to imbibe, or to be used as sacra-
mental wine. If any one is not satisfied, he has only to contrast
the different action of unfermented and fermented wine upon the
body and mind of man. The former nourishes and builds up the
body, without any unnatural excitement; the sweet, which cor-
responds to spiritual delights, makes glad the heart of man; it
creates no unnatural appetite, and therefore does not require to be
taken in increased quantities to satisfy the appetite for it; it
causes no disease peculiar to itself, even when taken in excess-no
disease which any other healthy article taken in excess might not
cause.
We scarce need repeat how totally different from all this is the
action of fermented wine. It gives comparatively little nourish-
ment to the human body, for most of its nourishing portion has
been destroyed. It causes the most intense excitement-even to
insanity—and we all know of the infernal delights which it excites ;
of the perverted appetite which is not satisfied, as in the case of
healthy articles, with a regular supply, but demands an increase
until drunkenness or other forms of disease ensue. We are all
familiar with the fearful diseases which it causes-the drunken-
ness, insanity, delirium tremens, gout, etc. Surely, we must lay
230 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
aside our common sense, and close our eyes, ears and nostrils to
what we see, hear and smell around us, before we can even begin
to justify the use of fermented wine, for any purpose, except as a
medicine, as we use other poisons.
"Clusters and grapes signify the good of charity. * * * By
the blood of grapes is also signified truth from spiritual good the
same as by wine in Deut. xxxii. 14. The reason why grapes sig-
nify the good of charity, is because by a vineyard is signified the
spiritual church, and by a vine the man of that church; wherefore
by clusters and grapes, which are the fruits, are signified the goods
which constitute that church, which are called spiritual goods, and
also goods of charity; and whereas all truth is from good, as all
wine is from grapes, therefore by wine in the Word is signified
truth from good."-Apocalypse Explained, 918.
Any one knows, or may know, that bread and wine are what
nourish the body-the bread as meat and the wine as drink-and
that in the Word, which in its inmost is spiritual, those things also
must be spiritually understood. Thus bread signifies all spiritual
meat, and wine all spiritual drink; spiritual meat is all the good
which is communicated and given to man by the Lord, and spir-
itual drink is all the truth which is communicated and given to
him by the Lord."-Apocalypse Explained, 329.
* * *
In Joel ii. 23, 24, we read: "Sons of Zion, rejoice and be glad
in Jehovah your God, for He shall give you the former rain in
justice; yea, He shall cause the rain to come down for you, the
former and the latter in the first, that the corn-floors may be full
of pure corn, and the presses overflow with must (tërosh) and oil.”
Swedenborg, in giving the spiritual sense of the above passage,
says: "By the sons of Zion are signified those who are in genuine
truths, whereby they have the good of love, for by Zion is signified
the celestial Church, which is in the good of love to the Lord by
genuine truths.
That the Lord flows in with the good of
love into truths continually, is signified by: 'He shall cause the
rain to descend, the former and the latter in the first;' the good
of brotherly and social love thence derived is signified by the corn-
floors being full of pure corn; and that thence they shall have the
truth and good of love to the Lord, is signified by the presses over-
flowing with must (tirosh) and oil; with those who are of the
celestial Church of the Lord there is the good of brotherly and
social love, which love, with those who are of the spiritual Church,
is called neighborly love or charity."—Apocalypse Explained, 644.
Here we have the very highest signification given to must or
MUST AS COMMUNION WINE.
231
the unfermented juice of the grape and to unrancid oil, as they
abound or overflow from presses. When pure, as they were
created and preserved by the Lord in the grape and olive, they
both have a good signification, and when pressed from their natural
receptacles both continue to have a good signification until per-
verted and polluted by noxious germs from the atmosphere.
Some of the advocates of fermented wine, in their reviews of
our former works, represent that Swedenborg, when referring to
the wine of the Holy Supper, invariably uses the word vinum
(wine). If this representation were true, it would be of no weight
in this discussion, unless it were also shown that whenever he uses
the word vinum he invariably has reference to fermented wine.
We have conclusively and repeatedly shown in the preceding pages,
by the testimony of Swedenborg himself, that he, writing more
than a century ago, like the most intelligent scholars of this day,
distinctly includes within this generic word the juice of grapes as
it is pressed from grapes; and unfermented must, as well as fer-
mented wine. Thus, if it were true, as claimed in these journals
(but we will show it is not), that Swedenborg uses only vinum in
reference to the Holy Supper, even then the unwarrantable infer-
ence made by our critics shows with how little care the writers of
the criticisms alluded to have examined this subject.
To show the reader how far from the truth the above repre-
sentation is, the writer will make a few quotations from the Apoca-
lypse Explained, n. 376, where Swedenborg speaks of vinum with
especial reference to the Holy Supper. He commences by giving
the signification of vinum (wine), and the reader will see what
illustrations follow, all being taken from the same number: "That
wine (vinum) signifies spiritual good, or the good of charity and of
faith, which in its essence is truth, is evident from the following
passages in the Word." Then follow among others these passages :
Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he
that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine
(vinum) and milk without money and without price' (Isa. lv. 1).
That the wine (vinum) and milk here mentioned, which were to
be bought without money and without price, do not signify milk
and wine (vinum), but things purely spiritual, to which they cor-
respond, must be obvious to every one; wherefore by wine (vinum)
is signified spiritual good, which in its essence is truth, as was said
above, and by milk the good of that truth."
"So in Joel: 'And it shall come to pass in that day, that the
mountains shall drop down new wine (mustum), and the hills shall
232 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
4
flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters.'
**** By the mountains dropping down new wine (mustum) is
understood every genuine truth derived from the good of love to
the Lord" (III. 18). Does man receive any higher truth than
every genuine truth derived from the good of love to the Lord?
"So in Amos: 'Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that
the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes
him that soweth the sced; and the mountains shall drop sweet
wine (mustum) and all the hills shall melt' (ix. 13). * * * By
the mountains dropping sweet wine (mustum) and the hills melt-
ing, is signified as above, namely, that from the good of love to
the Lord, and from the good of neighborly love or charity, there
should be truth in abundance, sweet wine (mustum) denoting
truth." The original is, "mustum ibi seu vinum est verum
"must there or wine is truth."
* *
""
"And again: 'It shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken dili-
gently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to
love Jehovah your God, to serve Him with all your heart and with
all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in due
season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather
in thy corn, and thy wine (Hebrew, tirosh-Latin, mustum-Eng-
lish, must), and thine oil' (Deut. xi. 13, 14).
The things
which were said and commanded by Jehovah corresponded to
things spiritual, and consequently the blessings of the earth here
mentioned [among which the reader will notice must.-E.] corre-
spond to the blessings of heaven.
Wherefore by the
corn, wine (mustum) and oil, which they should gather, are signi-
fied every good and truth of the external and internal man.”
we have anything more?
** * *
Can
“So in Jeremiah: 'Therefore they shall come and sing in the
height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of Jehovah,
for wheat, and for wine (mustum), and for oil, and for the young
of the flock and of the herd' (xxxi. 12). Here, by wheat, new wine
(mustum) and oil, are signified goods and truths of every kind."
Again in Isaiah : "The treaders shall tread out no wine
(vinum) in their presses' (xvi. 10).
It was customary to
sing in the vineyards and in the wine-presses when the grapes were
trodden into wine (vinum) on account of the representation of the
delights derived from truths, which were signified by wine (vinum).”
Here we have the juice of the grape as it is trodden from the
grape called wine (vinum) by Swedenborg.
*** *
Again in giving the signification of Jeremiah xlviii. 32, Sweden-
GRAPES CALLED WINE-VINUM.
233
borg says: "The truths of good are understood by the vintage
and by the wine (vinum) in the wine-presses."
"And in Hosea: 'The floor and the wine-presses shall not feed
them, and new wine (mustum) shall fail in her' (ix. 2). By the
floor and the wine-press are signified the same as by corn and
wine (vinum), because in the corn-floor and wine-press, corn and
wine [In the original these words, "corn and wine," are not
repeated, but simply "these they collected together."-E.] are col-
lected together." Here the reader will see that grapes as they are
collected in wine-presses are called wine (vinum).
"By the new wine (mustum) mourning, and the vine languish-
ing, is signified all the truth of the Church, to mourn and to
languish denoting deprivation.”—A. E. 376.
It will be seen from the above extracts from this number (376)
of the A. E. that Swedenborg gives to must, in no less than six
cases or illustrations, the full signification of wine, and then he
goes on to say:
"Who cannot see that the meat-offering and the drink-offering,
which were bread and wine, could not be pleasing to Jehovah for
worship, unless they had signified such things as belong to heaven
and the Church? From these considerations it may now be evi-
dent what is involved in the bread and wine used in the Holy
Supper, namely, that bread involves the good of love to the Lord
derived from the Lord, and wine, the good of faith which in its
essence is truth. Inasmuch as wine signifies the good of faith,
which in its essence is truth, therefore the Lord, when He insti-
tuted the Sacrament of the Supper, said: 'But I say unto you, I
will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day
when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.'
By the fruit of the vine, or the wine (vinum), which the Lord said
He would drink new with them in the kingdom of His Father, or
when the kingdom of God should come, is signified all divine
truth in heaven and the Church, which would then proceed from
His Divine Human Principle; wherefore He calls it new, and in
another place His blood of the New Testament, the blood of the
Lord signifying the same as wine (vinum).”—A. E. 376.
**
*
We have in the above quotations, written with direct reference
to the Holy Supper, the full signification of wine repeatedly given
to must; and to unleavened must, too, beyond the possibility of a
doubt; for it is must as dropping from the mountains, must as it
was gathered in in the grapes, must as it was trodden from the
grapes, must in the wine-press, as the reader will notice. Here,
234 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
then, for every one believing in the New Christianity or on the
Lord Jesus Christ, we have the unfermented juice of the grape
with the full signification of wine for use in the Holy Supper.
While the blood of the grape may perhaps have the highest signifi-
cation possible, no pressed wine ever has a higher signification
than that given to must both in the above and in many other
passages which we have brought to the support of our position.
If there is a single passage in Swedenborg's writings which clearly
teaches that either leavening must or leavened wine ever has a
good signification, the writer has yet to see it; nor has such a
passage ever been produced by his critics, although he has repeat-
edly called on the advocates for the use of fermented wine to
produce a single instance. We know that fermentation, as we
have already noticed, changes the vitality or life of the wine
totally, not only in its essential structure and ingredients, but also
in its ability to affect man both physically and mentally. If un-
fermented must has a good signification, as has been abundantly
shown, how can fermenting must and fermented wine ever have a
good signification?
With, perhaps, the exception of Ahsis, which Swedenborg trans-
lates into Latin by merum (sweet wine), there is no word in, the
Bible used to designate the juice of grapes to which Swedenborg so
uniformly gives a good signification, even the very highest-with
the exception of the blood of the grape-as he gives to the Hebrew
tirosh, which he translates into Latin by mustum, of which the
English is must. This word, in a great majority of the cases where
it occurs in the Bible, is translated in the English Bible by the word
wine; and though Swedenborg translates it generally, if not
always, by mustum, the translators of his works often, as we have
seen, render Swedenborg's mustum by wine. This, with a one-
sided view of Webster's and Worcester's dictionaries, seems to be
what has led our critics astray.
Must, as we have seen, is simply used to designate newly-
pressed wine, and it is wine, just as newly-pressed cider is cider.
We have seen in the preceding pages that the juice of grapes as it
drops from grapes, as it is squeezed from grapes, as it is trodden
from grapes, as it is pressed from grapes, and as it flows from the
press, is wine; and has been called wine in Hebrew, Greek, Latin
and English; and that Sweden borg distinctly recognizes it as wine,
and repeatedly gives it as high a signification as he ever gives to
any form of wine, excepting it may be, as we have said, the blood
of the grape; which is simply the sweetest portion of the juice of
SWEET WINE FOR COMMUNION WINE.
235
the grape which flows most readily when the skin is punctured or
ruptured. While must, when predicated of the natural, signifies
natural truth, it is just as certain that when predicated of the
spiritual and celestial it signifies spiritual and celestial truth, as it
is that wine has such significations. This is abundantly proved in
the preceding quotations.
Here, then, we have, either as it is squeezed or pressed from
grapes, or as preserved by boiling, or by settling in wells of cold
water, or even by sulphurization, the pure, unfermented juice of
the grape, the new wine for the new age and the New Christianity;
a wine discarded by the first Christian Church as it approached its
consummation. Shall we use it as a sacramental wine, or shall
we still cling to the drunkard's cup, and thus set an example
which has encouraged, and is encouraging many a member of all
churches to travel the broad road which has led and will continue
to lead so many to sorrows and woes untold, and finally to a
drunkard's grave and a drunkard's future? May the Lord in His
mercy open our eyes to see the truth, and enable us to put this
fearful evil away from our Church organizations, and the drinking
of intoxicating drinks away from our homes, is the prayer of many
a wife as she weeps over her husband as he comes blear-eyed and
besotted into her presence at midnight; of many a mother as she
spends the long hours of night in watching for the return of her
son from the “chatty, brilliant and entertaining" company where
"the affections are vivified" by "the ambrosial odor of wine
greeting the nostrils.” Who can realize the fearful anguish of the
mother as she beholds that her son's "ideas flow more freely, the
senses are more acute," through the excitement of drink, and she
realizes for the first time that he is becoming a drunkard?
A clergyman having called the writer's attention to two pas-
sages in the Writings, one in the True Christian Religion and the
other in the 4. C., bearing on the subject of sacramental wine, he
was requested to send a copy of the same, which he did, as fol-
lows:
"The passage to which I referred is T. C. R. 708. 'A feast of
wines on the lees, or of sweet wine,' is in Latin, 'convivium fecum
seu vini suavis.' 'Fecum' is from a word which means grounds,
sediment, lees, dregs. 'Suavis' is from a word meaning sweet,
pleasant, agreeable. In Tafel's Latin edition of the T. C. R., the
words 'vini suavis' are put in small caps. The following words
are added-' this refers to the sacrament of the Holy Supper to be
instituted by the Lord.' The words 'seu vini suavis' are used in
236 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
explanation of 'convivium fecum,' which certainly would not have
been necessary if there were but one kind of wine.
(
"The other passage is A. C. 2341, where E. S. seems to sub-
stitute of sweet wines' for wines on the lees.' The A. V. reads
'And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all
people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat
things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.' Sweden-
borg makes it read: 'Jehovah Zebaoth shall make unto all people
in this mountain a feast of fat things, a feast of sweet wines, of
fat things full of marrow, of wines well refined.' In the explana-
tion he seems to teach that not only in the Holy Supper, but in all
the feasts in the Jewish Church, 'wines on the lees' or sweet wines
are used."
In old fermented wine, which is so especially praised by lovers
of wine, chemists tell us that the sweet or sugar, which corresponds
to spiritual delights, is generally entirely destroyed; and it is
always destroyed to the extent fermentation has progressed, and
this sweet product of the vine is perverted into an intoxicating
fluid by leaven. Only think, dear reader, of using a wine thus
perverted and polluted, as a communion wine! The day is not far
distant when all Christians will turn from the idea of using a fer-
mented wine at the Holy Supper, with horror, as do the isolated
remnants of the First Christian Church in Egypt to-day; as the
writer was told they do, by missionaries at Cairo, Egypt.
"Wine (vinum) signifies truths of doctrine from the Word,
grapes signify the good from whence truths are derived" (A. E.
374). This is clear and direct.
"And the truths of good are understood by the vintage and by
the wine (vinum) in the wine-presses" (A. E. 376). Not in the
fermenting vats.
Wine in the Cluster.
"Thus saith Jehovah, as the new wine
(6
is found in the cluster; and He saith, Spoil it not, because a
blessing is in it' (Isaiah lxv. 8). The new wine in the cluster
denotes truth from good in the natural principle" (A. C. 5117).
Is this fermented wine? Swedenborg informs us that new wine
signifies the truth of the Word" (A. E. 618). 'New wine signi-
fies spiritual good" (A. E. 323). "New wine (Luke xv. 29) is the
divine truth of the New Testament, consequently of the New
Church, and old wine is the divine truth of the Old Testament,
consequently of the Old Church" (A. R. 316). This is pretty
clear, and shows what kind of wine Christians at this day should
"Must signifies the same as wine, viz., truth derived from
use.
THE BLOOD OF THE GRAPE.
237
the good of charity and love" (A. E. 695). And again: "By the
produce of the wine-press was signified all the truth of the good of
the Church, the same as by wine."-A. E. 799.
'For by the blood out of the wine-press is meant the juice
(mustum) and wine (vinum) from the clusters that were trodden,
and the juice of the grape (mustum) and wine (vinum) have a
similar signification" (A. R. 653). That two fluids so totally
different in their chemical composition and in their effects on
man as unfermented and fermented wine cannot both have a
similar signification is self-evident.
Joel. i. 10: "That field and ground denote the Church, corn
its good, and the new wine (mustum) its truth."-A. C. 3941.
"Wine (vinum) in the wine-press shall they not tread" (A. R.
316). Do the treaders tread fermented wine in the wine-press?
"That by the wine-press, and the treading thereof, is signified the
production of truth from good, by reason that the grape signifies
spiritual good, and the wine (vinum) made from the grape the
truth from that good, appears from the following passages.
The wine-presses overflow with must (mustum) and oil, signifies
that from the good of charity they have truth and its delight
(A. E. 922). If must overflowing from the press signifies truth
and its delight, what more does wine signify?
>>
"By the blood of the grape is also signified truth from spiritual
good, the same as by wine in Deut. xxii. 14. The reason why
grapes signify the good of charity is because by a vineyard is
signified the spiritual Church, and by a vine the man of that
Church; wherefore by clusters and grapes which are the fruits,
are signified the goods which constitute that Church, which are
called spiritual goods, and also goods of charity; and, whereas,
all truth is from good, as all wine (vinum) is from grapes, there-
fore, by wine (vinum) in the Word, is signified truth from good”
(A. E. 918). There is no room for wine from leaven-or for
leavened wine-here; for we are distinctly told that all truth is
from good, as all wine is from grapes. Truth is from the Lord,
and so are grapes and their juice. If truth does not require to be
polluted by falses from evil before we imbibe it, it is certain that
wine does not require to be polluted by leaven, which corresponds
to falses from evil, before we drink it.
An advocate of the "one wine theory" says:
"It was,' as we are taught in the Writings of the Divine Providence
of the Lord that (with the Catholics) in the Holy Supper, the bread is
238 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
*
given, which is the flesh, but not the wine (vinum), which is the blood;
and yet it is the blood which vivifies the flesh, as the wine does the broad
* * else they would have profaned holy things like the Jews' (A. C.
10040). There seems at the present time to bo an extension of this
judgment also to the Protestant Church, in that it is beginning to substi-
tute for wine unfermented grape-juice, whereby the representative char-
acter of the Holy Supper is changed and perverted."
If it was of the Divine Providence that wine was not given in
the Holy Supper to Catholics, is it not manifest that when the
Protestant Church separated faith from charity and taught the
doctrine of faith alone, that it was also of the Divine Providence
that this Church chose fermented wine instead of the pure unfer-
mented "fruit of the vine" which is so strictly analogous to the
blood that vivifies the flesh? For what greater profanation of
holy things can there be than to substitute for, or offer as a repre-
sentative of, the blood of the Lord, a liquid filled with the impuri-
ties of leaven and emptied of almost every element analogous to
the blood which it should represent? Yet no other fluid could so
well correspond with the state of those who held (as did many of
the Protestant Churches at the time of the Last Judgment in 1757)
the doctrine of justification by faith alone; for it is full of that
vinous spirit called alcohol, which Swedenborg compares in its
effects on man with the doctrine of faith alone on the clergy—the
one intoxicating physically as the other does spiritually. Can any
correspondence be clearer than this? And is it not of Divine
Providence, too, that as that doctrine is loosing its hold on them,
so do they begin to throw off the alcoholic communion wine which
corresponds to their old spiritual state ?
Beyond all question, if we accept the Word of the Lord as
authority, and in the opinion of the writer beyond the possibility
of a doubt if wo accept Swedenborg as an authority on this subject,
the recently expressed juice of the grape, used before fermentation
has commenced, is appropriate for use in the Holy Supper. Except
it is to be preserved by some one of the processes we have de-
scribed in a former chapter, or when it may be kept below the
temperature of 50° until it is needed, it should not be pressed
from the grape carlier than the night before the day on which it
is to be used; and then it should be bottled and carefully corked.
It may be prepared by pressing the grapes directly by the hands,
as we have seen was often done by the ancients; or by any other
method.
MUST EXPOSED TO THE AIR FERMENTS.
239
This recently expressed must, or new wine, is certainly appro-
priate, as Swedenborg tells us that must has the same signification
as wine, namely: "Truth derived from the good of charity and
love" (A. E. 695); and that "new wine is the divine truth of the
New Testament-consequently, of the New Church; and old wine
is the divine truth of the Old Testament, consequently of the Old
Church" (A. R. 316), which came to its end at the time of the Last
Judgment in 1757.
By must, we know, he does not mean must during the process
of fermentation, but that he does mean the recently expressed
juice of the grape before fermentation has commenced; whereas
fermented wine which has been so generally used, he compares to
falses from evil, as we have seen.
There are seasons of the year when fresh grapes can be had
about as readily as wine; and if grapes grown in a warm climate
can be had, we have a sweet wine, very pleasant to drink; but let
them be grown where they may, in the unfermented juice pressed
from them, we shall have a wine more palatable to the unperverted
taste than the "stuff" which is sold as fermented wine.
In this unfermented wine we have a fluid which can justly be
termed the fruit of the vine, and which is not produced by leaven,
like the essential ingredients in fermented wine.
The objection was made to the writer by a respected clergyman
that wine, either recently pressed from the grapes, or bottled un-
fermented wine, if exposed to the air, would not keep; and if a
part of a bottle were used, the rest would spoil before an occasion
again occurred for using it; and he seemed to think it was an
indication that it was not suitable for this purpose. In reply, we
reminded him of the fact that if special pains were not taken to
deprive the bread, which he uses for this purpose, of its moisture,
it would spoil, or become mouldy and sour; and that the meats,
fruits and vegetables from which he daily eats would spoil on
keeping, many of them in a very short time. Again, we called his
attention to another important fact, namely, that the use of
mouldy and sour bread, tainted meats, and decaying vegetables,
however objectionable such use might be—and the writer would be
the last man to advocate their use-would be far less objectionable
than the use of fermented wine; for they would not impair to so
great an extent man's freedom and reason, and would never make
him drunk, either naturally or spiritually; whereas, the use of
fermented wine causes insanity and natural drunkenness, and
240 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
affords a plane of influx for evil spirits which tend to infatuate
and render men insane in regard to spiritual things.
When it is desirable to preserve wine for future use, we have
only to heat it to the boiling point and pour it, while hot, into
bottles, or into glass fruit-cans, and seal it up with sealing-wax if
in bottles, or can it as fruit is canned. Thus preserved it will keep
for years.
Wine has a similar signification to blood. Blood is composed,
not simply of water, which is from the mineral kingdom, and cor-
responds to truths upon the natural plane of life, and is the
medium through which nourishment is conveyed to every part of
the material body, but it also contains in a state of solution all the
substances required to warm and build up the material body,
which correspond to good, all harmoniously blended in one fluid, a
living current which is to the body of man what Divine Truth,
always united with Divine Good, is to his soul. It is perfectly
clear that wine has a similar signification, because it has a similar
composition. It has the water from the mineral kingdom; the
sugar, which is so delightful to the innocent child, and which is
appropriated to warm the material body; the gluten or bread part,
which gives substance to the various tissues; the phosphorus for
the brain, the lime for the bones; the potash for the tendons and
ligaments; and there is perhaps no part of the body which does
not receive some nourishment from pure unfermented wine.
THE BLOOD OF THE GRAPE, AND THE CORRESPONDENCE OF SUGAR
OR SWEET.
This is the juice which flows almost or quite spontaneously
from the grape, when the skin is wounded or broken, before the
application of much pressure. It is the sweetest portion of the
juice of the grape, and was frequently preserved separately by
the ancients. Owing to its containing a large amount of sac-
charine matter, and very little gluten, it does not ferment as
readily as the juice which is obtained by pressure. In Gen.
xlix. 11, "
"He hath washed His garments in wine, and His
covering in the blood of grapes,' speaking of the Lord; here
wine denotes spiritual good from the divine love, and the blood of
grapes denotes celestial good thence derived.
Again,
* *
'and thou drinkest the blood of the grape, new wine.'
In the passages from the Writings, quoted in the preceding
pages, we are distinctly taught that wine in the cluster and the
SIGNIFICATION OF MUST OR NEW WINE.
241
blood of the grape have a good signification. Simply pressing the
wine from the grape does not change its character; it is still good.
The reason why the blood of the grape was not required to be used
in the Holy Supper was not because it had not a sufficiently high
correspondence, as a religious periodical leads its readers to infer,
but because this sweetest portion of the unfermented juice of the
grape had too high a correspondence, as will be seen by the follow-
ing from the A. C. 5117: "In Deut. xxxii. 14, speaking of the
Ancient Church, * **
the blood of the grape signifies spirit-
ual celestial good, which is the name given to the Divine in heaven
proceeding from the Lord; wine is called the blood of grapes, since
each signifies holy truth procceding from the Lord; wine, however,
is predicated of the spiritual, and blood of the celestial; and this
being the case, wine was enjoined in the Holy Supper."
The editors of a religious periodical say: “On account of its
lack of ripeness and perfection, must signifies natural truth, but
wine the spiritual, thus truth from good. (A. C. 3580, 5117.)
From this we see that for the Holy Supper not the unfermented
juice, nor partly fermented must, but good, old, fermented wine
should be used.”
Now, kind reader, if you have the "Arcana Coelestia," please
turn to No. 3580, and you will be astonished at the above state-
ment. You will be able to see how easy it is, simply by omitting
five words which qualify the ideas intended to be conveyed by
Swedenborg, to give to the reader an entirely erroneous idea, and
to base an argument thereon. You are given above clearly to
understand that must never has any higher signification than
natural truth, whereas you will there read that it is classed with
corn, and that "when predicated of the natural [principle] they
signify natural good and truth." But you will find that when
predicated of the spiritual [principle] new wine (must) signifies
spiritual truth; for in the very same number you will read: “A
land of corn and new wine (must) denotes the good and truth of
the Church." We know that the Church has spiritual good and
truth as well as natural. Again you can read in the same number :
"Speaking of the Lord's kingdom, where by new wine (must), by
milk, and by waters, are signified things spiritual, whose abun-
dance is thus described." Now, turn over to A. C. 5117, to which
the editor refers, and you can read that the "blood of the grape
signifies spiritual celestial good, which is the name given to the
Divine in heaven proceeding from the Lord." The blood of the
grape is the sweet juice which flows from the grape when the skin
242 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
is ruptured. And in the same number you can read: "The pre-
dominance of good is also represented in the flavor and sweetness
which are perceived in ripe grapes." It is this flavor and sweet-
ness in the blood of the grape which gives to it the very highest
signification that is ever given to any of the products of the vine,
as we see above; and it is these qualities which give to unfer-
mented wine, new or old, the highest signification that is ever
given to wine. Now, chemists tell us that in "good, old fer-
mented wine," the sweet or sugar is generally all destroyed by the
leaven or ferment, and it is always destroyed to the extent fer-
mentation has progressed. What nonsense to talk about using
such a wine for the Holy Supper; and who can doubt but that by
its use the "Holy Sacrament" is actually "profaned;" unless it
is used through ignorance, by one who has not carefully examined
this question without prejudice.
We will see what Swedenborg has to say about sweet: "Every-
thing sweet in the natural world corresponds to what is delightful
and pleasant in the spiritual world" (A. C. 5620). Again: "Sweet
signifies what is delightful from the good of truth and the truth
of good" (A. E. 618). Again : "And the waters were made sweet
-that hereby is signified that hence truths were made delightful,
appears from the signification of sweet, as denoting what is
delightful, for sweet in the internal sense is the sweet of life, which
is one with delight; and from the signification of waters as de-
noting truths.
Hence it is, that so long as good flows in
and is received, so long truths appear delightful; but as soon as
good does not flow in-that is, as soon as evil begins to predomi-
nate and prevent the influx of good-instantly there is felt a sensa-
tion of what is undelightful in regard to truth; for truth and evil
naturally reject and hold each other in aversion."—A. C. 8356.
* *
It seems to the writer that no man who has read his Bible and
the Writings of the Church carefully and without prejudice, can
doubt but that sweet, as organized by the Lord in the juice of
wholesome, nourishing vegetables, has a good signification-when
unperverted and unadulterated, always good. Now, if we turn to
science and to our senses, the beautiful correspondence between
the natural and spiritual would seem to make this whole question
clear to every one who is willing to see the truth, and is in free-
dom to see it. First sugar or sweet is delightful to the palate,
not simply of the adult man with his perversions of taste, but also
of the new-born infant in his innocence; while the flavor of fer-
mented wine and whisky is never delightful to the infant or to the
THE BLOOD OF THE GRAPE.
243
unperverted palate of the adult, unless largely covered by sugar.
Science teaches us that one of the chief uses of sugar or sweet,
when used as an article of diet, is to warm the body, and thus
make glad the physical heart of man. Swedenborg tells us above
that, "Sweet signifies what is delightful from the good of truth,
and the truth of good." Sweet renders both water which corre-
sponds to truth, and the food which corresponds to good, delight-
ful; the natural delight corresponding to spiritual delight. We
have here a starting point, for the correspondence of sweet is un-
questionably good-one of the highest. Sweet is one of the main
constituents in the blood of the grape and of man; and in the
juice of the grape which flows on pressure. It is the sugar or
sweet which makes the water, gluten and other nourishing mate-
rials contained in the grape so delightful. It is the sugar which
makes even the dried grapes, or raisins, so palatable. Not a single
drop-not even the smallest fraction of a drop-of alcohol was
ever found in a sound grape. It is said that alcohol has been
found even in the atmosphere; and if the careful experimenter
was in the habit of using alcohol, or took the air for his experi-
ments from the neighborhood of those who were in the habit of
using it, we do not wonder that he should be able to find what
our nostrils in like circumstances so readily detect; but the Lord
has organized no fermented wine in the grape; for the good sweet
grape is pure, and has not, liko man, to be regenerated by tempta-
tions and fermentations; and as it has had no change correspond-
ing to the separation of the will and understanding in man, if it
commences to decay, it must go on, unless restrained by man,
until complete disorganization results.
Among the strange assumptions of the advocates of the one
wine theory" there is perhaps none more singular than that made
by some of them, that by the blood of the grape is meant fer-
mented grape-juice. It certainly would seem that this term should
be free from being thus misrepresented.
[HE WASHED HIS GARMENTS IN WINE, AND HIS CLOTHES IN THE
BLOOD OF GRAPES.] This is a striking example of the parallelism
which formed one of the features and beauties of Hebrew poetry—
the two clauses differing in language but corresponding in sense-
'garments' answering to 'clothes,' and 'wine' (yayin) to ‘the
blood of grapes' (dam anahvim). 'Blood' is a poetical name for
'juice,' and is evidence of the ancient signification of yayin as
'the juice of the grape,' prior to fermentation. This juice,
squeezed out, is yayin, and hence the juice in the grape, and even
244 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
the grape itself, might, by a natural figure, bear the same name.
[Compare Anacreon's poetical reference to oinos as 'confined in
fruit upon the branches '-pepedeemenon oporais epi kleematon
(Ode 49), and the description of the vintage-treaders 'letting loose
the wine '-luontes oinon.]
"In Fuerst's Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance, SORAQ is
defined to be.a vine laden with grapes filled with a red and supe-
rior wine '-vino, rubro ac præstanti impletis. As to Sorek,
comp. Judg. xvi. 4; Isa. v. 2; xvi. 8; Jer. ii. 21."-Bible Com-
mentary.
And yet, exclaim some of the advocates for the use of intoxi-
cating wine, "fermented grape-juice is called the blood of the
grape." How different from what Swedenborg so beautifully
teaches is such a statement as the above! He says, "The blood of
grapes signifies truth from spiritual good, the same as wine."—
A. E. 918.
"A vineyard, or a vine, as has been shown, represents the
spiritual Church, or the man of that Church; and a grape, and
bunches, and clusters of grapes are the fruits thereof, and signify
charity, and what appertains to it. Now, wine (vinum) denotes
the faith thence derived, and all that belongs to it, and thus the
grape is the celestial principle of that Church, and wine (vinum)
its spiritual principle; the former, as has been often previously
observed, having relation to the will, and the latter to the under-
standing."—A. C. 1071.
"Wine (vinum) is what is spiritual from a celestial origin ;
the blood of grapes the celestial principle, as received in spiritual
churches; grapes charity itself, and wine (vinum) faith itself.
* * * As grapes represent charity so does wine (vinum) the
faith thence derived, because it is obtained from grapes, as has
been shown in various passages above quoted, when speaking of
vineyards and vines."-A. C. 1071.
เ
What can be clearer than the above? "The grape is the celes-
tial principle of that Church ; 'the blood of grapes the celestial
principle as received in spiritual churches." Grapes charity itself,
and wine (vinum) faith itself;" "because it is obtained from
grapes "—not from leaven and man's invention, as is fermented
wine. In another passage in his writings Swedenborg tells us that
“all wino (vinum) is from grapes " (A. E. 918). Again he tells us
that even all the produce of the wine-press has the same signifi-
cation as wine.” How strange that any Christian should repre-
sent as above that not only good wine, but even the blood of the
BLOOD OF THE GRAPE RESEMBLES BLOOD.
245
grape, means fermented grape-juice; when it is so perfectly clear
from Swedenborg's writings, and from the Word of the Lord, that
neither the blood of the grape, must, new wine, sweet wine or
wine, when used in a good sense, can ever mean fermented grape-
juice! All these fluids are repeatedly represented as coming from
the grape; without the first intimation that they require to be
leavened before they are perfected.
"And the truths of good are understood by the vintage and
by the wine (vinum) in the wine-presses.”—A. E. 376.
"And I have caused wine (vinum) to fail from the wine-
presses: none shall tread with shouting."-A. E. 376.
In old fermented wines, which have not been fortified by either
sugar or other saccharine matter, or alcohol, chemists tell us all
the sugar is destroyed. How can our Christian brethren seriously
claim that these are proper wines to use in the most Holy Supper ?
Grapes, of which wine is made in the wine-press, signify the
good of charity, and in the opposite sense, evil; and from good is
produced truth, and from evil the false."-A. E. 922.
{{
'By clusters and grapes which were put into the wine-press,
is signified spiritual good; and by wine (vinum) which is thence
produced, is signified truth from that of good.”—A. E. 920.
The blood of the grape, and wine, which signifies the same as
blood of the grape, beyond question have their signification from
their constituent resemblance to the blood in the human body,
containing similar component parts and being eminently capable
of nourishing the body of man. There is, perhaps, no vegetable
fluid which contains so nearly all the elements or organized sub-
stances which are required to nourish and warm the body of man,
as unfermented grape-juice. It has the albumen for the muscles
and brain; the sugar to warm and make glad the heart of man,
which is so delightful to the taste, and corresponds to genuine
spiritual delights, the organized acids and alkaline salts required
by the bones, tendons and other structures of the body; nearly all
of which substances are either entirely or partially destroyed,
precipitated, or cast out by fermentation; and what remains is
polluted by the presence of vinegar, glycerine, œnanthic and other
acids and alcohol, which have resulted from the action of leaven
or ferment on the juice of the grape. Now, Swedenborg ex-
pressly tells us: "That wine (vinum) signifies holy truth, and
in an opposite sense truth profaned, is from correspondence."-
A. R. 316.
With the above clear declaration before us, is it not high time
246 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
that our opponents pay some attention to correspondences in the
consideration of this question?
Swedenborg says: "As meats and drinks recreate the natural
life, so good affections and genuine truths corresponding to them
recreate the spiritual life."-Swedenborg's Index to the A. C.
(6
'For by the blood out of the wine-press is meant tho juice
(mustum) and wine (vinum) from the clusters that were trodden,
and the juice of the grape (mustum) and wine (vinum) have a
similar signification.”—A. R. 653.
In the face of such plain teachings is it not strange that any
one should stand before the Church and proclaim that there is no
wine but fermented wine; and that even the blood of the grape
means fermented wine. The blood of grapes, we are told by
Swedenborg, denotes the good of love, “and in the supreme sense
the Divine Good of the Lord from His Divine Love" (A. C. 6378).
Does the above look as though the blood of the grape is impure,
and that it requires leavening to purify it?
We have the grape as being the perfected fruit of the vine,
which has been organized by the Lord for the sustenance of man,
and is such a delightful fruit; and the blood or juice which
exudes when the skin is ruptured, as blood flows from the body of
man if the skin is wounded, which juice is the sweetest portion of
the grape.
We have seen that these have the very highest signifi-
cation. This juice of the grape, as it exists in the grape, is strictly
analogous to blood; containing nearly, if not quite, all the con-
stituents required to nourish the body of man. Now, brethren,
we ask you, in the light of Divine Revelation, science and human
reason, and even of common sense, is it possible to suppose that
this juice and blood of the grape, which are the essential parts of
the grape, the moment it flows from or is pressed from the grape,
leaving behind the seeds, skin and some fibrous structures which
are comparatively useless for food or drink, loses at once its high
signification, and becomes so polluted that it is not suitable for a
communion wine, nor for a drink, until after it has been assailed
by leaven; which Swedenborg tells us signifies the "evil and the
false, which should not be mixed with things good and true"?
The juice of the grape, we have seen, represents things good
and true; and the reason why leaven should not be mixed with it
is, because the leaven assails the substances in it which correspond
to goodness and truth; and no such results ever flow from its
action as follow successful combats during the regeneration of
man, because the leaven actually destroys and casts out the good
EASTERN CHURCHES AND COMMUNION WINE. 247
and nourishing substances which correspond to good and truth, to
the extent fermentation progresses; and most of the vile products
generated by fermentation remain in to pollute the wine; thus
composing a fluid which will produce natural drunkenness, as falses
from evil do spiritual drunkenness.
And now, brethren and sisters of the Christian Church of every
name, please remember that our Lord Jesus Christ, in the admin-
istration of the Last Supper, as recorded in three of the Gospels,
as if especially to guard His disciples against the use of fermented
wine, avoided using the word wine which was known to include
fermented wine as well as unfermented wine, and called the con-
tents of the cup the "fruit of the vine." This was not accidental,
but it was providential.
But when the men of the Christian Church began to hearken to
false reasonings, and to lust after spiritual dominion and the
gratification of their sensual appetites without regard to use, and
began to exercise dominion over others and to drink intoxicating
wine, they naturally strove to frame doctrines which would justify
them in gratifying their evil desires, and to base them upon the
Word of the Lord; but these evils and false doctrines must not
be dragged along into the Church of this New Age; they cannot
be, for so far as they exist the Church of the New Jerusalem is
not.
THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES OF THE EAST AND COMMUNION WINE.
"As subsidiary evidence, we may cite the long established
practice of nearly all the Christian communities of the East,
though widely separated from each other. Baron Tavenier, in his
'Persian Travels' (1652), says of the Christians of St. John, whom
he found very numerous at 'Balsara' (Bassorah), 'In the eucharist
they make use of meal or flour, kneaded up with wine and oil;
for, say they, the body of Christ being composed of two principal
parts, flesh and blood, the flour and the wine do perfectly represent
them. To make their wine they take grapes dried in the sun,
which they call in their language zebibes, and, casting water upon
them, let them steep for so long a time. The same wine they use
in the consecration of the cup. The Christians of St. Thomas,
who were found on the coast of Malabar, and claimed to have
derived the Gospel from St. Thomas, the apostle, celebrated the
Lord's Supper in the juice expressed from raisins 'softened one
night in water,' says Odoard Barbosa. They use in their sacrifices
wine prepared from dried grapes,' states Osorius ('De Rebus,'
(
248
THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
(
1586). Ainsworth, in his Travels in Asia Minor' (London, 1842),
notes the administration of the sacrament among the Nestorians,
and adds, Raisin water supplied the place of wine.' Tischendorf,
in his narrative of visits to the Coptic monasteries of Egypt,
remarks that at the eucharist the priest took the thick juice of the
grape from a glass with a spoon;' and Dr. Gobat (the Protestant
Bishop of Jerusalem), in his Abyssinian Journal, records the
reception of some bottles of grape wine [for the Lord's Supper].
The wine is the juice of dried grapes with water.' It is morally
certain that the eucharistical notices of some of the ancient
Christian sects, who are represented as denouncing wine and
rejecting it from the Lord's Supper, are colored and perverted
statements-pointing simply to a refusal to use fermented wine in
the sacrament."-Tem. Com., p. 282.
While in Egypt, in 1884, the writer visited the American mis-
sionaries who have been laboring for many years in Egypt, having
established schools and societies or churches up and down the
valley of the Nile, and unquestionably done a great deal of good
by these schools; not only directly, by educating many of the
young and encouraging them to read the Sacred Scriptures, but
also by stimulating native Christians to follow their example. It
is certain that they have given an impetus, very much needed, to
the cause of education in Egypt. The children, both boys and
girls, of both Christians and Mohammedans, attend their schools,
and read the Bible regularly; but the converts who unite with
their religious societies are almost all drawn from the Copts. We
understood them to say, that only four converts from Moham-
medanism were at that time connected with their societies. While
they are not legally persecuted as formerly, yet if a young person
of any prominent family openly acknowledges himself a Christian,
he is immediately persecuted by his family and friends.
We inquired of the missionaries as to the kind of wine used by
the Copts as a sacramental wine. They said that in the societies
which they have organized the officers always promptly supplied
the wine; and they made it from raisins by soaking them twenty-
four hours or so in water, and then mashing and straining or
pressing out the juice. One of the missionaries said that when
the Copts were told that the Western Christians used "shop wine,"
as they call the fermented wine sold in the stores, "they were hor-
rified at the idea."
Accompanied by two Copts-very gentlemanly young men, who
spoke English-as interpreters, the writer visited the Patriarch of
THE CHURCH AT BRAGA, PORTUGAL.
249
their Church, and was received very cordially by him. During our
conversation, inquiries were made in regard to the wine which he
used at the Holy Supper. He said that fresh grapes could only be
had in Egypt for a temporary period of the year, and that he took
dried grapes or raisins, washed them carefully, then selected the
finest and best of them, and put them into water enough to cover
them, let them soak for twenty-four hours, then mashed them in
the water, and then pressed or squeezed out the juice into the
water in which they had been soaking; he did not pour off any of
the water in which they had been soaking, but that-with what-
ever juice he could press from the grapes-was what he used. The
juice thus prepared he regarded as suitable for use immediately;
sometimes, he said, he used it thus fresh, but to save the trouble
of preparing it fresh every time they desire to partake of the
Sacrament, he filled bottles about two-thirds full of the juice thus
prepared, and let them stand for forty days, and then filtered it,
and put it away for use. The young men obtained a sample of
the wine thus prepared. On examining it the writer found, as
he expected, that, although very sweet, the smell and taste of
alcohol was quite perceptible, showing that it had undergone fer-
mentation to a certain extent. We stated to the young men that
by heating this juice to near the boiling point, as soon as pressed,
then bottling and sealing it, they would have no difficulty in
keeping it absolutely free from fermentation any length of time
they desired.
The following letter from an intelligent lady, an earnest advo-
cate of temperance, will doubtless interest the reader :
J. ELLIS, M.D.
"KEYPORT, N. J., Aug. 30th, '83.
"Dear Sir,-I send you an extract from an article in The
Churchman, by T. W. Coit, 'Churches of Spain and Portugal.'
In No. 3, Aug. 11th, 1883, he says: Braga was unquestionably
the birthplace of Christianity in Portugal, and for a long time was
Portugal's church-centre. And in one respect Braga never lost its
independence and its home-born superiority. It had a liturgy of
its own, and that liturgy has never been surrendered to the
managing of the See of Rome. * * * But the Bragan liturgy
yet survives, as we are assured, among the relics of older and
purer times. It is still used in the celebration of the Eucharist,
and here is one of its features as given by a watchful and accurate
observer. He saw a priest solemnize mass on the Feast of the
250 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
* * *
Transfiguration.
After placing the wine in the chalice,
he took several clusters of grapes (not water) and the wafer,
* and proceeded to give the laity the consecrated grapes
and the wafer.'
*
"The writer's point is, that Rome was not followed by giving
water to the laity; but if it is a custom which survives since St.
James (the Less), as he contends, it goes far to show that the disci-
ples of Christ did not use fermented wine in the celebration of the
Last Supper. He says St. James established the Church at Galicia,
and died and was buried in Compostella. How far this is correct,
of course, we do not know; but, if the Church at Braga has pre-
served her independence of Rome, and if she gives grapes in the
cluster for wine at communion, it is at least a strong argument
against the use of fermented wine.
"Yours,
T. W. SEABROOK.”
While in Egypt one of the American missionaries said to the
writer: "There is not a single infidel or skeptic among the natives
and their descendants in all Egypt: not one who does not believe
in a God and a life after death." The people of Egypt and Western
Asia are mostly Mohammedans; and, however ignorant and fanat-
ical they may be, they are generally religious, faithful and con-
scientious according to their ideas of right. An English gentleman
who has resided in Constantinople for twenty years, and employs a
large number of men, in speaking of the laboring population, ex-
claimed: "The laboring Turk has a great future before him. If I
want a good, reliable watchman to watch my mill, or a boatman
to row me down the Golden Horn to Pera, where I reside, I employ
a Turk, and prefer him to a Christian." And among the reasons
which he gave for preferring Turks for such offices was that they
are always sober. As it is against their religious principles to ever
drink any kind of intoxicating drinks, distilled or fermented, they
are consequently free from "the enormous sin of drunkenness."
Only in a very few instances in the cities where they have been con-
taminated and led astray by the bad example of professed Chris-
tians, mostly foreigners, do they ever use intoxicating drinks. Here,
then, we have nearly or quite one-fifth of the inhabitants living on
this globe, in the providence of the Lord, protected from drunken-
ness by total abstinence from all liquids and substances which can
intoxicate. Is not this great fact worthy of our consideration?
The experience of men and women of every race for thousands of
years, and of every church which has ever existed on earth, shows,
DRINKING INTOXICANTS TO BE SHUNNED.
251
beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the only way that drunkenness
can be prevented, is by total abstinence from intoxicants. If parents
and clergymen teach our children and church members that it is right
to use fermented wine, beer and distilled liquors, and set them an ex-
ample of using such poisons, as in the past so in the future, drunk-
ards will step down and out from our pulpits, and they will disappear
from our societies; and a portion of the children of our societies
arc sure to become drunkards, and no father or mother who has
children can say that it will not be his or hers; and wives will
have drunken husbands, and children drunken fathers, with all
the attendant sorrows, mortification, wretchedness and poverty ;
for God's laws cannot be violated with impunity, even though they
be natural laws, which are only ultimates of spiritual laws. Sur-
rounded as our children are at this day by false teaching and evil
examples, churches and parents, by the clearest instruction and
best example, may not always be able to guard the young from
being led into drinking habits and consequent drunkenness; but
the faithful church and parent will have the consolation of knowing
that they have done their duty, which will save them from the most
unpleasant self-reproaches.
It seems to the writer that, next to the establishment of the
worship of one God, instead of the idolatry of the times, the most
important use which Mohammedanism has performed in the world,
and one of the chief reasons why in the providence of the Lord
the believers in the Koran have been permitted to overrun such a
large portion of the earth, making converts of the people, is
because they carry with them the principles of total abstinence
from intoxicating drinks, and teach and lead men to shun their
use as a sin.
If the Church as an external organization is to command and
retain the respect of intelligent men and women, and exert the
power and influence over men that it should, it must teach its
young to shun the drinking of intoxicating drinks as a sin against
God;
and that it is no more right for us to attempt to drink them
temperately, than it is to deliberately imbibe temperately falses and
evils to which such drinks correspond; and that fermented wine
must be put away from our communion tables.
The day is not far distant when the writings of Swedenborg
will be read by the clergy generally, and a multitude of earnest,
intelligent men and women will be attracted to our Churches by
the clear light which is thrown upon this subject by the science of
correspondences, the philosophy of the Church, and the express
1
252 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
teachings of Swedenborg. It certainly is wonderful that Sweden-
borg, writing at a period when, in Europe, fermented wine was
universally regarded as the only true wine by the Christian Church,
should deliberately compare such wine to falses from evil, and
should compare the effects of the vinous spirit called alcohol on
man to the effects of the doctrine of faith alone on the clergy.
And it is also worthy of special note that, while he never in a
single passage in his writings distinctly gives to fermented wine
itself a good signification, he repeatedly calls the juice of grapes as
it is pressed from the grapes, as it is trodden from the grapes, and
as it flows from the press, wine (vinum), thus recognizing unfer-
mented must as wine; and he gives to it in numerous passages, as
we have seen in the preceding pages, the full signification of wine.
If unfermented must, then, which never causes drunkenness, is
wine, and has the full signification of wine, it would seem to be
perfectly clear that fermenting must and fermented wine which
have been so totally changed by leaven, and which will cause
drunkenness, can never have a good signification, and, conse-
quently, can never be true wines. The good wine of the Word and
of the Writings is then unquestionably the unfermented juice of
grapes, either recently pressed or preserved by boiling, or by some
of the other methods described by ancient writers. Such wines
only are the fruit of the vine; whereas the essential ingredient in
fermented wines is the product of leaven, which has radically
changed and destroyed the true fruit of the vine, as we have seen
in the preceding pages.
Swedenborg, in his last great work, "The True Christian
Religion," No. 699, says: "Who has heretofore known in what
their peculiar sanctity consists, or whence it is derived?" 'The
sanctity of the sacrament of which we are now speaking without
an opening of the spiritual sense, or what is the same thing, with-
out a revelation of the correspondence of natural things with
spiritual, can no more be inwardly known and acknowledged than
a treasure can be known when it lies hid in the field."-T. C. R.
701.
ACTION OF VARIOUS RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS.
We have in the preceding pages called the attention of our
readers to many works written by late writers, with quotations
from the same, and now we will see what some of the surrounding
Church organizations are doing in this most worthy cause.
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, at its annual
ACTION OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS.
253
meeting at Madison, Wis., unanimously adopted the following
declaration :
"The General Assembly, viewing with grave apprehension the
persistence and spread of the use of intoxicating drinks as among
the greatest, if not the greatest, evil of our day, as a curse resting
upon every nation of Christendom, as multiplying their burdens of
taxation, pauperism, and crime, as undermining their material
prosperity, as a powerful hindrance to the Gospel at home, and as
still more deeply degrading the heathen whom we seek to evangel-
ize abroad, would rejoice at the revival in recent years of efforts
to stay these great evils, and would renew its testimony, begun as
early as 1812 (and continued to the present day), 'not only against
actual intemperance, but against all those habits and indulgences
which may have a tendency to produce it.'"
The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
held in Cincinnati in May, adopted a report on temperance con-
taining the following recommendation of changes in the Discipline:
"2. That section 6 of paragraph 175 be amended so that it
shall read as follows: To hold quarterly meetings in the absence
of the presiding older, and to see that the stewards provide unfer-
mented wine for use in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, if
practicable.'
"3. That the sentence in brackets, immediately preceding para-
graph 484 of the Discipline, be so changed as to read as follows:
'Let none but the pure unfermented juice of the grape be used in
administering the Lord's Supper.'
"4. We also recommend that the following be inserted in the
Discipline as a separate chapter, expressive of the general senti-
ment of the Church on the temperance question :
TEMPERANCE.
'Temperance, in its broader meaning, is distinctively a
Christian virtue, Scripturally enjoined. It implies a subordination
of all the emotions, passions, and appetites to the control of reason
and conscience. Dietetically it means a wise use of useful articles
of food and drink, with entire abstinence from such as are known
to be hurtful. Both science and human experience unite with
Holy Scripture in condemning all alcoholic beverages as being
neither useful nor safe. The business of manufacturing and
vending such liquors is also against the principles of morality,
political economy, and the public welfare.'
254 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
!
The Centennial Conference of Free-Will Baptists, in session at
Weirs, New Hampshire, adopted the following preamble and
resolutions :
"Whereas, After all the moral and legal temperance victories
of the past, intemperance still remains the greatest evil of the age;
therefore, resolved:
"1. That while we thank God for the victories already gained,
we would in this centennial year of our denomination reaffirm with
increased emphasis our uncompromising hostility to the intoxica-
ting cup, and pledge ourselves anew to the use of all moral and
prohibitory means for the utter suppression of the sale and use of
intoxicating liquors.
"2. That we have no fellowship with those Church members
who, in the light of the nineteenth century, use as a beverage in-
toxicating drinks, including ale, lager-beer, wine or cider.
"8. That fermented wine should not be used in the communion
service, and the Church or minister who uses it deserves censure.
"9. That the use of tobacco is an unclean and unnatural habit,
and should be indulged in by neither ministers nor members of the
Christian Church."
""
Surely the life and light of this new age are permeating the
Churches around us. The paragraph above, headed "Temperance,'
could have no origin but from the Lord. He reforms and regen-
erates the human race through the angels of the New Heavens ;
and He effects this divine work in the natural world, as far as it
can be effected, through men of all religions, and all other instru-
ments which the Divine Love by Divine Wisdom can marshal into
the reconstructive work of the New Jerusalem dispensation. Let
us remember that the doers of the truth alone have the promise
that they shall see the truth. The man who uses either intoxi-
cating drinks or tobacco, and the woman who wears tight dresses,
are doing all they can to close their eyes and ears and understand-
ing against the truth. Their depraved habits produce a corre-
sponding and constantly increasing depravation of their physical
and nervous systems; so that though those habits are sowing
within them the seeds of disease and death, they are unable to
perceive the injury that is being done them unless they will heed
the Word of the Lord or the testimony of others. For that con-
sciousness they must go outside of themselves, because these evils,
like all spiritual evils to which they correspond, palliate the suffer-
ing which they cause, and fasten their chains tighter on their
victims, actually making them feel better every time they injure
NO LEAVENED THING SHALL YE EAT.
255
themselves anew by indulging. Although it is through the under-
standing that man must be enlightened, yet there must be a
willingness to obey, or "having eyes he will see not" and will
not be convinced, however clear the light or truth may be.
"God speed the time," says the Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson,
"when Scriptural arguments in behalf of wine-drinking shall be
buried in a grave as deep as that where now lie the arguments by
which the Word of God was once marshaled to the support of
slavery! God speed the time when alcoholic wines and strong
drinks shall be swept from every Christian sideboard, and table,
and social feast."
The following from the Arcana Cabestia is worthy of the care-
ful and prayerful consideration of every Christian: "No leavened
thing shall ye eat.'-That hereby is signified that every caution is
to be used lest the false shall be appropriated, appears from the
signification of a leavened thing, as denoting the false, see above,
No. 7906; and from the signification of eating, as denoting to
appropriate to themselves, see also above, No. 7907. The frequent
prohibition against eating what is leavened, as at verses 15, 17, 18,
19 (Exodus xii.), involves, that the utmost caution is to be used
against the false; the reason why this caution against the false
is to be used, is, that man may be in good; the false does not
accord with good, but destroys good, for the false is of evil and
truth is of good; if the false be appropriated—that is, firmly
believed-there is no reception of the good of innocence, conse-
quently no liberation from damnation. It is one thing for men to
appropriate the false to themselves, and it is another thing to
adjoin; they who adjoin, if they be in good, reject the false when
the truth appears to them; but they who appropriate the false to
themselves, retain it, and resist the truth itself when it appears :
this now is the ground of the frequent prohibition against eating
what is leavened.”—A. C. 7909.
If there is a leavened thing on earth, it is unquestionably
leavened wine; for it affects man naturally, precisely as falses
from evil do spiritually—it makes him drunk. What more need
be said? Yet more should be said to protect the young and inex-
perienced by reminding them of the great danger of using such
wine. That which is true spiritually is true naturally; the
thoughtless, ignorant use of fermented wine occasionally, does not
prevent a man from seeing the truth as to wine when it is presented;
and then, if he stops drinking it, well; but if he then persists in
using it, he is, sooner or later, quite sure to begin to love it and
256 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNION WINE.
take delight in the unnatural excitement and perversions which it
causes; and fortunate is the man if he does not strive to justify
by the means of falses his gratification of his perverted appetite,
for he may yet see the truth and put away the evil; but if he has
appropriated the false until he firmly believes it to be true and
good to use intoxicating drinks, there is little or no chance for his
liberation; for "truth is altogether corrupted by the false derived
from evil" (A. C. 7449), and it is well for us to remember that
'the false may be confirmed more easily than the truth, because it
favors the lusts, and is in accordance with the fallacies of the
senses."-A. C. 6500.
Can any sane, free, rational man for a moment believe that it
is right, and in accordance with the will of the Lord, for men to
use drinks which are entirely unnecessary, as is demonstrated by
the experience of more than one-half of the community, the use of
which causes unnumbered discases, drunkenness, insanity and
premature deaths? Intoxicating drinks are harmless so long as
we let them alone. The evil is in lusting after and drinking them;
for when drank we know that they, being the worst kind of poisons,
tend to destroy man's reason and freedom; and that men, without
being what is generally called drunk, commit crimes which they
would never think of doing if they were not under the influence
of such drinks. Not long ago a young man met in the streets a
poor, inoffensive Chinaman who was returning from Sabbath-
school, and shot him dead; and when arraigned before the civil
authorities for his deed, declared that he knew nothing about it;
he had been to a saloon and drank several glasses of beer; that
was all he knew about it.
་
We thank the Lord that, as a result of the religious instruc-
tions which they have received, and the consequences which fol-
low the drinking of intoxicants with which they have become
acquainted, we have thousands in the various churches around us,
and without them, who are restrained by conscience from the use
of intoxicating drinks, and that their number is rapidly increasing.
CHAPTER XI,
THE WINE OF CANA-NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES-GRAPE
CURE-NOBLE WINE AND WINE IN HEAVEN.
THE editors of a religious serial assume that the wine of Cana
was fermented wine because it was called oinos, and then say:
"But there is another incontestable proof contained in the passage it-
self;
the word methusko in Greek signifies 'to make drunk, to intoxicate;'
in the passive to be drunk;' now this term is never used for designating
the effects from any other than intoxicating drinks. Yet we read in this
narration: 'When men have well drunk (methusthosi, literally, are ex-
hilarated with wine') then that which is worse,' etc. (John ii. 10)."
The late Rev. Dr. Duffield translates this word differently, and,
as the reader will see, more sensibly: "When men have wined—
that is all." To suppose that the Lord furnished men already in
the first stages of intoxication, as represented by some writers,
with intoxicating wine, which He never creates in the vine, is
surely very absurd.
We have an assumption, based upon the dictionaries, that
because the wine created was called oinos, which is the Greek word
for wine, and is known by every competent scholar to include the
Hebrew tirosh (must), therefore it was the fermented juice of the
grape. A little better acquaintance with the Greek language and
literature, and with the customs and habits of the ancient Greeks,
as we have seen in the preceding pages, would have saved the
editors from falling into such a grave mistake, for they would ·
have found that it is beyond question that oinos is a generic term
including all kinds of wine, unfermented and fermented, like yayin
in Hebrew and vinum in Latin. Both yayin and oinos were used
not only to embrace the expressed unfermented juice of the grape,
but also juice in the grape before it is expressed. No other
scholars have ever examined this whole subject as critically and
carefully, in an examination extending to every passage in the
Bible which refers to wine, as have Rev. Dawson Burns and Dr.
F. R. Lees, and the writer feels that it will give the intelligent
reader pleasure to have an opportunity to read the following
258
THE WINE OF CANA.
extracts from their commentary upon the subject under con-
sideration.
"When we inquire into the actual usage of yayin and oinos,
we shall see how unfounded is the theory that limits the sense of
both terms to the fermented juice of the grape.
"YAYIN.-Though yayin occurs 141 times in the Old Testament,
the context, in a great majority of cases, does not furnish an indi-
cation as to its condition, whether fermented or otherwise. In the
case where Jacob brings wine to Isaac, the nature of the yayin is
not hinted at, but a Jewish commentator refers to it as wine that
had been 'reserved in its grapes' since the Creation—a proof that
he did not consider either yayin, or the Chaldee equivalent, khamar,
limited to a fermented liquid. The same usage recurs in the
Targum paraphrase of Cant. viii. 2, where the righteous are
promised the blessing of 'drinking old wine stored up in its
grapes' since the commencement of the Creation or present dis-
pensation. Baal Hatturim refers to 'wine in the grapes' at
Pentecost; and on Deut. xxii. 14, the pure blood of the grape'
the Targumists dwell on the quantity of red wine which should be
drawn out from one grape-cluster. In the prophecy of Jacob,
Gen. xlix. 11, we have-
6
'He shall wash his garments in wine,
And (shall wash) his clothes in the blood of grapes ;'
where the genius of Hebrew poetry requires that 'wine' (yayin)
in the first line shall be considered to answer in sense to 'blood of
grapes' in the second line. In Deut. xxviii. 39, 'thou shalt plant
vineyards and dress (them), but the yayin thou shalt not drink,
and shalt not gather,' the allusion to 'gathering' is most probably
to yayin as wine in the grapes, and hence as used collectively for
the grapes; and in Jer. xl. 10, 12, gathering yayin is, beyond all
doubt, spoken of the grapes in which, as in natural bottles, the
yayin is contained. In Isa. xvi. 10, 'the treaders shall tread (out)
no wine in their presses;' and Jer xlviii. 33, 'I have caused wine
to fail from the wine-presses; none shall tread with shouting,' the
only question in doubt can be whether the reference is to the
grapes holding the wine, or to the wine as flowing from the grapes ;
no one can pretend that the term is applied to the formented juice
of the grape. In Psa. civ. 15, the yayin which makes glad tho
heart of man' is classed with products of the earth, to whose
natural properties the Psalmist alludes as indicating the grace and
power of the Creator. The connection of yayin with milk (Cant.
WINE PRODUCED WITHIN THE GRAPE.
259
v. 1; Isa. lv. 1) brings before the mind a rural image of fresh-
pressed juice drank with fresh-drawn milk; and in Lam. ii. 12,
the plaint of the children-'where is corn and wine?'-is most
naturally construed as pointing to a famine of the fruits of the
earth, including the fruit of the vine in its vintage state.
"OINOS.-As the Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible nearly
uniformly render yayin by oinos, all the above considerations in
favor of yayin as embracing unfermented grape-juice apply also to
oinos. In Deut. xxxii. 14 also, the Lxx. renders the pure (foam-
ing) blood of the grape' by 'and the blood of the grape he drank-
WINE.' The peculiar use of yayin for the grape, as containing vine-
juice, is paralleled by the words of Nymphodorus, who speaks of
Drimacus as 'taking wine from the fields.' Among other argu-
ments against identifying oinos with fermented grape-juice (beyond
those of its derivation from yayin, and the undoubted use of
gleukos to signify unfermented wine) the following may be stated:
"(i.) The intimate relation between oinos and words used for
describing the vine and its appurtenances. The most ancient
name for 'vine' was oinee or oina; and long after ampelos had
become the common name for vine, oina retained its place in
poetry. Euripides has both oina (vine) and oinantha (vine-shoot
or blossom). To this category belong oinopedee (vineyard), oina-
ron (vine leaf), oinaris (vine tendril or branch), oinophutus
(planted with the vine), oinotrop (vine-prop), and many others.
That there is a common etymological relation between these words
and oin-os cannot be doubted; and the fact of that relation is sub-
versive of the theory that oinos implies the idea of the 'ferment-
ing' process.
(
“(ii.) There are a great variety of passages in which wine is
spoken of as produced within the grape and the cluster. Pindar
describes wine as the child of the vine' (ampelou pais). Æschy-
lus ('Agam.,' 970) describes Zeus as bringing wine (oinon) 'from
the green grape,' which F. A. Paley (in his admirable edition of
that poet) notices as an allusion to the divine action in bringing
the grape-juice to maturity at the vintage.
(
"Euripides ('Phonix,' 230) refers to a particular vine which
distilled daily nectar-a fruitful cluster;' and the learned editor
illustrates this by the tradition that a cluster of this vine ripened
every day, and supplied the daily libation of wine for Bacchus.
"Anacreon (Ode 49) speaks of the oinos as 'offspring of the
vine' (gonon ampelou), and as imprisoned (pepedeemenon) in
fruit upon the branches;' and he sings (Ode 51) of the treaders
260
THE WINE OF CANA.
'letting loose the wine '-where the poetical imagery refers not, as
some one has said, to the grape-juice as only figuratively wine,
but to literal wine, as first imprisoned, and then gaining its free-
dom; else the whole beauty of the figure disappears.
((
Nonnos, in his 'Bacchanal Songs,' refers (xii. 42) to the grape
bunch (botrus) as the wine producer (oinotokon); and he describes
the vineyard as flushing with the wine to which it thus gives birth.
"(iii.) The juice of the grape at the time of pressure is dis-
tinétly denominated oinos.
"Papias, a Christian bishop who lived at the close of the apos-
tolic age, relates an extravagant current prediction of a time when
the vine should grow to a wondrous size; and cach grape should
yield, when pressed, twenty-five measures of wine-OINON.
]
"Proclus, the Platonist philosopher, who lived in the fifth
century, and annotated the 'Works and Days' of Hesiod, has a
note on line 611, the purport of which is to explain that after the
grape bunches have been exposed ten days to the sun, and then
kept ten days in the shade, the third process was to tread them
and squeeze out the WINE-kai triton outos epitoun ekthlibontes
ton oinon.”—Temperance Bible Commentary.
So it will be seen that because the wino of Cana was called
oinos, there is not the slightest ground for assuming that it was
necessarily, and on that account, fermented wine. Messrs. Burns
and Lees continue: "And when men have well drunk (kai hotan
methusthosi) **** ** the authorized English version is opposed
to the assumption that methuo and methusko necessarily signify
drinking in the sense of intoxication. The governor did not refer
to the inebriating effect, but to the large quantity consumed, and
this is the primary signification of the word :
"The nature of the miracle is unfolded in the statement that
the 'water became wine had acquired all the sensible properties
of wine, and, according to the governor's decision, wine of the best
kind. The process of the miracle is not explained, for it is not
explicable. That the water became alcoholic wine is an assump-
tion which opponents of the temperance movement have first mado,
and have then put forward as an objection! 'It was wino,' they
say, 'and that is enough for us.' But if it is enough that wino
was created, their objection evaporates at once; for unless they
can show that fermentation is essential to the nature of wine, they
have no right to assume that, besides making the water wine, the
Lord also made it wine such as they are enamored with. That it
was 'good wine,' the very best that could be provided, is also true,
THE WINE OF CANA UNFERMENTED.
261
but the taste of English wine-drinkers is no standard of the taste
of a Jewish architriklinos, Anno Domini 30.
"The burden of proof here rests with the advocates of alcoholic
wine; and it is impossible that the slightest shadow of proof can
be advanced in behalf of their hypothesis. Those who uphold it,
generally consider that the whole of the water was transformed
into wine, but is it credible that 120 gallons of intoxicating liquor
should have been provided by Christ for one wedding party, and
at the end of the drinking? What Christian would do so now?
The statement of the governor as to persons having 'well drunk'
was a general reference, and had no special application to that
particular company; yet it is highly probable that the guests then
assembled had already freely partaken of such wine as had been
provided. The case for alcoholic wine, therefore, requires it to be
assumed that, in addition to a considerable quantity of such wine
before consumed, the Lord miraculously produced a much larger
quantity for the use of the men and women collected together!
But (1) this assumption is wholly without proof; and (2) it involves
a reflection upon the wisdom of the Son of God, which ought to
insure its rejection by every reverential mind. Restricting atten-
tion, however, for the present to the contents of the cup placed
before the governor of the feast, there are many strong reasons for
rejecting the opinion that it contained fermented wine.
"1. The process of fermentation is one of decay, and it is not
probable that it would have been imitated, or its results realized,
by the fiat of the Saviour. In all fermentative action, vital growth
is arrested, organized matter is disintegrated, and a retrogression
ensues. It is a passage from more complex to more elementary
form--in fact, from diet to dirt. To produce puro grape-juice,
the unfermented fruit of the vine, would, if possible to man, be a
closer imitation of the creative plan of Providence than calling a
derivative substance into existence. It is by the growth of food
that God blesses the world; and though decay is tributary to
future growth, it is in and by the growth that we discern the good-
ness, and glory, and purpose of His power. The end and adaption
of food is to condense power-the power with which we live, and
see, and think-by which we realize the Divine works and glory.
The whole meaning of our Lord's metaphor, I am the vine and
ye are the branches,' rests on this physiological fact. If the water
of life was first made into that precious juice, the blood of the
vine, and then transformed into alcohol, the Son did exactly the
contrary of that which the Father doeth in each season, when He
262
THE WINE OF CANA.
'bringeth forth food out of the earth, wine that maketh glad the
heart of man.' But if Jesus did on this occasion that which was
creatively highest and best, He did not produce a fermented and
intoxicating drink.
"2. It is against the principle of Scriptural and moral analogy
to suppose that the Saviour exerted His supernatural energy to
bring into being a kind of wine which had been condemned by
Solomon and the prophets as a mocker' and 'defrauder,' and
which the Holy Spirit had selected as an emblem of the wrath of
the Almighty.
"3. A most beautiful and satisfactory hypothesis has been con-
ceived which obviates all resort to the theory of a direct creation
of alcoholic wine. It is that in the cup the Lord repeated, but
with supernatural rapidity, that marvelous conversion of water
into the pure blood of the grape' which takes place annually
within the berries of the growing vine. St. Augustine was one of
the first, if not the first, of the Christian fathers who propounded
this hypothesis, saying (in his Tractus 8, Evang. Joannis), ‘For
He on that marriage day made wine in the six jars which He
ordered to be filled with water-He who now makes it every year
in the vines. For as what the servants had poured into the water-
jars was turned into wine by the power of the Lord, so also that
which the clouds pour forth is turned into wine by the power of
the self-same Lord. But we cease to wonder at what is done every
year; its very frequency makes astonishment to fail.' So Chrysos-
tom (Homily 22 on John), 'Now indeed making plain that it is He
who changes into wine the water in the vines and the rain drawn
up by the roots, He produced instantly at the wedding feast that
which is formed in the plant during a long course of time.'”
Dr. Norman Kerr says, truly: "There is now no doubt as to
the poisonous influence of alcohol. All authorities on toxicology
agree on this, and the highest anti-abstaining authorities on vini-
culture, the friends, defenders, and improvers of wine manufacture
(Drs. Thudicum and Dupré) admit that 'alcohol is poisonous even
in small doses.' We know that it is, practically, the same alcohol
which is the attraction of all intoxicating drinks, for the soothing,
anæsthetic influence of which all such drinks are taken; and we
also know that the alcohol in beer, wines and spirits is not changed
in character and effects by the particular form in which it may be
presented. ('We have not found a single physical or chemical
property possessed by wine, which is not in perfect harmony with
the assumption that it contains the alcohol as a simple admixture,
UNFERMENTED WINES IN USE THEN.
263
and not in any sort of combination.') — Thud. and Dupré,
p. 159.
Therefore, it is patent that all alcoholic beverages are simply
mixtures of poison and water, the melancholy proof of this being
found everywhere in mental eclipse, increased disease, and short-
ened life.—(‘I know that alcohol is a most deleterious poison.'—Sir
William Gull, Evidence before Lords' Committec.)
"This being the plain verdict of science and experience, can
we entertain the thought that the Saviour of mankind, who gave
His life to benefit man, would make and offer to any human being
even the smallest quantity of that which is a poison to both body
and brain? The very supposition is monstrous, and the slander,
if blasphemy be not the appropriate term, is as groundless as it is
gratuitous, as unjust as it is ungenerous."
President Nott says: "That the wine declared by the master of
the feast to be 'good wine,' was good wine-in the sense that
Pliny, Columella, or Theophrastus would have used the term
'good,' when applied to wine; good, because nutritious and un-
intoxicating; and of which the guests even at such an hour
might drink freely and without apprehension, because it was
wine which, though it would refresh and cheer, it would not
intoxicate."
“Is it reasonable," says a recent writer, “that the inspired
penman employs the same kind of wine both as a symbol of wrath
and mercy? Is there anything else of which this is true? 'Bread'
is used as a symbol of mercy, and so is 'milk' and 'oil.' Are they
over employed as symbols of wrath? Never. Neither is the un-
fermented fruit of the vine used as a symbol of wrath. It is the
changed, innutritious, alcoholic, dangerous wine that is an appro-
priate symbol of divine wrath. This view alone renders the Bible
consistent, and in harmony with science and experience."
In speaking of the unfermented wine so carefully prepared and
preserved by the ancients during the apostolic days, Dr. Lees says:
"That somebody consumed these innocent, vinous preparations is
certain. Is it probable that the prophets and saints were the sole
persons who refused to do so? Is it likely that while moral pagans
preferred good wines, the prophets and religious Jews invariably
selected the drugged and intoxicating? But the associated element
of Daniel's abstinence will refute the whole principle of the argu-
ment."
At the wedding feast the Lord's direction, that they should fill
the water-pots with water, was complied with, without any apparent
264
THE WINE OF CANA.
hesitation or surprise, as if it were a customary practice to provide
water, when they were about to prepare wine for use. How clearly
does this indicate that it was wine preserved by boiling which they
expected would be supplied by our Lord, for it was customary to
mix such wine with water before using it! Undiluted, it was too
thick to be used as a drink. Such wine, when properly and care-
fully reduced by boiling, contains all the nourishing, life-giving
properties of the fruit of the vine; the wine has simply parted,
by the aid of heat, with a portion of its water, which is readily
restored when it is wanted for use. The heat used, and the entire
process has a beautiful significance, as the reader will readily per-
ceive.
Rev. Dr. Samson, in a recent work, in which he replies to the
writers who have criticised his former work already noticed, on
the "Divine Law of Wines," makes the following statement:
(
**
"The wine made by Christ at the wedding has this succession
of testimonials in confirmation: first, the fact that conforming
Jews, of whom Jesus through His life was one, from time imme-
morial have used unfermented wine at weddings; second, the
best, most costly and always first-used wine, in ancient and mod-
ern banquets, has been the lightest, and among the Romans this
was unfermented; third, Cyril, bishop of the Church in Jerusalem
about a. d. 380, expressly declares this.
* As to the charge
against Christ that He was a 'wine bibber,' all Christians regard it
as much a calumny as that He was a 'glutton' and a 'friend' of aban-
doned women. That the fruit of the vine' used at the Supper was
unfermented, is confirmed by these testimonies: first, the natural
meaning of the terms 'fruit of the vine'; second, the immemorial
custom of conscientious Jews at their Passover, which 'cup' was the
same used by Christ at the institution of the Supper; third, the direct
statement of Clement, A. D. 200, and of Jerome, A. D. 400. That
the gleukos was unintoxicating Cyril declared, A. D. 380, while
writers of the views of Horace Bumstead now admit this; and that
gleukos was included under oinos lexicographers of every age and
land agree. As to the view of Paul's advice to Timothy, the
accordant statements of Eusebius, A. D. 320, of Athanasius, A. D.
325, of Cyril, A. D. 380, and of Jerome, A. D. 400, that Paul com-
mended abstinence in Timothy (1 Tim. v. 23), as he had before
enjoined it on the Church of which he was pastor (Eph. v. 18), is
in accordance with all ancient and modern legislation as to wines.
As to the quality of the wines commended by Paul, Roman writers
and their French annotators show that must is their basis, if not
NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES.
265
their only ingredient; for it is not the alcohol, but the nourishing
ingredients of wines, that constitute their utility in chronic indi-
gestion; while strong alcoholic wines were commended by the
Greek and Roman physicians for acute and painful diseases, such
as stranguary and dysentery.'
""
In concluding what we have to say upon this subject, we think
we may safely affirm that it is impossible for any intelligent, un-
biased Christian man or woman who examines this subject care-
fully, to believe that the wine of Cana was leavened wine; because
we know that leaven was not created directly by the Lord, but
that it receives its life from hell, and results from the perversion
of truth and good by man; therefore we can but see that it would
have been contrary to Divine order if He had created a leavened or
fermented wine, which He has never done in the grape.
A respected correspondent says truly:
"Would the Lord start the fermenting or decomposing process
in the water and then arrest it, as must be done in making fer-
mented wine? His mission was not of that kind; it was always to
restore. He was none of those physicians who first make sick to
effect a cure. And would He, after 'men have well drunk,' pro-
vide that of which the effect on men is so universally condemned
in the Word?"
We repeat that which cannot too often be repeated at this day,
that the good wine of the Word and of the Writings is never a
leavened or fermented wine; but the pure unfermented juice of
the grape as it flows from grapes, and also as it is preserved from
fermentation by some one of the processes described in the pre-
ceding chapters in this work.
NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES.
Old bottles, especially if made either of the skins of animals,
as was customary in the apostolic age, or of wood, where it is
impossible carefully and thoroughly to scald them out and heat
them, are necessarily full of the germs of ferment, or leaven,
which would be sure to cause fermentation in new wine, when the
proper temperature has been preserved for a short time; of course,
then, here is a satisfactory reason why new wine should be put
into new bottles, or the bottles would burst from fermentation.
It would be impossible, under such circumstances (new wine in old
bottles), to preserve the wine from fermentation, as could be
readily done in new bottles, and actually was so frequently done
266
NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES.
in those days, by immediately filling the bottles from the press and
burying them in the cool earth or beneath the surface of water, or
again by either boiling the wine or repeatedly filtering it—all
methods well understood and described by authors cotemporary
with the apostles, as we have seen.
We present the following extracts from the little book entitled
"Holy Scripture and Temperance," by Canon Hopkins :
"It seems to have become an almost universal habit to take for
granted that, whenever wine is mentioned in Holy Writ, an intoxi-
cating drink is intended. Of course, it is well known that intoxi-
cating wine is very often spoken of in Holy Scripture, although
invariably some cautionary or condemnatory language is appended,
whenever its power to produce drunkenness is recognized. This
fact creates a presumption that Holy Scripture does not sanction
or justify the habitual use of intoxicating wine.
But this pre-
sumption would be very weak, if it were not supported by any
other facts. Is it, then, supported in any other way? Most
readers will be ready to dismiss the question at once. Wine is
wine, they will urge, and it is absurd to pretend that it is or can
be anything else. There is, however, only one passage in Holy
Scripture which gives any insight into the chemical properties of
the wine which was then in common use, and this is in the New
Testament. Our Lord, speaking of the wine which was in use at
the period when He lived and taught, says on one occasion :
'No man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine
will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.
But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.
No man also having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new;
for he saith, The old is better.' (St. Luke v. 37-39; compare St.
Matt. ix. 17, and St. Mark ii. 22.)
"Three properties of wine are here spoken of; and spoken of as
being perfectly familiar to the experience of all persons who have
anything to do with wine:
"1. New wine put into new bottles will keep without danger
either to the wine or to the bottles.
"2. New wine put into old bottles will not keep, but will in
some way burst and destroy the bottles, and will run out and be
spilled.
"3. The wine is mellowed by being kept, and acquires by age a
more attractive flavor.
"Where, then, can we find a liquid which fulfills these three
conditions?
CANON HOPKINS' VIEWS.
267
"Everybody knows very well that modern still wine, whether
new or old, may be put with perfect security into any kind of bot-
tle whatever, and has no tendency to burst the bottle.
"Sparkling wines could not be safely put into leather bottles at
all, either new or old. Even with thick glass bottles, there is a
great destruction of bottles and loss of wine in the factories where
these wines are made and prepared for the market.
"It seems, then, that the wine referred to by our Lord must
have possessed chemical properties very different from those of
modern wines. Wines in which the fermentation has ceased, still
wines, have no properties remaining in them which would render it
unsafe to put them into any bottles, new or old, which are sound
and fitted to receive them. Such wines have no tendency to burst
bottles. The other kind of wines, sparkling or effervescing wines,
are not fit to be put into leather bottles at all. The carbonic acid
gas with which they are charged would distend and crack the leather
or burst open the seams.
(6
'What, then, was this wine which would be safely preserved
in new bottles, but would ferment and cause old bottles to burst?
The only answer is, that it was wine, the juice of the grape,
which was as yet unfermented, and contained no alcohol what-
ever!
"It is well known that extensive vine-growers keep tons of
unfermented grape-juice, and some of it for as long as ten years.
It is well known that the ancients kept unfermented grape-juice,
preserved in its sweet state, for a full year, and called it semper
mustum. It is a fact that at this very day, both in France and
in the East, unfermented wine is made and drank, and sometimes
kept for months or years. It is also a fact that to those who
drink it the flavor appears to become more mellowed and grateful
by the influence of time; so that no one who drinks this old wine
straightway desires new, for he says, THE OLD IS BETTER.
In this wine, in this must is found a liquid which perfectly
fulfills the three conditions which are demanded by the terms of
our Lord's parable.
"1. If this wine, properly prepared, be put into new bottles, it
will keep for any length of time without fermenting.
"2. If, however, this prepared must be put into a leather skin
which has before contained wine, fermentation will necessarily
ensue. Minute portions of albuminoid matter would be left
adhering to the skin, and receive yeast germs from the air, and
keep them in readiness to set up fermentation in the new unfer-
268
NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES.
mented contents of the skin. For as soon as the unfermented
grape-juice was introduced, the yeast germs would begin to
grow in the sugar and to develop carbonic dioxide. If the must
contained one-fifth sugar, it would develop forty-seven times its
volume of the gas, and produce a pressure of 34.3 atmospheres,
i. e., 1,300 lbs. to the square inch, about ten times the pressure
which an ordinary high-pressure steam-engine has to withstand.
No leathern bottle, new or old, could endure this enormous tension!
The bottle would burst and the wine would be spilled.
"3. The must, properly enclosed and kept, improves in quality
and flavor. It is used by modern Turks in many parts of the East
to this day; and either alone or diluted with water makes a pala-
table, grateful and cheering beverage. The same wine has been
imported into England in casks. Non-alcoholic wine has been
largely and successfully prescribed for fever, consumption and
dyspepsia, from some form of which latter malady Timothy may
have been suffering when St. Paul recommended him to drink no
longer water,' but to use a little wine.'
"Let the reader observe that it is not here asserted that this
must was the wine to which our Lord referred. It would be halting
logic to argue that because the liquid may have been must, there-
fore it was must. Here, however, is a wine which entirely fulfills
the three conditions necessary to make our Lord's parable really
pertinent and applicable to the lesson He was teaching at the time.
Unless some other liquid also called wine can be identified as
possessing the three properties mentioned above, a candid inquirer
will feel that à case (bordering closely upon actual demonstration)
has been made out; and that he is almost driven to conclude
that the wine, which was present to the mind of Jesus when He
thus spoke, and which was familiar to the experience of all to
whom He was then speaking, was unfermented and non-intoxicating
wine.
"It must always be insisted upon, and it ought always to be
remembered, that 'wine' in Holy Scripture is a general and an in-
clusive term. It is manifest that some wine mentioned in Holy
Scripture was intoxicating; but it is certain the word wine is also
used for the fresh unfermented juice of the grape, and for the must
or sweet wine or new wine which was not intoxicating. The fruit
of the vine and the juice of the grape are symbols of heavenly
blessings; the fiery cup which results from fermentation is the type
of the fierce wrath of God!
}
"When we compare the two assertions, 'Wine is a mocker,' and
SIGNIFICATION OF BOTTLES.
269
'Wine maketh glad the heart of man,' it is scarcely possible to be-
lieve that the word 'wine' means the same identical thing in both
sentences. Yet it seems to be generally assumed that it does. Why
should such an assumption be made without any attempt at proof?
Is it usual for any accurate writer to employ a word in this way,
unless he is aware, and his readers are aware, that the word is in
fact used to describe two different things? Much less is it to be
thought that holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost, could speak otherwise than accurately. Now, the
juice of the grape in its natural state is wholesome and nutritive.
It is a cordial and a tonic. But after fermentation it loses most,
if not all its nutritious qualities, and is indeed a 'mocker.' It is
pleasant to the taste, refreshing at first to the spirits, but very
soon 'it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.' The real
question is very simple. It is a question of fact. Is the word
'wine' used in Holy Scripture as the name of both these liquids?
That it is so used no impartial inquirer can justly deny."-Holy
Scripture and Temperance.
We are told by Swedenborg that a bottle signifies the mind
of man, because that is the recipient of truth or falsity as a
bottle contains wine (A. E. 376); also bottles signify the knowl-
edges which contain truths (A. E. 316); new bottles signify
the precepts and commands of the Lord to the Christian Church;
old bottles signify the statutes and judgments of the Jewish
Church (A. E. 376). Ferment signifies the false of evil.-D. P.
284.
From the above we can readily see why, if we attempt to
introduce the truths of this new age into minds, however empty
they may be, which simply contain the old knowledge of a past
age, all the truths of which have been destroyed by the false
of evil until evils are justified and approved, the attempt is a
failure; for if we ever succeed in getting some ideas into the
knowledges already existing in the mind, evil or perverted appetites
and passions assail until the knowledges are torn asunder and the
truths cast out.
Before new truths can be received, and be retained, there must
be new bottles, derived from the letter of the Word and confirmed
thereby, otherwise the bottles will be rent and the truth cast forth.
Men must have some desire to know the truth and obey it, before
they can see the truth or receive it upon so plain a question as the
duty of total abstinence from intoxicating drinks.
So on this wine question: true doctrine must be drawn from
270
THE GRAPE Cure.
the literal sense of the Word and confirmed by it; for, we are
taught, that:
"Doctrine is not only to be drawn from the literal sense
of the Word, but it is also to be confirmed by that sense"
(Spiritual Diary, 54); also, that "The doctrine of genuine truth
may be fully drawn from that sense.”—Ibid. (55). Moreover,
"True doctrine cannot be collected from the spiritual sense
of the Word" on the wine question any more than it can be
upon any other doctrine of the Church; for "Doctrine is not
attainable by means of that sense, but only capable of receiving
illustration and confirmation from it."-Ibid. (56).
Since the Last Judgment in 1757, the Lord has poured out
bountifully good and true principles upon the human race. This
influx from God has not been limited to any nation, class, or
religion, but has come down out of the new heavens to the universal
man, according to efflux. It has quickened his faculties in the arts,
sciences, mechanics, and agriculture. It has stirred up the spirit
of research in all directions. Men of various religions, moved by
this divine spirit, have been led to examine the Word of God on
the wine question. They have brought to their aid the divinely
appointed handmaid, the natural sciences; which sciences, as far
as they are true, form a plane of life for the influx of Divine Truth
out of heaven.
By means of science we understand the chemistry of wine not
fermented, and the chemistry of wine fermented; we also know
something of the effects of both upon the human body, in health
and in sickness. We know that alcohol belongs to therapeutics and
the arts, and not to dietetics. And when it is introduced into a
healthy human body under the name of wine, whisky, or brandy,
it flows into its passions and lusts, and excites evil inclinations
which lead to all forms of vice.
THE GRAPE CURE.
The editors of a religious serial, in their efforts to justify and
uphold the use of intoxicating drinks, say :
"To say that intemperance in sweets does not lead to peculiar diseased
states, is an error. Sugar in excess causes dropsy, swollen liver, emaciation,
pallor, and even chlorosis. Sugar, says Hering, spoils the temper and un-
fits our women for the duties of life. It dulls the mind, while it renders
the temper irritable and peevish. This is unique, and is by no means the
same as any other healthy article taken in excess' will cause.
""
THE GRAPE CURE.
271
Similar results the writer has seen follow the use of starch, in
excess, when individuals have attempted to live almost exclusively
upon superfine flour bread. Sugar, starch and oil are principally
appropriated to warm the body; but if taken in excess, to the
neglect or exclusion of other necessary food, the body as a whole
is not nourished, and they burden the liver and other organs,
interfering with their functions by the excessive quantity of healthy
food for which there is no present demand in the organization, and
thus giving rise to the symptoms named above. Now, this ex-
cessive use or abuse of good, healthy food, was specially alluded to
in the portion of the paragraph which the above editors excluded.
No intelligent, sensible physician or physiologist would ever think
of classing sugar with poisons like alcohol or alcoholic drinks, for,
temperately used, it is a good, useful article, necessary during
health; but this is never true of intoxicating drinks.
Again the reviewers say :
"Phillips writes approvingly of the grape cure; but, referring to its ex-
cessive use, he says: 'With less constancy, but still with much frequency,
grapes act in a laxative or even a decidedly purgative manner; and if this
is carried to excess there may be excoriation of the tongue, chronic diar-
rhoea, and an aphthous condition of the whole alimentary canal.'
Grapes, like many other fruits, contain, in a concentrated form,
certain substances very useful as food, and they cure certain dis-
eases, not as poisons cure, but by supplying the natural wants of the
body, in those things which have been lacking in the superfine flour,
beer, fermented wine, whisky, and other articles of food and drink
upon which such patients as are cured by grapes have been previously
living. That the excessive use of grapes and other fruits, or even their
too free use by one unaccustomed to them, will cause such symptoms
as are described above, is perhaps true and it is equally true
that if a man unaccustomed to its use, eats freely of fresh beef,
or drinks hard water, or even soft water, similar disturbance of
the bowels is liable to result; yet all this does not justify the
above editors in their attempts to classify the temporary derange-
ment resulting from the change of water, or from excess in the
use of grapes or wholesome food, with the fearful and permanent
effects of alcoholic drinks when used as a beverage. There is in
nature a broad difference between useful, nourishing substances,
which clearly have their origin from Heaven, according to the
philosophy of the New Dispensation, and poisons which have their
origin from Hell; and while the former may be abused in their
272
THE GRAPE CURE.
use, to use the latter as food or drink, is to pervert and destroy
our physical organizations; and above all other known substances,
intoxicating drinks are well known to pervert and impair not only
man's physical organization, but also his mental and spiritual
organization-for they make drunk and insane.
While in Switzerland, during the fall of 1884, we inquired in
regard to the "
grape cure," of which the reader has doubtless
heard. We were told that large numbers of people from various
parts of the world visited that country for the sake of being cured
of various diseases by the use of grapes. We found that patients
ate the grapes, commencing with one pound a day, and gradually
increasing the quantity until they ate three or four pounds. Some,
instead of eating the grapes, with a small hand-press squeezed the
juice from them into a cup or glass, and drank the juice; and we
learned that patients were often materially benefited and even
cured by the treatment. But, as we have already said, grapes
do not cure diseases as poisonous remedies cure, but by supplying
the orderly wants of the body for such as are suffering from the
use of fermented and intoxicating drinks and other improper
articles of diet, which have not duly supplied them with all the
nourishment needed by the different structures of the body. It is
safe to say that the juice of no other fruit or vegetable so strikingly
resembles blood in its composition as the unfermented juice of
grapes; and it is equally safe to say that the juice of no other
fruit used for human food less resembles blood in its chemical
composition than does well fermented grape-juice or wine: all of
which is very suggestive.
To-day unfermented wine is rapidly taking the place of fer-
mented wine, beer, and distilled liquors in the treatment of the
sick among intelligent physicians. It is found to be an admirable
remedy, or food, for use in cases of dyspepsia, debility, fevers,
lung and nervous diseases, etc. Physicians now begin to under-
stand why Paul recommended Timothy to take a little wine for his
stomach's sake, when they know, from its effects, that it was un-
questionably unfermented wine to which he referred. Thousands
of gallons of unfermented wine are being put up the present year
(1886) to be used by physicians in the treatment of the sick. And
the pure juice of grapes is squeezed directly from grapes and sold by
the glass in the City of New York, and it is recommended by many
as a palatable, nourishing and refreshing drink.
HOW TO MAKE GRAPE JELLY.
273
GRAPE JELLY.
Grape jelly, if properly prepared, is one of the most palatable,
nourishing and useful of our articles for food, and at no distant
day it must become a most valuable article of manufacture, and
will be in great demand. As a sauce or preserve to eat with
bread and butter, or on meat, or fish, there is, in the estimation
of the writer—judging from his own taste-nothing which com-
pares with it.
It does not dissolve readily in cold water; but
in hot water, by a little stirring, it will dissolve sufficiently to
make a palatable and nourishing drink.
To make grape jelly, select good, clean, ripe grapes, mash and
boil them in their own juice until they are well cooked, then strain
them either through a fine colander or sieve, or a coarse linen
cloth will do. Press or rub all of the substance of the grape out
which you can, leaving as little as practicable beside the skins and
seed behind; then boil the juice for a few moments only; then
add three-fourths of a pound of sugar for every pint of juice, if
the grapes are grown in a northern latitude and are acid; do not
boil long after adding the sugar-only long enough to thoroughly
dissolve the sugar-for long boiling either with or without sugar
impairs the flavor, destroys the jelly and makes it like syrup; then
pour it into glasses or jars, or can it as you do fruit. It will keep
for years, and it contains several times more nourishing food than
any other canned fruit, and will go much further, as the reader
will find on trial. It is a most valuable food product. In flavor
it will accord with the grapes from which it is made. You need
not fear any supposed impurities in this fruit of the vine, which
seem to trouble our wine-drinking friends so much, for the Lord
has carefully organized this substance in the grape for your use,
and He has made no mistake. It is the drinkers of fermented wine
who have made so sad an error.
Read what the wise man said (Proverbs, xxiii. 29-32) thousands
of years ago:
29" Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions?
who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath
redness of eyes? 30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that
go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it
is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself
aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an
adder."
32
31
Uor M
274
NOBLE WINE.
!
NOBLE WINE-NEW WINE SOLIDIFIED.
The editors of a religious serial say:
"When the flavor of noble wine is referred to (Coronis 22), or vinous odbr
is mentioned (A. C. 1720), fermented wine is meant. For noble wine is
never unfermented. And it is well known that the peculiar aroma of wines
arises from ethers and volatile oils generated in their manufacture."-(See
Pavy's Food and Dietetics.
It is, to say the least, somewhat doubtful whether reference is
had above to fermented wine when the fine flavor of noble wine
and the vinous odor are named. If "noble" is applied to denote
strong alcoholic wine, without regard to the quality of the wine
aside from the fact that it contains a large amount of alcohol, it
may be true. It is certainly true that the peculiar odor or aroma
of fermented wines is generated by the action of leaven on the
juice of the grape; but how different is this leavened aroma from
the true, natural aroma of a vineyard, of grapes, and of un-
fermented wine! IIas the reader ever noticed and compared the
two? We think the angels would not agree with the opinion of
our Christian brethren that "noble wine is never unfermented.”
Does the reader think that the wine used in heaven is not a noble
wine, and that it has not a delightful aroma?
In Swedenborg's "True Christian Religion" (Latin), there is a
passage which, so far as we know, does not appear in the English
editions that were published before the Rotch edition. Until very
recently, or until within a few years, our translators apparently
were so imbued with the old ideas as to wine (even though they
had repeatedly translated Swedenborg's mustum by wine), that,
when they found in the Latin of the T. C. R., Swedenborg de-
scribing a scene in the spiritual world where he speaks of seeing
New wine solidified, with other delicacies made of bread and
wine together," they were thoroughly perplexed. "New wine
solidified," was something apparently new to them, and they did
not know what to do with it; so they omitted it altogether. And
then as they read a few lines further as follows: "And through
the middle of the pyramid there welled up, as it were, a fountain
streaming with wine like nectar or sweet wine, the flow of which
parted at the top of the pyramid and filled the cups" (T. C. R.
742), we can imagino wo hear those puzzled translators exclaiming,
"How is this? New wine solidified,' and sweet wine even like
nectar, in heaven! This conflicts with all our ideas of wine. The
(
NEW WINE SOLIDIFIED IN HEAVEN..
275
wine of heaven must be fermented wine of course, and we
know that fermented wine cannot be solidified; consequently such
an idea as Swedenborg has promulgated above, will never! never!!
never do!!! We will have nothing to do with it;" and so they
omitted it altogether. They were evidently unacquainted with the
fact to which the writer called attention in his previous works on
"The Wine Question," viz. : that the ancients prepared and pre-
served condensed or solidified wine, as the inhabitants of Eastern
countries still do. The passage will be found in No. 742, and we
will give both the English and the Latin of the words omitted in
other translations. The Rotch translation is as follows: "And
the prince, without stopping the procession, said to them, 'Come
with me to cat bread,' and they followed him into the dining-hall,
where they saw a table magnificently prepared. In the centre of
it was a high pyramid of gold, having on its forms in triple order
a hundred dishes containing sweet bread (panes saccharini), new
wine solidified (musta vinorum concreta), with other delicacies
(lautitiis-luxuries) made of bread and wine together (ex pane et
vino confectis). And through the middle of the pyramid there
welled up, as it were, a fountain streaming with wine like nectar
(fons saliens cum vino nectareo, with nectarious or sweet wine),
the flow of which parted at the top of the pyramid and filled the
cups."
The words omitted in former translations are musta vinorum
concreta ”—new wine solidified. We know that fermented wine
is not the kind of wine referred to above, for two reasons. First:
because fermented wine cannot be condensed so as to form a satis-
factory food product; and from this very poor product all the
alcohol would have been driven off during the process, and the
ferment destroyed, so that it would then not be fermented wine at
all, to say nothing of "noble, generous, fermented wine." Second:
we know that leaven is never born in the grape, nor is it ever the
product of the vine, for its germs come from the atmosphere, and
from the surface and stems of the grapes; therefore, experiments
show conclusively that if we exclude the air which contains these
germs from grape-juice it will never ferment; or again, if we
admit the air, having taken care to remove all the germs of leaven
from it, vinous fermentation will not ensue. The writer is indebted
to a respected clergyman for the suggestion, that in heaven they
can have no fermented wine and, consequently, no alcohol-and no
whisky," the writer will add-because they have no leaven germs
in the atmosphere of heaven. Alas, alas, for our brethren who
276
NOBLE WINE.
love fermented wine! What will they do for their generous,
noble, fermented wine and its odor and peculiar aroma when they
reach heaven? The writer is not so uncharitable and ungenerous
as for a moment to intimate that they may not reach heaven, not-
withstanding their proclivities to indulge moderately in the use of
fermented wine and some of them even in "whisky;
" but he
thinks it not unkind to remind them, even at the risk of repetition,
that it is a great deal more pleasant, if not easier, to put away
evils in this world than in the next; still to those who are so
strongly confirmed in the "false doctrine" which favors fermented
wine that they cannot see the evil of drinking intoxicating drinks,
and, therefore, continue in this habit until death, or seeing the evil
are not able to entirely get rid of it in this world, we trust, and
have faith to believe that in their journey through the world of
spirits, the good spirits will do what the good physician sometimes
- does here when he sees that the individual is "sincerely and indus-
triously" striving to overcome his perverted appetite—give him
occasionally a little "punch" to alleviate his sufferings.
Let us see what "The United States Dispensatory," a standard
medical work, written by Drs. Wood and Bache, have to say of the
use of generous, or strong, noble wine. They are regarded as good
authority as to the effects of poisons or remedies by a majority of
the medical profession. "Wine is consumed in most civilized
countries; but in a state of health is at least useless, if not abso-
lutely pernicious. The degree of mischief which it produces de-
pends on the character of the wine. Thus, the light wines of
France are comparatively harmless; while the habitual use of the
stronger wines-[Generous wines.-E.]-such as sherry, port,
madeira, etc., even though taken in moderation, is always injuri-
ous, as having a tendency to induce gout and apoplexy, and other
diseases dependent on plethora and over-stimulation. All wines,
however, when used habitually, in excess, are productive of bad
consequences. They weaken the stomach, produce disease of the
liver, and give rise to gout, dropsy, apoplexy, tremors, and not
unfrequently mania." Nor is this a new doctrine, for Aristæus,
about a. D. 100, writing on the "causes, signs and cures
" of dis-
ease, makes these statements: "The use of wine causes angina
pectoris, hemorrhage from the head, inflammation of the liver,
insanity, paralysis, apoplexy; and is the most frequent cause of
disease."
"Wine is a medicament in cholera and syncope, though
its use is attended with danger." Such has been the testimony
SEPARATION OF LEES FROM WINE.
277
of medical men in all ages (see "Zell's Encyclopædia," article
Alcohol).
Is it possible, we ask the intelligent reader, that a wine, which,
when taken in moderation," will produce such deleterious results,
could ever have been intended by our Heavenly Father to be used
as a beverage for man, or as suitable for use in the most holy ordi-
nance of the Church?
In the Writings of E. Swedenborg, among the allusions to fer-
mentation (D. P. 25, 284; A. C. 7906), there is a comparison of
the process of fermentation and the resulting clearness of the
liquor with the process of spiritual purification in man, and the
resulting separation from evils. The advocates for the use of fer-
mented wine as a beverage and as a Communion wine, in replying
to an article by the writer, employed this comparison as the ground
of an argument, that the Writings supported the correctness of
their position on this question, as follows:
"Dr. Ellis remarks: If the lees which fall to the bottom from the
action of leaven on wine, instead of having a good signification have a bad
signification, how can the wine from which such lees have been separated
fail to have an evil signification?'
By parity of reasoning, if the evils, which are removed to the sides
from the action of spiritual leaven, instead of having a good signification,
have a bad signification, how can the resulting state of the man from
which such evils have been separated fail to have an evil signification ?”
The two cases as stated above are not parallel, but are directly
the opposite of each other, as the reader will see. In our former
work on
The Wine Question," we called the attention of the
above critics especially to the fact that the changes which take
place during, and the results which follow natural leavening, do
not correspond, in the slightest degree, to those which occur during
and which follow spiritual fermentation. To this they made no
attempt to reply, but ignored this question entirely; and yet the
reader will see it cannot be ignored and their views on "The
Wine Question" be sustained. The whole argument turns upon
this one point. If the correspondence of fermented wine is good,
the changes which take place during the fermentation of wine
must correspond to the changes which take place during spiritual
purification; if they do not, then it is perfectly clear to every
intelligent Christian who is conversant with the Writings, that
fermented wine must go to the wall, and be banished from use as
a beverage and as a communion wine. Now, let us look at the
278
NOBLE WINE.
facts, and they will bear repeating. In the spiritual purification
of man, or of societies, good and truth overcome the evil and
false, and the latter are removed to the sides or separated, as lees
are separated during the fermentation of wine. This we all admit;
but how is it with natural fermentation? We know very well the
ingredients in the juice of the grape, which the Lord has organized
for the sustenance of man, are those substances which nourish and
supply the natural wants of the body; and we know that they cor-
respond to goodness and truth, which nourish the spirit of man.
The substances in the juice of the grape which nourish and warm
the body are the albumen and gluten, which nourish the brain,
nerves and muscles; the vegetable acids and alkaline salts, which
nourish the ligaments and bones; and the sugar, which is appro-
priated to warm the body. Now, these are the substances which
correspond to goodness, truth and spiritual delights; for they
nourish and delight the material body, as goodness and truth do
the spirit of man.
But when, from the atmosphere, germs of that leaven which
we are told "signifies the evil and false which should not be mixed
with things good and true," are permitted to enter into the pure
juice of the grape, what is the result? We know very well if there
is any real correspondence between the natural leavening and its
results, and spiritual purification, that the substances in the wine
which correspond to good and truth-the albumen, sugar, etc.—
should overcome the leaven which corresponds to the evil and
false. It is here that the correspondence entirely fails, for in the
fermentation which ensues, the leaven, corresponding to the evil
and the false, to the extent that it progresses, overcomes, and
either perverts, destroys, or casts down or out as dregs, every-
thing in the wine that corresponds to goodness and truth. Nor
does its work of destruction then cease. Unless arrested by the
exclusion of air, sulphurization, or some other process, it continues
till the fermented wine is converted into vinegar. The acetous
fermentation does not wait for the conclusion of the vinous fer-
mentation, but commences soon after that begins, if not with it,
and progresses with it, so that fermented wine, as we see it in the
markets, always contains more or less vinegar; and in old fer-
mented wines the sugar, which corresponds to spiritual delights,
is generally all destroyed. What kind of a wine is this to use as
Communion wine in the Church of the New Jerusalem which
to-day descending from God out of Heaven is gradually en-
lightening all Church organizations and all men? A wine, the
A MORE CRITICAL EXAMINATION REQUIRED.
279
effects of which on man Swedenborg compares to the effects of the
doctrine of salvation by faith alone on the clergy, may have been
appropriate before the Last Judgment in 1757; but why should the
believers in the New Christianity condemn the new wine-the
pure, unfermented fruit of the vine-which the Lord has organ-
ized and provided for us so bountifully, and cling to the fermented
wine of a past dispensation, claiming that it is better than the
new?
Unfermented wine and must are strictly produced by the vine,
and contain all the essential qualities and ingredients of the fruit
of the vine; but the essential ingredient for which men seek fer-
mented wine--alcohol-is never produced by the vine, but is pro-
duced by leaven decomposing the nourishing compounds that are
stored by God in the grape, and changing them into a deadly
poison that enchants while it destroys.
“Obviously, God can only be cheered or pleased with the fruit
of the vine as the product of His own power and the gift of His
goodness, and man is cheered with it when he sees the ripening
clusters, and when he partakes thereof.
"There is a strange impression, very current in our day, that
nothing can cheer and exhilarate but alcoholic drinks. Is it not
written, Zech. ix. 7, 'Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and
new wine (tirosh-grapes or must) the maids?' In referring to
the nutritious qualities of the corn and wine, the prophet assigns
the corn to the young men, and the new wine (tirosh-must), to
the maidens. Here the new wine, the must, or unfermented juice,
is approbated. Ps. iv. 7: Thou hast put gladness' (the same
which is translated cheereth in Judges ix. 13) 'in my heart, more
than in the time that their corn and wine (tirosh-must) in-
creased."-Rev. Dr. Patton.
The truth is, the editors of our religious periodicals will find, if
they investigate this subject as carefully as they should have done
before writing in favor of intoxicating wine, that yayin in Hebrew,
oinos in Greek, vinum in Latin, and wine in English are generic
words, including all kinds of wine, fermented and unfermented ;
and if they had even consulted the ablest scholars of the age, they
would have told them this; and, as the reader has seen in the.
preceding pages, if they had carefully studied their Bible in these.
different languages, unbiased by false doctrines which have come
down to them unquestioned from a perverted state of the world,
they would have seen the truth, and would have avoided their
present unpleasant dilemma.
280
NOBLE WINE.
The writer desires here to reaffirm clearly and distinctly the
views advanced in his former works and in the preceding chapters:
First; that the good wine of the Word of the Lord and of the
writings of the Church, which has a good signification or corres-
pondence in itself, is never a leavened or fermented wine. Second ;
more especially, it is never must or new wine which is being
leavened or fermented, and which therefore is full of leaven and
the heterogeneous substances which are produced by leaven, all of
which must, to a greater or less extent, be drank if such must or
new wine is used as a drink. Third; that the moment leaven
enters must or new wine, and commences its work of disorganiza-
tion and destruction, the fluid is polluted, and can never again in
itself have a good signification; but, if applied to a good use, its
use may perhaps have a good signification, precisely as the excessive
use or abuse of a good wine may have a bad signification. It is
known that leaven is never found in grapes, but that its germs
come either directly from the atmosphere or from the surface of the
grapes or their stems. We may admit the atmosphere, if we only
exclude such germs, then the juice of grapes will never ferment;
and without fermentation there will be no alcohol, for alcohol is
produced by ferment. The germs which cause fermentation are
not born in the grape and never exist in sound grapes. Now, the
writer thinks it should be manifest to every Christian, that if the
pure, unfermented juice of the grape, must or new wine, has a
good signification (which is beyond question, as we have seen), the
fermenting, or fermented juice, never can have. On the other hand,
if fermenting or fermented grape-juice has a good signification, it
is impossible that the unfermented can have; for in their origin
and essential composition, and in their effects on man, they are as
opposite as heaven is to hell!
CHAPTER XII.
STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH, AND THE PROHIBITION
CRAZE.
WHEN strong drink is named in the Word, the natural inference
by the men of this perverted age is, that reference is made to alco-
holic drinks or distilled liquors, for such drinks to-day are alone
regarded as strong drinks; but when we remember that the art of
distilling was not discovered until about the sixth century of the
Christian era, except perhaps in a rude form in China and Ceylon,
we know that such drinks were not meant.
The ancients unques-
tionably had, as we have to-day, other fermented drinks which
would cause intoxication besides wine. Says the Rev. Wm. Ritchie,
of Scotland: "Shechar means luscious drink, or sweet syrup,
especially of sugar or honey, of dates or of the palm-tree. The
Hebrew word is usually rendered by the translators of our English
Bible' strong drink.' This is not a happy rendering of the original
term. The epithet 'strong,' for which there is nothing equivalent
in the Hebrew, conveys the idea that the drink is highly intoxi-
cating. But Shechar of itself conveys no such idea. We examine
the passages where it is used, and we find it in numerous instances
spoken of along with Yain; and, as we know this latter word is a
general term to denote the juice of the grape, we conclude that
Shechar is a general name for liquor made from dates, grain, or
other fruits, the produce of the vine excepted. We have no word
in our language equivalent to the Hebrew term Shechar; and it
had been better, if, like some others of this class, it had been left
untranslated in our version of the Scriptures. In this case, it
would not have suggested to the mind a strong intoxicating drink.
'This is true,' says Moses Stuart, 'of neither Yain nor Shechar.
Both words are generic. The first means vinous liquor of any
kind and every kind. The second means a corresponding liquor
from dates and other fruits, or from several kinds of grain. Both
liquors have in them the saccharine principle, and, therefore, they
may become alcoholic, but both may be kept and used in an unfer-
mented state.'”—Scripture Testimony against Wine,
282 STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH, PROHIB. CRAZE.
In reply to the following quotation from the Apocalypse Ex-
plained, No. 1035, quoted by the writer in a former work: "Falses
not from evil may be compared to waters not pure, which, being
drunk, do not induce drunkenness, but falses from evil may be
compared to wine and strong drink that induce drunkenness"; a
correspondent of a religious periodical says:
"Does not the passage prove too much for Dr. Ellis' side of the
question, since, if it demonstrates that there are two kinds of wine, it also
demonstrates equally the existence of two kinds of strong drink (sicera) or
spirituous liquor, the one inebriating and the other not, a supposition
which the very etymology of the word itself precludes?"
Does not the writer of the above know that sicera, or the
Hebrew shekar or sikera, translated strong drink, in this dis-
cussion cannot be legitimately translated spirituous liquors, for
they had no distilled liquors at the time when the Word was
written; whereas the ordinary reader, by spirituous liquors, un-
derstands that distilled liquors are meant; and while fermented
palm-juice is a spirituous liquor in the sense that it contains spirits
or alcohol, as do other fermented liquors, and is a strong drink in
contradistinction to wine, it is not a distilled liquor; and further-
more, we know that it exists unfermented before it is fermented,
and that it is much stronger to give substance, warmth, and health
to the body while unfermented than it is after fermentation; so
that the present writer has in a former work expressly claimed
that there are two kinds of strong drink, in the Bible acceptation
of the term.
The editors of a religious serial say in regard to the Hebrew,
shechar; Greek, sikera; Latin, sicera.
"This word is derived from the verb shachar, to be drunk, and all
scholars agree that it signifies intoxicating drink.” (See Fürst and
Gesenius.)
Unfortunately for the above assertion, our best scholars,
especially those who have examined the subject the most critically,
do not agree with them. No one pretends that it does not some-
times in the Word refer to an intoxicating drink. The writer
simply claims that it does not necessarily, or always, or perhaps
even generally refer to such a drink. Dr. F. R. Lees and Rev.
Dawson Burns, in their commentary, say : Shakar (sometimes
written shechar, shekar) signifies 'sweet drink,' expressed from
(6
STRONG DRINKS GOOD OR BAD.
283
fruits other than the grape, and drank in an unfermented or fer-
mented state."
Rev. Dawson Burns and Dr. F. R. Lees, in their commentary,
which is by far the most able and elaborate that has ever been
written upon this subject, say:
"SHAHKAR connected as root or derivative with shakar,
'sweet drink'-strictly implies, as Gesenius states, 'to drink to the
full,' generally with an implied sweetness of the article consumed,
whether the sweet juice of the grapes or other fruits. Whenever
the juice had fermented, or had become intoxicating by drugs,
this plentiful use would lead to intoxication, and give to the verb
the secondary sense of inebriation in the drinker. Inebriation,
however, must not be inferred unless the context suggests such a
condition. It is translated 'drunk,'' drunken,' 'drunken man,' or
'drunkard,' in the Authorized Version in Gen. ix. 21; Deut. xxxii.
42; 1 Sam. i. 14; xxv. 36; 2 Sam. xi. 13; Job. xii. 25; Psa. cvii.
27; Prov. xxvi. 9; Isa. xix. 14; xxiv. 20; xxviii. 1, 3; xxix. 9;
xlix. 26; li. 21; lxiii. 6; Jer. xxiii. 9; xxv. 27; xlviii. 26; li. 7,
39, 57; Lam. iv. 21; Joel i. 5; Nah. iii. 11; Hab. ii. 15. It is
translated 'were merry' in Gen. xliii. 34; 'drink abundantly' in
Cant. v. 1. In Psa. lxix. 12, where the A. V. gives 'drunkards,'
the Hebrew is 'drinkers of shakar.'
If the words in the original Sacred Scriptures, which have been
translated by the term strong drink, in contrast with wine, ever
denote what we understand by the word strong, it is evident that
reference must have been had to some quality aside from that
which resulted from fermentation; for it is reasonably certain
that they had no drink stronger to cause intoxication than fer-
mented wine. It is supposed by some writers that such drinks
were prepared by mixing various medicinal or stimulating sub-
stances with fermented drinks; which, to say the least, is a some-
what unreasonable supposition. While opium is strong to stupefy,
ipecac to vomit, jalap to purge, mustard to irritate the skin and
mucous membranes, nux vomica to cause convulsions, and alcohol
to cause unnatural excitement and drunkenness, none of these
substances are strong in a genuine sense; for while they are strong
to cause suffering and disease, they are not strong to supply the
ordinary wants of the body, by giving nourishment and thus
strength. The very fact that strong drink in the Word sometimes
has a good signification, and is classed with oxen, sheep and wine,
as in Deut. xiv. 26, is evidence that in an unpolluted and unper-
verted state it could neither have been fermented, nor have been
284 STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH, PROHIB. CRAZE.
a drugged drink; therefore Swedenborg says: "That strong drink
signifies the truth of the natural man derived from the spiritual.”
(Swedenborg's Index to the A. E.) It will be seen that this signi-
fication is precisely what we should expect, if instead of an unnat-
urally stimulating, irritating and exciting fluid, it was really what
its name signifies, a nourishing, strengthening fluid, giving healthy
substance to the body.
Now, we have plenty of drinks in use to-day which are really
strong in a good and true sense; strong to nourish, and give strength
without causing unnatural excitement, which consequently have
unquestionably a good correspondence. Of such drinks we have
milk; gruels made with milk or water from the flour or meal of
our different grains, or by boiling rice or barley; and the ancients,
by adding their sweet boiled grape-juice or good wine, had a
palatable and delightful drink, entirely harmless, and every way
useful. The Scotsman of to-day, while resting from his work,
readily prepares a really strong beverage by adding oatmeal to the
water which he drinks. The early settlers of New England had
such a drink in their bean porridge, which they carried into the
fields for their dinners.
But we all know that these healthy, life-giving drinks, like
unfermented wine, may become polluted by fermentation; or may
be mingled with fermented wine, and thus become injurious,
poisonous, and destructive when used as drink; consequently
Swedenborg tells us That to mingle strong drink, signifies to
confirm the falses."-Swedenborg's Index to A. E. 379.
That our ablest scholars, who have most carefully examined
this subject, do not agree with those who claim that the Hebrew
word shakar means an intoxicating drink, the reader will see
above and in what follows:
"OR FOR WINE OR FOR STRONG DRINK] Hebrew, u-vay-yayin,
u-vash-shakar, and for wine, and for sweet drink;' the Lxx. ee
epi oino, ee epi sikera, or for wine, or for sicera.' The Vulgate
has vinum quoque et siceram, 'wine also and sicera.' The Tar-
gums of Onkelos and Jonathan read, uba-khamar khadath v’attiq,
'for wine, new and old.' The Syriac has 'for wine and sicera.'
The Arabic has 'for wine and expressed juice' (etzer). Aquila's
rendering of shakar is the only part of the verse preserved methus-
mati, which some render 'for an intoxicating drink ;' but he may
have used methusma in the strict and original sense of its root,
methuo, ‘to drink largely of what is sweet.'
"AND THOU SHALT EAT THEM] Hebrew, ve-akaltah, 'and thou
REV. J. M. VAN BUREN ON STRONG DRINK.
285
shalt eat.' 'Them' is supplied by the English translators, being
absent from the text, which reads, and thou shalt eat there.' The
Vulgate has simply and thou shalt cat.'
"Devout Israelites with their families going up from a dis-
tance to the House of God, would find it burdensome or impossible
to take with them in substance the tithes of the corn-field, the
vineyard, and the orchard, and the firstlings of herd and fold.
They were, therefore, permitted to convert these tithes into money,
and on their arrival at the sacred capital to purchase with this
money things corresponding to those they could not conveniently
convey from their homes. Instead of tirosh and yitzhar, they
might buy yayin (the juice of tirosh) and shakar (the juice of
other fruits), or 'whatever their soul lusted after' (i. e. if desired
in a good, not in an evil sense, for this is here the meaning of
avah), or whatever their soul 'desired,'—literally, 'asked from
itself,' which is the marginal reading. This comprehensive per-
mission was implicitly limited by two conditions-1st, that the
things so purchased were good in themselves; 2d, that they were
not prohibited by the Levitical law. It has been held by some
that this regulation sanctioned the use of intoxicating drinks
but-
(C
in
Nothing is said of the inebriating quality of the drinks
named; and the permission would have been fully observed by
the use of unfermented yayin and shakar.”—Bible Commentary.
The Rev. J. M. Van Buren, in an able reply to Dr.
the National Temperance Advocate, says:
“Shekar, or sikera, is translated' strong wine.' (Num. xxviii.
7). This, Dr.
claims to be intoxicating. This he does
especially on the definition of sikera given by Dr. Robinson in his
Greek dictionary. If that can upset the law of God, and can jus-
tify what that law forbids, then he is in the right. We have
abundant reason to know that, aside from its use as an offering,
shekar, or sikera, was, and is still, used as a drink in its sweet,
native state, unfermented. It was not wine. This drink was de-
rived from many sources. The juice of the palm-tree, or palm-
wine, was, and still is, used fresh, in Eastern countries. Sikera
was also expressed from various fruits; it was made from barley,
from steeped raisins and dates. We now use the ancient method
of sprouting the barley, by heat and moisture, which develops
sugar in the process. This is the same in all vegetation springing
from seed; the starch in the berry unites with the elements of
water, and the result is glucose (sugar). The divine purpose in
286 STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH, PROHIB. CRAZE.
providing this sugar, is to feed the plant until its roots can get
nourishment from the soil.
"This shekar, or sikera, made from barley, in its first, unfer-
mented state, was what we now call sweetwort. It is a pleasant,
nutritious drink; as malt, it is put up as a food for invalids. This
liquid, when fermented, is intoxicating; and, with hops now
added, makes beer. Sikera of any kind was not released from the
law, which forbade 'leaven,' or ferment, in that which was poured
upon the altar.
A shocking imposition was practised when the
Translators called this 'strong wine.'-Num. xxviii. 7.
"What right had they and the Revisers to translate shekar, or
sikera, by the words 'strong wine' and 'strong drink'? Both
these companies had before them the example and guide of the
Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testament.
This was
made three hundred years before Christ by learned Jews. If
either 'strong wine' or 'strong drink' was a proper rendering of
shekar, why did they not have it? They knew all about this offer-
ing; they knew it was not made with an intoxicating, fermented
liquor; it was something they saw or could see every day; they
knew the law prohibited ferment in anything burnt on that altar.
What did they do in this Greek version? They simply transferred
the Hebrew word shekar, slightly changing its form, and left this
drink-offering under the law, which determines its untainted
purity, untouched by leaven. Would not the priests have stood
aghast at the sight of an offering of 'strong wine' or 'strong
drink'? Would they not have rejected with indignation a transla-
tion which violated the law and represented an intoxicating fluid
to be required in this offering—a fluid in which all the rich and
valuable elements of nutrition in unfermented wine had been
destroyed by fermentation? Such a translation we have now;
and in one more offensive, 'strong drink' is proposed by the Re-
visers.
"The fact that wine was fermented and its food elements
destroyed in order to make an intoxicating drink, furnished the
reason and the necessity for this prohibitory law to protect the
altar from desecration.
"It is surprising that these divine laws should be treated as if
they were of no account; be entirely unnoticed by those who
translate the Bible and by those who revise it, and by those who
are special masters of Hebrew and Greek, and make a dictionary to
elucidate the meaning of its words. We cannot cease to wonder
at the divine care that placed these laws in written characters on
VINEGAR AND ITS SIGNIFICATION.
287
record, with peremptory commands to guard the purity and sanc-
tity of divine worship, and prevent the offering of fermented, cor-
rupted, intoxicating drinks in the place of the pure, nutritious
productions of nature which God had given to man for his bodily
support, health and strength. Reason and propriety demanded
that these thank-offerings should be of the very things God had
given in their purity and perfection.
"And now what an astonishing thing that so many demand for
the holy sacrament the same corrupted, intoxicating wine that
God has prohibited by special laws!
"The work of introducing a pure wine for the communion has
gone forward rapidly the last few years. The churches may expect
the divine blessing when they respect their duty in this matter,
and obey the commands of God and reject the bad work of Trans-
lators and Revisers."
"It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink
wine, nor for princes strong drink; lest they drink, and forget the
law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted."-Proverbs,
xxxi. 4-7.
'Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is
deceived thereby is not wise.”—Proverbs, xx. 1.
VINEGAR.
Vinegar, like alcohol, is a product resulting from the decom-
position of an organized substance-sugar. In a concentrated
form it is a corrosive poison; but when diluted, as it ordinarily is
when used, and only moderately taken; then, compared with fer-
mented wine and beer, it is comparatively harmless; but if used
as freely as the latter fluids are, while it would never cause drunk-
enness, it would, unquestionably, be very injurious to the health
of the body; but we shall see from its correspondence, that it
cannot be as injurious to man, spiritually, as fermented wine or
beer.
((
Vinegar signifies truth mixed with falses." (Apocalypse Ex-
plained, 386.) Giving the Lord vinegar mixed with gall (Matt.
xxvii. 34) signifies the quality of divine truth from the Word, such
as was with the Jewish nation, namely, that it was commixed with
the false of evil, and thereby altogether falsified and adulterated;
wherefore He would not drink it." (A. E. 519.)
“Gall signifies
the same as wormwood, or infernal falsity." (A. E. 376.) So it
will be seen that vinegar alone, simply diluted with water [signify-
ing truth], signifies truths mixed with falses.
288 STRONG DRINK, .
VINEGAR, PUNCH, PROHIB. CRAZE.
Diluted vinegar, like alcohol, will preserve animal and vege-
table substances, although not so perfectly; but it is used, as is
well known, for this purpose.
The appetite for acids is unquestionably a natural appetite;
and when suitable acids are used temperately they supply a want,
and are useful; but vinegar, being the product of decomposition,
as we would expect, very imperfectly, if at all, supplies this want.
It will not, like lemon or lime juice, prevent the scurvy where
persons are for long periods deprived of vegetable food and fresh
meats, as on board ships, and during the long winters of a northern
clime.
Wherever it is possible, it is certain that the juice of acid
fruits, such as lemons, limes, and currants, should be substituted
for vinegar. One who has never tried it cannot realize the superi-
ority of lemon juice over vinegar, when used on salads, greens,
meats and fish. We all know how superior it is, in preparing acid
drinks, to vinegar. Of course, we cannot preserve vegetable and
animal substances with such living or organized acids, as we can
with vinegar; but if, after having preserved them in vinegar, we
were to soak them in water, so as to remove the vinegar, and then
apply lemon juice as we use them, it would be an improvement.
The use of vinegar should undoubtedly be discouraged, by
recommending the use of vegetable acids in its stead, rather than
encouraged; but when the use of vinegar is compared with the
use of fermented wine, beer, or cider, it is comparatively harmless
-or, as much so as the reception of truth mixed with falses into
the memory and understanding is, when compared with falses
which are received and cherished by an evil love or perverted
affection-consequently, vinegar rarely develops an unnatural ap-
petite which cannot be satisfied with wholesome vegetable acids.
We should not forget that vinegar is an ingredient in all well
fermented wines, for before the vinous fermentation has pro-
gressed far the aceteous fermentation commences, and vinegar is
developed; so that those who drink fermented wine actually drink
a fluid containing vinegar.
A RELIGIOUS PERIODICAL ON “PUNCH AND PROHIBITION.
The editor of the
says:
"Elsewhere appears a communication from England on the subject of
Prohibition. Our correspondent takes it for granted that the fruits of
Prohibition are 'good,' and also claims that it is 'admitted' that' whisky,
PUNCH PROHIBITED IN THE SPIRITUAL LONDON. 289
curse of the world.' We deny the first, and do
beer and brandy' are the 'curse of the world.'
not admit' the last.
'B. D. asks for references to the writings. Here is one from 'Spir-
itual Diary' (P. vii., App. p. 88). After enumerating the drinks to he had
in the spiritual London, among which are 'wines, strong drinks and beers,'
Swedenborg says: 'I inquired also concerning the liquor named punch, and
they said that they have this liquor also, but that it is given only to those
who are sincere, and at the same time diligent."
“Here is a direct issue for prohibitionists to meet. In the Spiritual
World the sincere and diligent are given liquor as a reward; he would
forcibly take it from all in this world."
That wines, strong drinks and beers, or that to which these
drinks correspond, exist in the spiritual London, we will not
question, for these drinks exist in the natural London; but we will
remind the editors of the
that wines and strong
drink, as we have abundantly shown in the preceding pages, may
be unfermented, good and nourishing, or they may be fermented,
alcoholic and poisonous. As to punch, that it is a specific alcoholic
drink, we will admit; but what comfort can the advocates for the
use of intoxicating drinks derive from what Swedenborg says
above as to the use which is made of it in the spiritual London?
Let us see.
It is perfectly clear, from the above statement of Swedenborg,
as suggested by a respected clergyman, that punch is a prohibited
drink in the spiritual London, and that no one is allowed to drink
it excepting those to whom it is given; and that is exactly what
the prohibitionists contend for here. The physician may give it as
a remedy; but it should be sold to no one to be used as a
beverage, but only to those to whom physicians may prescribe or
give it.
It is doubtless only given to those who are sincere in their
offorts to put away their unhallowed love for intoxicating drinks,
to relieve their sufferings temporarily; as the physician here some-
times gives it to hard drinkers, to prevent or palliate delirium
tremens, that the patient may have a chance to reform. In the
spiritual world, if a spirit is not sincerely and diligently striving
to put away his evils, he can only be restrained by suffering the
legitimate consequences of his evil doing; consequently there is no
motive for striving to palliate his sufferings by giving him punch.
To angels and good spirits who are actuated by higher motives than
the hope of being rewarded by a drink of punch, punch is not
290 STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH, PROHIB. CRAZE.
given; they are sincere and diligent, because they delight in good-
ness for its own sake.
Our brethren should remember, we repeat, that punch is only
given on exigency, and not taken as an ordinary drink; and that it
is only given to a certain class of spirits who are evidently not the
highest or most advanced class of spirits in the spiritual London;
and that to all others, it is either not desirable or it is prohibited.
Now, we ask our brethren if the issue raised by the
with so much assurance, has not been fairly met; and if pro-
hibition is not fully and triumphantly sustained by the above
quotation from "The Spiritual Diary."
If our brethren of the
would know what kind
of wine is allowed and used in Heaven by the angels, which knowl-
edge, we fancy, would be quite as desirable and, perhaps, more
useful than the knowledge of the punch which is given in the
spiritual London as a medicine to spirits preparing for Heaven, or
undergoing vastation, let them turn not to "The Spiritual Diary,"
but to "The True Christian Religion," the last great work of
Swedenborg, which he published; and there in his own Latin, or as
translated in the Rotch edition, they can read as follows: "And
the prince, without stopping the procession, said to them, 'Come
with me to eat bread,' and they followed him into the dining-
hall, where they saw a table magnificently prepared. In the center
of it was a high pyramid of gold, having on its forms in triple
order a hundred dishes containing sweet bread, new wine solidified,
with other delicacies made of bread and wine together. And
through the middle of the pyramid there welled up, as it were, a
fountain streaming with wine like nectar, the flow of which parted
at the top of the pyramid and filled the cups."-T. C. R. 742.
There was no punch upon the above table, and no product of
leaven or any fermented wine.
Leaven is not of heavenly growth; consequently there can exist
no leavened wine or punch in Heaven, for these are the products
of leaven-unclean!
During a recent visit to Damascus, in Asia, the writer saw for
sale in the bazaars new wine solidified, and various delicacies made
from this solidified wine, and he was forcibly reminded of the
above passage in the T. C. R.
Again, the editors of the
say:
"A man cannot consistently be a prohibitionist and a New Churchman
at the same time, any more than he can believe that black is black and
also white.
EVIL THINKING AND DOING ENSLAVES MAN.
291
"He cannot, as a rational man, believe that man can only be reformed
and regenerated in a state of freedom, and then proceed to reform him by
taking his freedom from him."
,
Twenty-five years ago, in the estimation of some people, a man
could not consistently be a New Churchman and an advocate of
the abolition of African slavery; but now it would be difficult to
find a New Churchman who will attempt to justify slavery. And
yet African slavery was tender and merciful when compared with
the slavery which results from the sale and use of intoxicating
drinks as beverages at this day. Look at the drunkards entering
their most fearfully wretched homes, where wives live and children
grow up; look at the crimes committed, the sickness, insanity and
premature deaths which result from the sale and use of intoxicating
drinks; and say, if you can, that society has no right to protect
itself, its members, and its women and children from such evils.
The editor of the
and some other religious
writers, seem to have very crude and very erroneous ideas of
freedom; especially when they are trying to justify the sale and
use of intoxicating drinks. The Lord protects the freedom of man
to think and will that which is true and good; and while man thus
thinks and wills, he is always in freedom. The Lord says: “If
ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples; and ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John, viii. 32).
But if, forsaking the Lord's words, we begin to think of that which
is false and evil and will to do it, and then ultimate our intentions
in act, we then begin to lose our freedom; for the Lord says:
"Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin." And
then we are told: "If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye
shall be free indeed" (John, viii. 34, 36). How true it is, that if
we would know or see the truth, we must honestly strive to abide
in or to do that which the truth teaches; otherwise having eyes
we shall see not. All this is not only true in regard to man spir-
itually, but it is also true in regard to his physical life in this
world, for the physical corresponds to the spiritual. So far as life
in this world is concerned, the only really free men are those who
live in accordance with the laws of life; for such laws alone lead
to health, happiness and consequent freedom. In living a true
life we violate no laws, and consequently require no suffering or
punishment to restrain us; but we can act in freedom. Take, for
instance, the matter of eating and drinking; the Lord has most
bountifully supplied us with a great variety of wholesome articles
292 STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH, PROHIB. CRAZE.
of food and drink for the development and preservation of the
body and mind. Such articles, as we have seen in the preceding
pages, never cause an unnatural appetite which cannot be satisfied
by other articles which equally well supply the actual wants of the
body; and while they may be used to excess and thus do harm,
they never cause specific diseases characteristic of the substance
taken; for they have their origin through Heaven from the Lord.
The Lord has given to man a natural appetite for such articles.
Again, we are surrounded by a totally different class of substances,
called poisons, for which man has no natural appetite, although he
may inherit an inclination to use them, when an appetite is very
readily developed by their use. If habitually used, they engender
an unnatural appetite which no other article will ever satisfy, and
they cause specific diseases peculiar to the article taken; and if
freely used, as we use healthy and orderly articles of food, they
will cause disease and death. Take, for instance, alcohol as it is
contained in fermented fluids and distilled liquors, tobacco and
opium. The appetite for one of these poisonous substances is never
satisfied by the use of either of the others, or by the use of any
other substance in nature, and each one causes a disease or diseases
peculiar to itself. To use such substances is a violation of the
laws of life, for we know that they are capable of harming and
killing; and Swedenborg assures us that all such substances have
their origin from Hell.
While, to say the least, it is very difficult, if it is not impossible,
for others to destroy our freedom, it is very easy for us to destroy
our own freedom; and when we commence the use of the above
substances, we are entering on a road which we know has led vast
multitudes of our race to the most fearful state of slavery, and
made them "bondservants" indeed.
While we cannot destroy man's freedom to think and will,
unless we can lead him into evil habits like the use of the above
poisons, society can justly, by laws and watchfulness, lessen his
opportunities to ultimate his evil thoughts and inclinations; and
we are told that we must do this, or the human race on earth
would perish; and this is all that the prohibitionists propose to
do. While man is free to think and will, we know that he is not
always free to do what he pleases, and we well know that he ought
not to be thus free. When a man wills to kill another or steal
from him, he is often met by weapons superior to his own, or by
superior skill and strength, or by officers of the law, and by bolts
and locks; and thus he has no freedom to ultimate his evil inten-
UNFAIR REPRESENTATIONS.
293
tions. According to our laws, it is unlawful for a man either to
take his own life or to cripple himself; and if he attempts thus to
act, the officers of the law step in and prevent him, if possible,
from thus harming himself. Do they do right or wrong to thus
interfere? Yet this is more than prohibitionists have done, or are
attempting to do; for, when they see large numbers in society
who are drinking, making their families and friends most wretched
and poor, impairing their own freedom and reason even to in-
sanity, and slowly killing themselves; the prohibitionists simply
desire to prevent men from manufacturing and selling such poisons
to be used for such purposes. What nonsense to talk about taking
away man's freedom, by preventing by law the manufacture and
sale of intoxicating drinks as beverages! The man who feels that
he cannot do without intoxicating drinks is already a slave, and
he can only become free by hearkening to the truth and shunning
his cups as a sin against God.
The editor of the
declares that a man
cannot, as a rational man, believe that the Divine Truth is the only
means of salvation, and then propose to save men by acts of Parliament.”
No prohibitionist proposes to save men by "acts of Parliament."
What is the use of such talk?
Again says the editor :
"He cannot, as a rational man, believe that all evil comes from hell,
and then assert that it comes from a natural fluid."
This is not a fair representation of the views of those who
believe in total abstinence from intoxicating drinks. We do not
believe that all evil comes from a natural fluid. The evil lies in
the lusting after and drinking of a poisonous fluid, the appetite
for which is never given by the Lord, but has to be cultivated.
There are many other evils besides the drinking of intoxicating
drinks; but these drinks derive their origin from hell, and when
man drinks them they pervert not only his physical organization
and appetite, but also his intellectual faculties and passions, to an
extent which is not equaled by the action of any other poisonous
substance on earth, even causing insanity in a vast multitude of
cases, as is clear from the reports of our insane institutions.
Again, the editor of the
says:
"The teaching on this very matter of food and drink is, that 'abuse
does not take away use, as the falsification of truth does not take away
truth, except only in those who are guilty of it.' (Divine Love and
294 STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH, PROHIB. CRAZE.´
Wisdom, 331.) [It is certainly true that the abuse of a good and useful
article of food does not take away use, or prevent it from being useful
when properly used; but what has all this to do with the use of a
poisonous article like fermented wine?-E.] The Truth has been, and is
daily, falsified by people who read it. Were the Truth prohibited to be
read, then people could not falsify it. Therefore it might be concluded
that its reading should be prohibited. That this would be a wrong course
to pursue is evident without further proof. What is true of spiritual
things-of causes, is necessarily true of natural things-of effects. Wine
corresponds to Truth, and it is no more right to enact laws prohibiting the
sale of wines and other fermented and distilled liquors, than it is to make
laws prohibiting the reading of Truth."
But where a substance is a poison capable of causing disease,
drunkenness, insanity and death, like fermented wine, it would
seem to be self-evident that to use it at all is an abuse. Such a
wine has not a good correspondence, consequently Swedenborg
compares it to falses from evil, and not to truth. Whereas
Swedenborg tells us that the pure unfermented juice of grapes or
must as it exists in the clusters, or new wine as it is pressed from
grapes, as it is trodden from the grapes and as it flows from the
press, and as dropping from the mountain, signifies truth, as has
been abundantly shown in the preceding pages. This unfermented
juice of grapes has a good signification, because it nourishes the
natural body as goodness and truth do the spirit of man; and fer-
mented wine has not a good signification, because its nourishing
and delightful substances have been destroyed or perverted by
leaven, which, we are told, signifies the evil and the false which
should not be mixed with things good and true, and a perverted
and poisonous wine is the product. While it certainly would not
be right to make laws prohibiting the reading of the truth, we do
make laws to prevent the printing and selling of obscene falses
which originate from evil. Does the editor of the
say of these laws, that "they take away use"?
The editor continues:
"Drunkenness is a crime. Liquor is not the cause of drunkenness, but
the means. The cause lies in the evil appertaining to the drunkard
[Which leads him to drink from the drunkard's cup.-E.]. That evil can
be overcome by the Divine Truth only when received and lived by man in
a state of freedom. Prohibition is a form of slavery, and is a worse evil
than that it seeks to cure."
Liquor, by which is meant alcohol in some form, is the only
substance on earth that will cause drunkenness; but it is harmless
MODERATE DRINKER RESPONSIBLE, DRUNKARD NOT. 295
if men do not drink it. But when men begin to reason about
drinking it, and, notwithstanding they see drunkards around them
on every hand, begin to say in the pride of their own hearts: "We
can drink it without becoming drunkards," and begin to drink it,
they soon become so infatuated that they are not willing to believe
that drinking injures them; as they cannot comprehend that the
drunkard's cup which gratifies the unnatural appetite, and relieves
the unpleasant sensations which it has caused, and makes them
feel good every time they partake of it, can do them any harm.
If the drinker is to be reformed, he must so far assert his freedom,
as to be able to listen to the truth as to the poisonous and injurious
character of the liquids which he drinks; and then he must
hearken to the Divine Truth which will very soon teach him better
than to continue a course of life which is almost certain to impair
his health and faculties of body and mind; and to endanger his
reason, life in this world, the happiness of his family and all
around him, and also his eternal happiness; and he must repent
and shun the drinking of intoxicating drinks as a sin against
God.
Prohibition, a form of slavery, indeed! No attempt, mind
you, is directly made to prohibit drinking. The prohibitionist
would simply say to the lovers of money: You must not manu-
facture intoxicating drinks to be sold as beverages; you must
not sell such drinks to men, women or children; you must not
establish saloons and bar-rooms, and thus entice and lead the
members of our families and our neighbors into habits which
will lead to evils and sorrows untold. Has society no right to
do what it can to protect itself by preventing evil-doing, for
fear of interfering with the freedom of evil-doers? What non-
sense! Should society tolerate bad houses, houses of procuresses,
and places for receiving stolen goods, and dens of thieves?
Remember the evil-doer is not free, but a "bondservant" already,
whom we would help that he may become free.
If there is any crime in drunkenness it is manifestly in drinking
a poisonous fluid, knowing that it will cause drunkenness. When
drunk, a man is either unconscious or insane, and consequently is
not responsible for his acts; but for the drinking while it was
moderate, and he had the ability to stop drinking and did not, he
was responsible. Then was the time for punishment if ever. Now
when his appetite has got the mastery of him, we must restrain him
even as we do other insane men. It certainly would seem to be a
great stretch of justice to punish a poor insane drunkard who is not
296 STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH, PROHIB. CRAZE.
responsible for his present acts, and let the moderate drinker who
yet has power to refrain from drinking from the drunkard's cup, go
free.
2
A RELIGIOUS PERIODICAL AND (( PROHIBITION CRAZE.
In the following quotations from the
there
is a strange admixture of assumptions, and of truth with that
which is not true, and confounding of good and evil, which bodes
no good to the young, or even to the old, who may peruse the
columns of that periodical. It certainly would seem to be self-
evident that fluids, which are full of the poisonous excretion of
that unclean living substance called leaven, and which derive their
life from hell; the use of which we know has in all ages perverted
man's passions and appetites most fearfully, and has led countless
multitudes down to hell, should never be used as beverages or in
the Most Holy Ordinance of the Church. Can the filthy products
of an utterly corrupt tree like leaven, when taken into the human
body, bring forth good fruit? We know that they do not by the
diseases, perverted passions, drunkenness, and insanity which they
cause. How can a religious editor write as follows?
"The prohibition' craze," says the editor of the
"and
the increasing cry of 'total abstinence,' as well as all other social move-
ments, are under the direction of the Divine Providence, and are either
provided to promote good, or permitted to prevent greater evil. While
these prohibition and total abstinence movements, in themselves, are
neither good nor in true harmony with the Divine laws, there must, never-
theless, be some reason, found in the present corrupt and debased condition
of the Christian world, why they are permitted, and why it is well that a
certain class of persons should be restrained by external motives from the
use of spirituous liquors, and should drink water only."
For men individually and collectively to move in the direction
of totally abstaining from the drunkard's cup, is neither good nor
in true harmony with the divine laws, in the estimation of the
editor of the above paper. Who has authorized the above editor
to thus assume that those who abstain from "spirituous liquors "
do so simply from external motives? And again we will inquire,
if it is not better that men with inclinations toward evil should
do right from external motives, than that they should follow
depraved appetites which would lead them to do evil? Total ab-
stainers, and especially religious total abstainers, are able to see
clearly in the light of the Word and of the Writings, and of science,
THE PROHIBITION TRUE AND GOOD.
297
that intoxicating drinks are the product of that unclean substance
called leaven, and that they have their origin from hell; and that
when taken into the stomach they tend to excite and pervert man's
passions in the direction of hell; and that their use is evil, and
that continually; for all experience, extending over thousands of
years, shows that their use very seriously endangers man's free-
dom, reason, health, and even life; and that no possible good
results from their use by men in health. That there is no necessity
for their use is manifest by the experience of more than one-half
of the people of the United States (including women), and the
people of Mohammedan countries generally, who do not use them.
Now, cannot our brethren of the
in view of all
this, comprehend that it is barely possible that those who shun the
use of intoxicating drinks, totally, do so because they honestly
believe that for them to use such drinks is a violation of the divine
commandments, and consequently a sin against God; they having
no right to thus needlessly encounter such risks? Abundant
experience shows that those who have the most assurance that they
can continue to drink moderately and without running into excess,
are often the first to become drunkards, as in the case of the
young man mentioned on page 29.
(
>
""
If the ::
prohibition and total abstinence movements are a
craze," they are a craze descending from the Lord through
the New Heavens; enlightening the minds and moving the hearts
of good, earnest Christian men and women, from love of the Lord
and the neighbor, to do what they can to rescue their fellow-men
from the life which leads so many to drunkenness, and to preserve
the young from unnecessary temptation; while they instruct and
enlighten them as to the "pernicious" character of intoxicating
drinks, and the danger which results from their use. Is self-
murder no crime, or evil, if you please? Is it a "craze" to strive
to teach and lead the young, by precept and example, to shun the
use of intoxicating wine, beer, whisky, etc., when we know from
carefully collected statistics that the use of these poisons will
shorten the average duration of their lives nearly or quite one-
third of the period which they would live if they were to totally
abstain from them?-to say nothing of the drunkenness, insanity
and misery which follow their use.
A "
craze," indeed, to strive
to suppress the grog-shops upon our street corners, for the sake of
preserving the young and our neighbors from being tempted to
their death! Please read the following, gentle reader, and judge
298 STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH, PROHIB. CRAZE.
whether the "craze" lies with the prohibitionists and teachers of
total abstinence, or with the editors of the
(( SIGNIFICANT STATISTICS.
"Mr. Nelson, the most distinguished of English actuaries, after
long and careful investigations and comparisons, ascertained by
actual experience the following astounding facts:
"Between the ages of fifteen and twenty, where ten total ab-
stainers die, eighteen moderate drinkers die.
"Between the ages of twenty and thirty, where ten total ab-
stainers die, thirty-one moderate drinkers die.
"Between the ages of thirty and forty, where ten total ab-
stainers die, forty moderate drinkers die.
Or, expressing the fact in another form, he says:
‘A total abstainer twenty years old has the chance of living
forty-four years longer, or until sixty-four years old.
"A moderate drinker has the chance of living fifteen and one-
half years longer, or until thirty-five and one-half years old.
"A total abstainer thirty years old has the chance of living
thirty-six and one-half years longer, or until sixty-six and one-
half years old.
“A moderate drinker thirty years old has the chance of living
thirteen and one-half years longer, or until forty-three and three-
fourths years old.
"A total abstainer forty years old has the chance of living
twenty-eight and one-fourth years longer, or until sixty-eight and
one-half years old.
"A moderate drinker forty years old has the chance of living
eleven and two-thirds years longer, or until fifty-one and one-half
years old.”—New York Witness.
After making quotations from Swedenborg's writings, showing
that men and spirits are restrained by external and selfish motives
from sinking into lower states of life, the editor of the
continues :
'From the above it is evident that in this age, when the Christian
Church has come to its end, and internal and spiritual truths no longer
form the conscience, and hold the lives of the people in order, there is a
class who, if not restrained by external bonds, fear of the loss of reputa-
tion, and the like, would become the vilest of the vile. And that some of
these, because not under the guidance and control of internal and spiritual
principles, by which they would be preserved froin excess and abuse, can-
PROHIBITIONISTS ARE LABORING FOR OTHERS. 299
not safely use such drinks as correspond to things spiritual, but must, if
they would be saved from becoming so vile, abstain from their use, and
drink water only.
"But because there is a class who are of such mental and physical
quality that they cannot use spirituous drinks without abusing them, and
becoming so debased, it does not follow that those in different and better
conditions cannot. *
*
"In other words, an intemperate man may determine for himself to
abstain from all spirituous liquors, but he does wrong when he attempts to
control others, and to force them to abstain from drinking, even though
they are temperate in their use of food and drink."
We ask the intelligent reader if such language, when applied
to total abstainers, is either charitable or true? The total ab-
stainers and advocates of prohibition are not drinking men. They
are safe enough, but they are laboring to rescue the drinkers who
are not conscious of their danger, and to prevent the young from
becoming drinkers. Who is to judge whether a man is under the
restraint of "external bonds, or under the guidance and con-
trol of internal and spiritual principles," when he abstains from
the use of intoxicating drinks? Men and women do not become
the "vilest of the vile" by eating good, wholesome food, and by
drinking good health-giving drinks which "correspond to things
spiritual;" but by drinking poisonous drinks, the product of
leaven, which correspond to falses from evil, such as fermented
wine, whisky and punch. No living man can use such drinks
with any reasonable assurance that he will not become a drunkard ;
or at least be seriously injured by them, as all experience shows.
We know very well that the "doctrines of the New Christianity"
are no protection against drunkenness if they are not so far heeded
as to prevent men from drinking intoxicating drinks; as many a
wife, father, daughter, son and brother have learned and are
now learnng to their sorrow.
Why misrepresent the views or misjudge the motives of pro-
hibitionists ? It surely is well known that they have never at-
tempted to control others, or to force them to abstain from drink-
ing. They have simply endeavored to prevent the manufacture
and sale of intoxicating drinks. You may drink what you please,
only you must not manufacture and sell to others; that is all.
The great trouble with the
as the reader will
see from the above quotation, is that it seems to have mistaken
hell and its delights, for Heaven and its delights. Intoxicating
drinks are among the poisonous substances which Swedenborg, in
300 STRONG DRINK, VINEGAR, PUNCH, PROHIB. CRAZE.
: the "Divine Love and Wisdom," tells us have their origin from hell.
They are the product of leaven or ferment which Swedenborg tells
us has an evil correspondence, and we know by every day's observa-
tion that their effects on man when he drinks them are evil. Is it
right for man to imbibe and appropriate, moderately, falses and
evils, or should he totally abstain? We have asked this question
before, and should be very happy to see an answer by some of our
Christian brethren.
But the discouragement of efforts for the spread of total
abstinence ideas, and censure for those who make any attempt
to further the "prohibition craze," are not the worst that the
friends of temperance have to endure in the utterances of some
of our religious papers. Much worse than these are the words
of direct commendation of the use of intoxicating drink as not
only permissible in a social gathering, but desirable in the
highest degree, and necessary if the party is to be a brilliant
and entertaining one. If any proof were needed that there
should be an earnest effort to arouse the religious conscience
to a sense of duty in this matter, it is furnished in such words as
these, which we quote from a religious paper :
In view of the fact that many wine-merchants and distillers, partici-
pating in the greedy desire for gain, adulterate their productions, it be-
comes necessary to be careful in selecting liquors for consumption, as well
as for experimentation.
"Much of the whisky which is sold as pure, contains amylic alcohol,
the fusel oil, which is acrid, offensive, and highly injurious to the system.
"Of the various articles now in the market, we may make a judicious
selection, depending not only upon our taste, but also upon the respective
liquors.
Ideas flow more freely, the senses are more acute. As the ambrosial
odor of wine greets the nostrils, the affections are vivified, and thus is
formed a social sphere which transforms a listless company into a chatty,
brilliant, and entertaining party. Rudeness and incivility give place to
æsthetic refinement, and charity finds one of its most delightful recrea-
tions."
Can the reader believe that all this is not contrary in every re-
spect to what is taught in the Word of the Lord and the Writings
of the Church? Every observing man understands fully that the
state of excitement named above is but the first stage of drunken-
ness, and that violence and woe lie but one very short step be-
yond, and all experience shows that this step is sure to be taken
by many who progress thus far.
PUNCH PERMITTED AS A MEDICINE.
301
If Swedenborg felt that alcoholic drinks were really so good
and useful in our social life as the editors in the above quotation
represent, could he have declared that it would be better for his
country's morality and welfare that whisky should be done away
with altogether? Is it reasonable to suppose that his views were
in harmony with those of the above editors? Judge ye.
We have no passage in Swedenborg's writings where he speaks
of "liquor as an admitted beverage," excepting the one already
noticed in his "Spiritual Diary," in the allusion to punch, in his
conversation with the spirits in the spiritual London.
At the time when Swedenborg wrote, when it was generally
thought to be right to drink alcoholic drinks "temperately," and
even at this day, among those who so think, it is not strange that
-spirits should give punch to such new-comers as had been strongly
addicted to the use of intoxicants on earth, and were also in their new
sphere “industrious and sincere ;" that is, to such as were indus-
triously and sincerely striving to put away this evil-to lessen or
prevent the fearful sufferings which frequently result here, and un-
doubtedly do there when the use of intoxicating drinks are suddenly
discontinued; for it is no more than the physician does here, nor
more than the writer has sometimes done for patients who were
hard drinkers, to prevent delirium tremens. It was not given to
the evil, because there would, in that world, be no object in saving
them from the suffering, for they could only be deterred from the
further use of intoxicants by suffering the legitimate consequences
of their transgressions. It is not for a moment to be supposed
that every man who drinks intoxicating drinks is an evil man;
and we trust that many of such, and even some who have been
hard drinkers, especially where the inclination to drink is hered-
itary, when they get into the spiritual world will be led into
heaven; though their guides may think it best to give some of
the latter class an occasional glass of punch, to alleviate their suf-
fering. But that any intelligent Christian should bring such a
passage from Swedenborg's "Spiritual Diary" to justify himself,
and encourage others in drinking whisky, fermented wine, and other
intoxicating drinks which have destroyed so many of our fellow-
men, body and soul, and which Swedenborg assured us in his day,
threatened the downfall of the Swedish people, and from which,
as to fermented wine, a distinguished French writer expresses the
same fears for the French people, is perfectly astonishing! Surely,
wonders will never cease!
CHAPTER XIII.
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL DRUNKENNESS-DRUNKENNES
OF NOAH-DRUNKENNESS IN VINE-GROWING AND BEER-
DRINKING COUNTRIES.
ALCOHOL, which is the product of fermentation, is the cause of
natural drunkenness. Alcohol is never found in the juice of grapes,
apples or other vegetables as it is pressed from sound healthy fruits
and vegetables, nor in barley, wheat, or other grains. All of the
above good, useful and healthy articles of food must be decomposed
and perverted by leaven before alcohol is found.
Swedenborg tells us that "The reason why what is unleavened
signifies what is purified, is because leaven signifies what is false
derived from evil; hence, what is unleavened signifies what is
pure, or without that false principle. The reason why leaven
signifies what is false derived from evil is, because this false
principle defiles good and also truth, likewise because it excites
combat, for on the approach of that false principle to good, heat
is produced, and as it approaches to truth it excites collision."-
Arcana Calestia, 9992.
This is precisely what follows when leaven approaches new
wine; however transparent, beautiful and clear the wine may be,
it soon becomes warm, thick and muddy, or defiled.
Here you
have natural results, which are like the spiritual results. In the
one instance, good and truth are defiled; in the other, natural
substances, which correspond to good and truth, are defiled. Can
anything be clearer than this? The Word of the Lord, illuminated
by the Writings of the Church, leaves us no possibility of doubt
as to the true character of intoxicating wine; and that it has its
origin from hell is beyond question. Swedenborg says:
The cup
of the wine of anger denotes the false which gives birth to evil.
The reason why the false which gives birth to evil is signified is,
because as wine intoxicates and makes insane, so does the false;
spiritual intoxication being nothing but insanity induced by rea-
sonings concerning what is to be believed, when nothing is believed
which is not comprehended; hence come falses, and from falses
RELATION OF WINE TO BLOOD,
303
evils" (Arcana Calestia, 5120). It is clear from the above that
the causes of natural intoxication correspond to the causes of
spiritual intoxication.
"Without going into the different theories of the causes of the
changes occurring in the process of vinous fermentation, there is
very strong evidence that in all cases living organisms are present.
Yeast, when examined under the microscope, is seen to be made
up of organized cells, or globules, which are either vegetable or
animal. When these living organisms are added to grape-juice,
or an infusion of malt, fermentation begins. The yeast cells in-
crease in number, and go through various changes, and the result
of their life-action is the conversion of sugar into alcohol and
carbonic acid. The idea that yeast was an organized living plant,
was strongly opposed by both Berzelius and Liebig, but by the
microscope they were convinced both of the organization and
vitality. Vinous fermentation proceeds best at a temperature
ranging from 60° to 80° F. The process itself causes the develop-
ment of heat, and confirms the organic theory, which is, that the
yeast cells, or ferment, feed upon the vegetable substances, multi-
ply, evolve heat, and give off as excretions alcohol and carbonic
acid. According to every theory, fermentation is the process by
which the food of man is destroyed and alcohol produced."-Alco-
hol and Science- Wm. Hargreaves, M.D.
Now, what relation has fermented wine, polluted as it always is
with the poisonous and vile products of leaven, such as alcohol,
glycerine, vinegar and other acids, etc., which result from the
action of ferment-with the sugar, corresponding to spiritual
delights, often entirely gone-with the albumen and gluten which
nourish the brain and muscles to a great extent cast out-with the
other organized substances that enter into the bones and structures,
all either destroyed, cast down as dregs, or polluted by the poisonous
products of leaven-what relation has such a wine as this to blood?
And how can our opponents seriously maintain that we must use
this polluted thing, vile in itself and evil in its effects, as a repre-
sentative of the blood of our Lord? Only think, dear reader, of
using such a wine in the most holy ordinance of the Lord's Supper,
instead of the pure, unpolluted juice of the grape, the real fruit
and product of the vine!
That natural drunkenness corresponds to spiritual drunkenness
is clearly taught by Swedenborg both directly and indirectly, and
by correspondences, as in the following passages, viz.:
304
DRUNKENNESS-NOAH'S DRUNKENNESS.
"To be intoxicated from the cup is to be insane from falses."
-A. C. 5120, 9960.
So in the "Apocalypse Revealed we read:
"To be made drunk with the wine of whoredom signifies to
become insane in spiritual things from the falsification of the
truths of the Word; here from the adulteration of them.”—A. R.
721; see also A. E. 1035, 376.
'Drunkenness," Swedenborg says (A. R. 721), "signifies in-
sanity in spiritual things from the adulteration of the Word.”
Such being the origin of spiritual drunkenness, it is evident that
natural drunkenness can never result from pure unadulterated
wine, since the latter corresponds to spiritual truth, which may be
profaned, but which does not of itself cause spiritual drunkenness.
"Inebriation," says Swedenborg, signifies truth falsified"
(A. E. 1035), not an excess of truths, not perverted nor falsified,
as the argument of opponents intimates. The reader will, please
bear this in mind.
(6
Now, if natural drunkenness corresponds to spiritual drunken-
ness, as it unquestionably does, is it not absolutely certain that
the cause of natural drunkenness must correspond to the cause of
spiritual drunkenness? Is it not a universal law that like effects
from like causes flow? "Delirium in truths by falses is spiritual
inebriation," "And they who falsify the Word are spiritually in-
ebriated."-A. E. 887.
"That to be drunk signifies to be insane in spiritual things
from the falses of evil."-Swedenborg's Index to the A. E.
A zealous advocate for the use of fermented wine says:
"But nowhere do we find a statement that if we imbibe more truths
than we are ready to apply to the various uses of life, we are spiritual
'drunkards.'
'Surely he cannot be called intemperate who stores his memory with
more truths than he is ready to apply, else all school-children would be
spiritual drunkards. Man becomes a spiritual drunkard only when, from
self-intelligence, he argues about truths, and especially if against them.
"The more truths a man acquires the better, that his rational princi-
ple may thence be formed, and that these truths may serve in his memory
as vessels to receive faith and charity.
"For we read:
"That faith is perfected in proportion to the number and coherence of
truths. Now, since faith in its essence is truth, it follows that faith
becomes more and more perfectly spiritual in proportion to the number and
coherence of truths, and consequently less and less sensual-natural; for it
SPIRITUAL AND NATURAL DRUNKENNESS.
305
is thus exalted into a higher region of the mind, from whence it views
below it in the natural world numberless circumstances and proofs that tend
to confirm it. True faith, by means of such a number of truths cohering,
as in a fascicle or bundle, becomes also more illustrated, more perceptible,
more evident, and more clear; it acquires, also, a greater capacity of being
conjoined with the goods of charity, and hence of being in a state of
greater alienation from evils; and it becomes by degrees more and more
removed from the allurements of the eye and the lusts of the flesh, and
consequently is rendered happier in itself; it becomes particularly more
powerful against evils and falses, and thence more and more a living and a
saving faith.'"-T. C. R., 352.
If, then, the imbibing of spiritual truths never causes spiritual
drunkenness, as is so clearly proven, and admitted even by our
opponents above, how certain it is that the drinking of natural
fluids which legitimately correspond to spiritual truths, can never
cause natural drunkenness. In other words, as fermented wine
and whisky do cause natural drunkenness, it is perfectly clear and
as certain as correspondences are true, that these fluids do not
correspond to genuine spiritual truths which never cause spiritual
drunkenness.
Can anything be clearer than that such wine and strong drink
as cause natural drunkenness, correspond to falses from evil, which
cause the spiritual inebriation or insanity to which natural drunk-
enness corresponds?
There is but one substance in nature that causes natural drunk-
enness, and that is alcohol wherever found, be it in whisky, fer-
mented wine or beer; it therefore corresponds to the falsification
of the Word from evil.
The advocates for total abstinence from intoxicating drinks, and
for their banishment from the Lord's table in the Christian Church,
might rest their case here, and it could never be overthrown.
If drinking intoxicating liquors did not endanger, harm and
kill men, then, if there were any use for them in the human body,
we might use them; but if their use, as all experience in endless
amount shows, does endanger, harm and kill, then, does not the
use of them violate the command, “Thou shalt not kill"? For
we surely have no right either directly to take our own lives, or to
enter unnecessarily upon a course of conduct, which the experience
of mankind for thousands of years has demonstrated will lead
more or less of those who follow it to drunkenness and death.
"I have spoken," says Swedenborg, "with spirits respecting
drunkenness, and it was declared by them to be an enormous sin,
306
DRUNKENNESS-NOAH'S DRUNKENNESS.
for a man thereby becomes a brute, and is no longer a man,
because a man is a man by virtue of his intellectual faculty, which,
when destroyed, he becomes a brute. Moreover, by drunkenness
he brings destruction upon his body and hastens his death;
besides which, he destroys in luxury what would be of use to
others. Wherefore drunkenness appears so filthy to spirits, that
they abhor such a life, which, nevertheless, mortals [in this age]
have permitted among themselves as belonging to civil life.'
Spiritual Diary, n. 2422.
So far as drunkenness is concerned, with all its attendant evils,
we know that the Lord in His providence has placed before the
men of this age a path of absolute safety, which is: "Total absti-
nence from all intoxicating drinks." Shall we walk in it? The
recorded experience of mankind for more than three thousand
years, has demonstrated, beyond controversy, that there is no
safety for any man or woman who uses, as a beverage, fermented
wine, beer or cider, or any other liquid containing alcohol. God's
laws, so clearly manifested in the history of our race and in our
physical and spiritual organizations, cannot be violated with im-
punity, as all experience shows-as clearly to-day as three thou-
sand years ago.
In regard to permitted and hereditary evils, Swedenborg says:
"It is well known that a man is in full liberty to think and will,
but not in full liberty to speak and act whatever he thinks and
wills. * *
"That love of evil which does not appear is like an enemy lying
in wait, or like corrupted matter in an ulcer, poison in the blood,
and rottenness in the breast, which, if kept inclosed, will produce
death. But when man is permitted to think upon the evils of his
life's love, so far even as to intend them, they are cured by spir-
itual means, as diseases are by natural means."-Divine Provi-
dence, 281.
(6
In regard to hereditary evils, we are told, that to prevent man's
losing the two faculties of liberty and rationality, and thus becom-
ing insane even until he would not have sense enough to cover his
nakedness; 'He is permitted to think and will his hereditary
evils, but not to speak and do them. In the meantime he learns
things civil, moral and spiritual, which also enter into his thoughts,
and remove these insanities; and thereby he is healed by the Lord;
but yet no further than to know how to keep the door shut, unless
he also acknowledges a God, and implores His assistance, that he
may be able to resist the above evils; and so far as he then resists,
WHERE LIES THE SIN OF DRUNKENNESS.
307
he does not admit them into his intentions, and at length, not
even into his thoughts.-D. P. 281.
"The reason why a man is permitted to think evils, even so
far as to intend them, is, as was observed, that they may be re-
moved by considerations of a civil, moral and spiritual nature; as
is the case when he thinks that they are contrary to justice and
equity, to honesty and decency, and to goodness and truth, thereby
contrary to the tranquillity, pleasure, and happiness of life. By
these three considerations the Lord heals the love of man's will;
and at first, indeed, by fear, afterwards by love.-D. P. 283.
The editor of a religious periodical says:
"Drunkenness is a sin; and sins are to be shunned because they are
from the devil. The sin of drunkenness, like all sins, lies in the individual,
and not in the 'poison,' the 'manufacturer' or the 'rum-seller.' When
this truth-and it is certainly plain enough-is recognized, then will New-
Church total abstinence societies be abandoned, and men will no more think
of wearing a blue ribbon, as a token to the world that they have resolved
to abstain from the sin of drunkenness, than they now think of wearing a
red ribbon to signify that they have determined not to lie or steal.”
"The sin of drunkenness, like all sins, lies in the individual,”
and in his voluntarily and unnecessarily drinking from the drunk-
ard's cup, knowing that it is harmful and dangerous to do so, and
that without drinking from it he can never become a drunkard.
The poison is harmless so long as he lets it alone, and so are the
manufacturers and the rum-sellers so long as men do not patronize
them; but when the one manufactures and the other sells, know-
ing that men will certainly drink of their beverages, and that vast
multitudes of those who drink will become drunkards, they become
partakers in the sin of drunkenness.
We will simply intimate to the editor from whom we have just
quoted, that temperance advocates do not resolve to abstain from
the sin of drunkenness, but from the sin of drinking from the
drunkard's cup.
The drunkard's cup or intoxicants should be shunned totally,
because we are clearly taught in the Writings that they have their
origin from hell; and we well know, by their effects on man when
he drinks them, that they are from the devil, for they lead men
into all forms of evil.
The New Christianity, when it appears in its glory on thẹ
earth, will be one vast Total Abstinence Society, striving faithfully
308
DRUNKENNESS-NOAH'S DRUNKENNESS.
to shun all evils as sins against God. The good work has already
commenced.
The late Mr. T. S. Arthur, in a communication to the writer,
said: "Things that hurt a man in body as well as soul cannot
have their origin in heaven. They are from hell, and to indulge
in their use is an evil, and therefore a sin against God. There is
no single substance, the common use of which has wrought such
direful results to mind and body as alcohol. It is never good in
its effects upon the human organism, whether considered as
natural or spiritual, but always evil.”
The
The writer most fully agrees with one of the correspondents
of one of our religious papers that: "If we assume to be teachers
we ought to realize how important it is to know what is taught
before we undertake to teach it." And especially is this true,
when such dire consequences are liable-yes, almost certain-to
follow the teaching of falsities, as in the instance before us.
experience of thousands of years, and the undisputed observation
of to-day, show conclusively that of those who commence using
fermented wine and beer, and allow themselves to continue their
use, no inconsiderable number will inevitably become drunkards;
for, as we have seen in the first part of this work, it is in accord-
ance with well established physiological and spiritual laws, that
they should become drunkards. Alcohol is no respecter of per-
sons or classes; the professed Christian and the skeptic, the rich
and the poor, the intelligent and the ignorant, the physician, the
lawyer, and even the clergymen of the prevailing churches, alike
are found among its victims.
What parent having twelve children, fully realizing the signifi-
cant fact, which is sustained by statistics, that at least one-twelfth
of those who use intoxicating drinks at all, become drunkards,
and that a much larger proportion who do not reach this reputa-
tion, are very seriously injured in bodily and mental health, and
become moody and unhappy, would dare to set an example of
drinking fermented wine or beer to his children, with the moral
certainty clearly in mind, that, if they follow his example, as he
has a right to expect they will, one of them at least will become a
drunkard?
As in the regeneration of the individual man, so with commu-
nities of men, one by one must the evils which afflict humanity be
seen, resisted, and put away. Human slavery was seen to be an
evil, and it has been resisted and overthrown, but only after a
fearful struggle. The drinking of intoxicating drinks is beginning
TESTIMONY OF DR. WM. B. CARPENTER.
309
to be generally seen to be an evil; and that it often reduces men
to a slavery worse than African slavery is beyond question. The
great battle with intemperance and the saloon is upon us, and is
yet to be fought to a successful issue. A war against tobacco must
follow. Then when the great mass of voters become free from the
domination of the saloon, votes will count in this free country, and
our monopolies will be restrained within due limits, and the rights
of the poor as well as of the rich will be respected.
To talk about temperately using poisonous substances like fer-
mented and distilled liquors, opium or tobacco,-substances which
have no legitimate use in the healthy human body, and only enter
it to pervert, disease and destroy it—is to misuse language. We
might as well talk of temperate stealing, lying, or bearing of false
witness; for not more surely do these latter violations pervert
man's spiritual organization than do the former his physical
organization. Even that old so-called "heathen philosopher,
Aristotle, declared that temperance consisted in the moderate use
of things lawful and useful, and in total abstinence from things
injurious.
>>
It is beyond question that alcohol wherever found, be it in either
fermented wine, beer or distilled liquors, in its effects on man, has
proved itself by far the most fearful and deadly poison known to
As a poison polluting and diseasing both body and mind,
it stands unparalleled.
man.
TESTIMONY OF DR. WM. B. CARPENTER.
Dr. Carpenter, of England, author of "Principles of Human
Physiology,' ""Mental Physiology," etc., who stands at the very
head of the physiologists of the world, during a visit to this
country, in a lecture delivered in Boston, Dec. 3, 1882, on "The
Physiology of Alcoholics," says:
"No one who is familiar with the action of poisons upon the
living animal body, and has made the nature of that action a sub-
ject of special study, has the smallest hesitation in saying that
alcohol is a poison. There are any number of well-attested results
of its experimental administration to animals, by which it is shown
to have every character of a poison. Yet it may be thought by
many of you, that if it is a poison its action is very, very slow
when taken in small, continued, repeated doses. I admit that
freely. It is a very, very slow poison in the great majority of
instances; but I do not regard its action as any less sure because
310
DRUNKENNESS-NOAH'S DRUNKENNESS.
it is slow. The very large experience of our life insurance com-
panies, of our benefit societies-I think you have similar institu-
tions in this country, a sort of mutual insurance of working-men,
for maintenance during sickness-the experience of all these is
entirely in this direction, that life is shortened, disease induced,
and the power of resisting disease very seriously impaired by
habitual indulgence in alcoholic liquors.
“Now, it is the result of many observations that the introduc-
tion of alcohol specially deranges the vaso-motor system; this
derangement showing itself alike in disturbance of the heart's
action, and in relaxation of the capillary vessels, which become
filled with blood, especially in the nervous system and in the skin.
This causes one to feel that warmth and exhilaration which is the
first effect of the introduction of these disturbing agencies, and
which are appealed to as evidence that drink does us good. Well,
what are the facts? The fresh glow is simply the result of relaxa-
tion of the capillary vessels of the skin, allowing a larger quantity
of blood to come to the surface, so as to give the feeling of super-
ficial warmth. But if a larger amount of blood comes to the
surface, it robs the parts within; and the feeling of genial
warmth gives way to a general depression, especially when we are
exposed to severe cold. The temporary exhilaration of the nervous
system, too, is followed by a corresponding depression. Hence a
person feels 'sick and sorry' the next morning, after taking alco-
holic stimulant.
Now, it is certain that the addition of alcohol in any appre-
ciable quantity, diminishes the solvent power of the gastric fluid,
so as to interfere with the process of digestion, instead of aiding it.
The only possible way in which the alcoholic fluid can improve
digestion, is by a temporary increase in the quantity of fluid
secreted by the action which (as I shall presently describe to you)
alcohol has on the circulation. Any increase in a healthy body is
always, I believe, followed by a subsequent diminution; and so
we do not gain anything in the end. But that alcohol interferes
with the process of digestion, may be said to be a well-ascertained
fact.
"That the taking of alcoholic stimulants is in any way useful as
keeping up the heat of the body, may now be considered as a myth
altogether exploded.
"The increase in the secretion of gastric juice, of which I have
spoken as an effect of the introduction of alcoholic liquors into
the stomach, is an ABNORMAL action, dependent upon the relaxation
TESTIMONY OF DR. WM. B. CARPENTER.
311
of the capillaries of the gastric glandulæ. Why should a healthy
man desire to increase it? His stomach secretes enough to digest
the food he needs; why should he provoke it to do what is not
required for digestive action? We do this at the expense of sub-
sequent loss.
We lose afterward all that we seem to gain.
<
"The mode in which the habitual 'moderate' use of alcoholics
exerts its injurious effects, I believe to be by obstructing the
removal of the effete matter of the tissues; so that they tend, in
advancing life, to become the subjects of fatty degeneration.'
This is especially the case in the heart, liver, kidneys and walls of
the arteries; and the foundation is thus laid of a variety of diseases
that are well known to be those specially of advanced life.'
"Now there can be no doubt that the habitual use of alcoholics
tends so to modify the nutrition of the nervous substance, as to
shape it (so to speak) into an accordance with itself; and this will
be especially the case during that earlier period of life in which
the bodily constitution (and with it, in great degree, the mental)
is being fixed and rendered permanent. A habit of dependence
upon alcoholic stimulants thus grows up, which may rise into an
irrepressible craving.
"Any one of the young persons I now address may say, 'I am
in no danger of becoming the victim of such a propensity.' But
I can assure you, as one who has looked upon this matter both
scientifically and practically for something like half a century,
that no one who has not had like experience can have an idea of
the enslaving power which this habit may acquire in virtue of its
physical effect upon the nutrition of the nervous system, no less
than on its specific power of weakening the will and exciting the
passions. Every time the temptation is yielded to, is so much 'to
the bad' in both these ways; so that the recovery of healthful
self-control becomes more and more difficult. There is no rule in
regard to alcoholic indulgence that it is so safe to observe, as the
old one, Obsta principiis-oppose the beginnings; for there is no
saying what the ending may be.
"And there is one more consideration which I would specially
urge upon you. The physical deterioration produced by alcoholic
indulgence in the nervous system is one which has a peculiar
tendency to hereditary transmission; insanity, idiocy, instability
of mind, weakness of will, and especially the craving for alco-
holics, presenting themselves so much more frequently in the
offspring of the habitually intemperate than in those of habitual
water-drinkers, that there cannot be any reasonable doubt that the
312
DRUNKENNESS-NOAH'S DRUNKENNESS.
sins of the fathers (or mothers) are here most fearfully visited on
the children."
NOAH'S DRUNKENNESS.
As to Noah's drunkenness, the Writings tell us :
"His drinking of the wine denotes his desire to search into
the doctrines of faith, as is proved by the signification of wine. A
vineyard, or a vine, as has been shown, represents the spiritual
church, or the man of that church; and a grape, and bunches, and
clusters of grapes are the fruits thereof, and signify charity and
what appertains to it. Now, wine denotes the faith thence de-
rived, and all that belongs to it; and thus the grape is the celestial
principle of that church, and wine its spiritual principle; the
former, as has been often previously observed, having relation to
the will, and the latter to the understanding. That his drinking
of the wine signifies his desire to search into the tenets of faith,
and this, by reasonings, is evident from the fact of his being
drunken-that is, falling into errors."-Arcana Calestia, 1071.
(
""
The reader will please bear in mind that Noah planted a vine-
yard, and he drank of the wine from that vineyard, the vineyard
of his own planting; and his doing this, Swedenborg tells us,
signifies his desire to search into the tenets of faith, and this by
reasonings; and the result was drunkenness or falling into
errors. The editors of a religious serial tell us that "the fact that
this is not real but correspondential history does not in the least
affect the argument." Now, we will ask the reader if good nat-
ural wine, which has a good signification, corresponds to such
desires and false reasonings as caused Noah's drunkenness? We
know that it docs not; for Swedenborg gives us, in the very para-
graph above from the Arcana Calestia, most beautifully the true
signification of the vine, grape and wine. "The grape is the
celestial principle of that Church; and the wine its spiritual
principle." The grape, we see, was pure and not fermented, and
the same was true of the wine; both were as the Lord made them ;
whereas, fermented wine, like the wine which Noah drank, is
strictly man-made, or the result of human skill and ingenuity
aided by leaven; and in a warm climate it requires no little skill
to properly forment and preserve fermented wine, and prevent it
from changing into vinegar. Noah's drunkenness, the reader will
bear in mind, was not caused by an abuse or excess of good wine,
or of truth and true reasonings, any more than natural drunken-
noss can be caused by unfermented wine, which we know is im-
NOAH'S DRUNKENNESS.
313
possible. In the light of correspondences and the spiritual sense
of the Word, have we not here, in the very first chapter of the
Word where wine and drunkenness are mentioned, positive
evidence that there are two kinds of natural wine; one which will
not cause drunkenness and another which will-clearly described ?
The good wine we find associated with corn and oil, and as being
one of the greatest blessings, and we can with no more propriety
assume that such passages mean fermented wine, than we can that
corn means whisky, and oil rancid oil. As we have shown else-
where, the word wine is admitted by our able scholars to be a
generic word including all kinds of wine. Even in Nehemiah v.
18, we have the phrase, "all sorts of wine" (yayin).
Again we are told by Swedenborg that "the wine which Noahı
drank, and with which he was made drunken, denotes the false
principle with which that Church in the beginning was imbued."
And again he tells us that "the wine with which Noah was made
drunken signifies what is false."-Arcana Cœlestia, 9960.
"Columella, Pliny, Varro, Cato, and others [ancient writers]
give recipes for making sweet wine, as they knew it, without intox-
icating qualities, remaining so for years. Of wine the first-named
writer says: 'Many of the wines of the present day will cause
diseases of the stomach, such as dyspepsia, dysentery, and other
kindred complaints; while wine that is made by taking the freshest
of the "must," putting it in a new amphora, freshly daubed and
pitched, and sinking it in a pond of water, keeping it there for
sixty days, will cure the disease of a disordered stomach.
'
"As I have already shown, wine' thus made would be unfer-
mented, and would remain so. As Columella wrote the work on
'Agriculture,' from which the above extract is made, about twenty
years before St. Paul wrote his Epistle to Timothy, in which he
advised him to take a little wine for his stomach's sake and for
his often infirmities,' it is a very reasonable assumption that St.
Paul, thoroughly versed in the literature and science of the day,
knew a little more about wine than those people do to-day who
take this passage to excuse themselves in drinking a more or less
fiery intoxicant, which may not contain one drop of grape-juice,
to recommend the use of such so-called 'wine' to others, and to
condemn as 'perverters of Scripture' thousands of men and women
whose one desire is to glorify God, and to reverently 'read, mark,
learn and inwardly digest His Holy Word.'"-Rev. W. J. Taylor,
in Dominion Church of England Journal.
314 DRUNKENNESS IN WINE AND BEER COUNTRIES.
DRUNKENNESS IN WINE-GROWING and bEER-CONSUMING COUNTRIES.
If we look back upon the history of the world, from the days
of Noah down to the present time, we find that drunkenness has
been one of the most fearful and destructive of the evils which
have afflicted our race. Before the sixth century alcohol, brandy,
whisky, and all distilled liquors, were unknown in Bible lands;
consequently all the drunkenness described by ancient authors,
and so severely denounced in the Bible, was from the drinking of
fermented liquids, and generally of wine. No further reply than
this would seem to be necessary to show the utter absurdity of
recommending the use of wine instead of distilled liquors, with
the expectation of materially modifying the evils of drunkenness.
The truth is, that with the exception of the very lowest class of
society, the present 1inking habits are generally formed by the
use of wine and beer; and if we can only stop the use of these
fluids we shall have less drunkenness; for distilled liquors are so
repugnant to the unperverted taste, that there will be less danger
of drunkenness than now.
Wo take from the Rev. Dr. Samson's work, "The Divine Law
as to Wines," the following statements: "It has been so fre-
quently claimed that if, instead of preaching total abstinence from
all intoxicating drinks, we would recommend the use of wine and
beer instead of distilled liquors, we should do more good than by
advocating total abstinence. Here the work of Honorable Robert
C. Pitman, LL.D., Associate Justice of the Superior Court of
Massachusetts, just issued, and entitled 'The Problem of Law as
to the Liquor Traffic,' comes in with its special testimony. While
most of the volume is devoted to the evils of distilled intoxicants,
the 19th chapter, entitled the 'Milder Alcoholics,' brings out an
array of testimony by careful observers quito unlike that of casual
tourists in Europe. Of these gathered testimonies, the following
are specimens: In 1872, the French Government appointed a com-
mitteo to report on the national vico of wine-drinking. In tho
report of their Secretary, they say, after citing the fearful demor-
alization produced by wine before, during, and after the war
with Prussia: 'There is one point on which the French Assembly
thought and felt alike.
To restore France to her right
position, their moral and physical powers must be given back to
her people. * To combat a propensity, which has long
been regarded as venial, because it seemed to debase and corrupt
only the individual, but the prodigious extension of which has
* **
****
INTEMPERANCE IN FRANCE.
315
resulted in a menace to society at large, and in the temporary
humiliation of the country, seemed incumbent on the men to
whom that country has entrusted the task of investigating, and
remedying its evils.' In Switzerland, Dr. Guillaume, of the Na-
tional Society for Penitentiary Reform, states, in 1872, that 'the
liberty of the wine-traffic, and intoxication therefrom, is the source
of fifty per cent. of the crimes committed.'
"In Italy, Cardinal Acton, late Supreme Judge at Rome, has
stated that nearly all the crimes at Rome 'originate in the use of
wine.' Recorder Hill, appointed to gather facts abroad, to in-
fluence British legislation, reported in 1858, 'Each of the gov-
ernors of state prisons in Baden and Bavaria, assured me that it
was wine in the one country, and beer in the other, which filled
their jails.' American legislation as to wines and beers is but
following modern as well as ancient experience; for all the dan-
gers attending the use of distilled liquors are linked to the use of
fermented wines."
"There is an impression," says the Rev. Dr. Fowler, "that
France is a temperate nation. Men ride through the country in
the better class of cars and see little of it, because the matchless
police remove the nuisance; but let them live there, and live with
the people, and they will change their minds. Listen to the wit-
nesses: Our author, J. Fennimore Cooper, says: 'I came to
Europe under the impression that there was more drunkenness
among us (Americans) than in any other country. A residence of
six months in Paris changed my views entirely. I have taken
unbelievers about Paris, and always convinced them in one walk.
I have been more struck by drunkenness in the streets of Paris
than in those of London.' Horace Greeley wrote from Paris :
'That wine will intoxicate, does intoxicate; that there are con-
firmed drunkards in Paris and throughout France is notorious
and undeniable.' M. LeClero says: Laborers leave their work,
derango their means, drink irregularly, and transform into drunken
debauch the time which should have been spent in profitable labor.'
A French magazino says: 'Drunkenness is the beginning and end
of life in the great French industrial centers. At Lille twenty-five
per cent, of the men and twelve per cent. of the women, are con-
firmed drunkards.
(
"The Count de Montalembert, member of the Academy of Na-
tional Sciences, said in the National Assembly of France: Where
thero is a wine-shop, there are the elements of disease, and the
frightful source of all that is at enmity with the interests of the
316 DRUNKENNESS IN WINE AND BEER COUNTRIES.
ness.
workman.' M. Jules Simon: 'Women rival the men in drunken-
At Lille, at Rouen, there are some so saturated with it that
their infants refuse to take the breast of a sober woman.' Hon.
James M. Usher, Chief Commissioner of Massachusetts to the
World's Exposition in Paris, in 1867, says: 'The drinking habit
runs through every phase of society. I have seen more people
drunk here than I ever saw in Boston for the same length of time.
They are the same class of people, too'. Hon. Caleb Foote, of
Salem, Mass., writing from Paris, after large investigations,
denies, in toto, the theory that the people of the wine-producing
countries are sober. Dr. E. N. Kirk, of Boston, says: 'I never
saw such systematic drunkenness as I saw in France during a
residence of sixteen months. The French go about it as a busi-
ness. I never saw so many women drunk.' Surely there is no
lack of testimony. Look at the other wine-growing countries.
"Rev. E. S. Lacy, of San Francisco, six months in Switzerland
in a wine-growing section, says: 'Here more intoxication was ob-
vious than in any other place it was ever my lot to live in.' Before
the Legislative License Committee of Massachusetts, Dr. Warren,
of the Boston Biblical School, seven years a resident in Germany,
says 'Drunkenness is very common: every evening drunken
people stagger by my house.' Rev. J. G. Cochran, missionary to
Persia, says of a wine-producing section: The whole village of
male adults will be habitually intoxicated for a month or six
weeks.' Rev. Mr. Larabee, another missionary to Persia, confirms
the statement. Even priests coolly excuse their own irregularities
by the plea of drunkenness.
Thirty-five or forty years ago England attempted to suppress
drunkenness by licensing ale and beer, yet she consumes more
alcohol per head now than then. The consumption of alcohol
has increased in the last fifty years one hundred and seventy-five
per cent.
"Turn to America. How fares it in California? The experi-
ment fails. A State Convention of the friends of Temperance, in
October, 1866, resolved against wine-growing. Conventions of
Congregational ministers and lay delegates, the same month,
reached the same result. They are fully convinced that the hope
of temperance, based on wine, is delusive. This case has been
tried till the State exceeds, perhaps, all others in corruption.
Commissioner Wells says: 'California, with her cheap wines for
temperance, in the year ending June 30, 1867, sold fourteen times
INTEMPERANCE IN SWITZERLAND.
317
per head as much alcoholic stuff as Maine did, and more than any
other State.'
"Dr. Holland, who, it will be remembered, some time ago
wrote a book recommending wine as a substitute for alcohol-
which book is yet quoted as an authority by those who advocate
this theory-has, since his late travels in the wine-growing coun-
tries of Europe, where he had an opportunity to extend his obser-
vations, declared that his former views were wrong; and that
wine-drinking is a great producer of drunkenness; and that if we
wish America to become a nation of drunkards, we should adopt
wine as our beverage.
"These are the facts concerning the wine-growing countries.
The idea of substituting wine for alcohol in the interest of Tem-
perance is absurd. I have protracted this part of the argument,
because the enemies of this law are seeking to have wine and beer
excepted from the law. But do it, and you kill the law; and this
is what they seek. Beware! If you make wine and beer abound,
drunkenness will much more abound.
((
Against this evil plan we can only thunder the facts that the
countries that manufacture and drink most wine are those that use
most distilled liquors, and have the largest per cent. of beastly
wife-beating and child-beating drunkenness. Husbands may tell
their ragged and pleading wives that they can stop; they guess
they know who drives. They can stop if they will; but the fact
remains. The hundred thousand drunkards that annually die were
all moderate drinkers before they settled down into 'old tubs.'
They all tippled a little before they guzzled. There is no disguising
the fact. Once drinking, there is no way out but to face about and
let it alone, or go through into hell."
DRINKING IN WINE-GROWING SWITZERLAND.
Mayor C. B. Cotton says: "Switzerland, the oldest Republic
in the world, and whose population is made up of the sturdiest
people among the human race, has in recent years become a victim
in an unusual degree to the curse of strong drink. The national
Legislature has found it necessary to adopt strenuous measures in
its efforts to arrest habits which have grown into an enormous
evil. The committee of that body charged with the duty of ad-
vising as to the most effective method of procedure, report that
the cheap brandies of France were the main cause of a recently
formed appetite, which was demoralizing the entire peasantry in
318 DRUNKENNESS IN WINE AND BEER COUNTRIES.
many parts of the country, and like a virulent cancer was eating
its way into every walk of society. Numerous cases were cited in
districts where the people have been noted for their industry and
thrift, but who, having now become addicted to the intemperate
use of strong drink, have given way to lazy, shiftless and besotted
habits, which have brought deplorable results in poverty and
ignorance, and have engendered violence and crime of a kind un-
known before. Scores upon scores of cases were mentioned in
which entire estates have been wrecked, leaving nothing but debt,
pauperism or flight for the children. Brandy as a beverage has
become so cominon as to displace tea and coffee. It was admitted
into Switzerland almost free of duty, and could be bought for a
few cents a bottle.
(
'The Commission recommended that a tariff be levied upon
the importation of brandy, high enough to prevent its sale in the
country. This is good as far as it goes. It is the first step
towards reformation through the channels of law. Like the
people of our own country, however, a part of the population are
agitating for a total Prohibition of the manufacture, importation
and sale as a beverage of all intoxicating drinks.
"The national drink of Switzerland seems to be in no wise
distinctive. The people drink their own native wine and its dis-
tilled product, the brandies of France and the gins of Holland.
The excess to which they go in drinking is well described in the
able papers of Dr. Guillaume, of the 'National Society of Reform,'
in which he says: 'In 1872 the liberty of the wine traffic was the
source of more than 60 per cent. of the crime committed.'
"Rev. E. S. Lacy, who spent some time in Switzerland, says:
"The people do nothing but work in the vineyards where wine is
cheap and pure, and far more the beverage of the laboring classes
than water. Here more intoxication was obvious than in any
other place it was ever my lot to live in. On holy and festive
occasions, you might suppose all the male population were drunk,
so great were the numbers in this beastly and deranged condition.
On Sunday afternoons young men go shouting along the streets.
Intelligent Swiss gentlemen tell me that this is the great social evil
of their country, a country where wine is never adulterated and
where the consumption is enormous.'
(
Henry G. Cary testifies that at a musical festival in Switzer-
land, where 300 to 400 musicians were present, a large portion
were drunk, quite a number fighting drunk, and more of them
reeling drunk.
•
BEER A VERY UNHEALTHY DRINK.
เ
319
"A German letter to the London Times informs us that The
vice of intemperance is growing so fast in Switzerland as to cause
great anxiety among public men of all classes. So portentous are
the evils to which in some districts inebriety is giving rise, that
people speak of alcohol as 'the enemy' and of cau-de-vie, the
term used to designate old Cognac, as 'cau-de-mort,' the water of
death. Even the public fortune is compromised by the excessive
drinking of the people. Failures, bankruptcies and forced sales
of property are alarmingly on the increase. The Official Gazette
can hardly contain them. As a natural consequence, land is
depreciating in value, and mortgagees who are compelled to fore-
close can often find neither buyers nor tenants. The evil affects
all classes, and is even rife among the female population. We
can name several communities in which the consumption of
'schnapps' is at the rate of 8 litres (2 gallons) per month for
each man, woman and child. In one village with a population of
600, one inn-keeper sells 1,200 litres (450 gallons) of brandy alone
every month. It is easy to understand in what a terrible ruin this
drunkenness must end. It is a whirlpool which swallows up every
year millions of francs and sends to untimely graves tens of
thousands of the inhabitants.'
"I clip the following letter from the columns of the Sun of
this city, dated Berne, Aug. 30, 1885, which gives a fair idea of
the present status of the traffic in Switzerland: 'The Federal Con-
gress has sent a blue book to the Assembly, embodying the result-
of an official inquiry into the liquor traffic, induced by petitions
sent up from various cantons for legislation against such traffic.
These petitions give statistics which show that the consumption of
alcohol in Switzerland is greater per head than in any other
country in Europe. Statistics also show that the consumption of
brandy among the Swiss is increasing, and that parallel with this
there is an increase of mental diseases, of misery and of want.'"-
The Voice.
IS BEER HEALTHFUL?
Physicians are beginning to understand and to see that the
drinking of beer is one of the most frequent of the causes which
produce Bright's disease of the kidneys, and also of fatty degen-
eration of the heart and other vital organs. The writer well
remembers a brewer, whose family he was attending as a physician,
with what earnestness he exclaimed: "Talk to me about beer not
being healthy, see how strong and healthy I am," striking his
320
DRUNKENNESS IN WINE AND BEER COUNTRIES.
chest with his fist repeatedly as he spoke. He was a large fleshy
man, a Scotchman by birth, and evidently had inherited a good
constitution. Not many months after that conversation, as the
writer was riding by a saloon not far from this man's brewery, he
was hurriedly called in to see a man who had fallen to the floor,
and he found the brewer lying dead-without much doubt from
fatty degeneration of the heart. Beer not only contains alcohol,
but it also contains the active principle contained in hops, a mis-
erable drug which interferes, as does the alcohol, with the removal
of worn-out materials which should be cast out through the organs
of excretion, that their place might be supplied with new material
from the food taken. It is difficult to imagine a more miserable
and pernicious compound to put into the stomach than beer.
'In one
"The belief that beer is a healthful drink is constantly urged
upon us by manufacturers and lovers of this beverage, and physi-
cians aid the spread of this delusion in many ways. It is not often
that an unprejudiced person makes a careful study of the subject
to see whether beer is really wholesome and life-giving or not, and
so it is a pleasure to temperance advocates to hear from a man
who has done so. That man is Colonel Green, President of the
Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company. He says:
of our largest cities, containing a great population of beer-drinkers,
I had occasion to note the deaths among a large group of persons
whose habits, in their own eyes and in those of their friends and
physicians, were temperate; but they were habitual users of beer.
When the observation began they were, upon the averago, some-
thing under middle age, and they were, of course, selected lives.
For two or three years there was nothing very remarkable to be
noted among this group. Presently death began to strike it; and
until it had dwindled to a fraction of its original proportions, the
mortality in it was astounding in extent, and still more remark-
able in the manifest identity of cause and mode. There was no
mistaking it; the history was almost invariable; robust, apparent
health, full muscles, a fair outside, increasing weight, florid faces;
then a touch of cold, or a sniff of malaria, and instantly some
acute disease with, almost invariably, typhoid symptoms, was in
violent action, and ten days or less ended it. It was as if the
system had been kept fair, outside, while, within, it was eaten to
a shell, and at the first touch of discase there was utter collapse;
every fibre was poisoned and weak. And this, in its main features,
varying, of course, in degree, has been my observation in beer-
drinking everywhere. It is peculiarly deceptive at first; it is
DRUNKENNESS COMMON FROM BEER DRINKING.
321
thoroughly destructive at the last.' This testimony is very strong,
and we take pleasure in giving it to our readers; and we call
special attention to the fact that a fair, ruddy outside is not always
an indication of health, and also to the fact that, so far, the
figures of the life insurance companies go to show that the teeto-
talers are likely to live longer than even the moderate drinker."-
Mining and Scientific Press.
"Malt liquors," says a distinguished writer, "though of less
alcoholic strength than spirits and most wines, are capable of
causing drunkenness, and this is quite a common effect of their
use in England. At first apparently more favorable to nutrition
than the other classes of alcoholic liquors, by the fullness and
corpulency of frame which they induce, they are found to be after
a while adverse to a ready and active discharge of the functions.
The brain suffers, and the faculties are dull and sodden, or apo-
plexy strikes down the beer-bibber; the heart suffers, and there is
hypertrophy, and retarded and irregular circulation, and danger
of sudden death from this cause; the lungs suffer, and there is
congestion, pneumonia, and not seldom dropsy of the chest.
Other forms of dropsy also succeed to the free use of malt liquors,
which kill more speedily, and with preceding symptoms of greater
degradation-reduction of man to the mere brute, than even after
the habitual use of ardent spirits. Some of the English writers,
while they admit and deplore these deleterious effects of drinking
malt liquors, attribute them to adulteration. They add, however,
that the taste of the people generally is so vitiated by the adulter-
ated, in fact, poisonous, beer and ale and porter, that even if the
brewers were all honest, they would not find customers for their
purer liquors. *
In our climate, even more than in that of
England, the habitual use of malt liquors is decidedly injurious.
The free acid, though partially disguised to the taste, is detrimental
to digestion, and to all the assimilating functions; it is particu-
larly inimical to the skin and the kidneys.”—Bell on Regimen and
Longevity.
* *
Our German emigrants have done a great injury to our country
by bringing with them their beer-drinking habits, and by estab-
lishing breweries, and increasing the number of our saloons. Give
the boy or young man beer and you very frequently develop
an appetite which will not be satisfied even with excessive
quantities of beer, if stronger intoxicants can be had; conse
quently the more beer that is drank in a community the greater
will be the quantity of distilled liquors which will be drank if they
322 DRUNKENNESS IN WINE AND BEER COUNTRIES.
can be readily obtained. Look at the results of beer-drinking in
the cities of our country; look at the results in Germany, if you
please.
DRINKING IN GERMANY.
"It is often asserted," says the New York Witness, "that beer-
drinking diminishes the drinking of spirits. This has often been
disproved, and the following from the London Globe shows how
the matter stands in Germany:
"The question of excessive drinking in Germany, and its
result on the health, morals and prosperity of the people, has just
been made the subject of an elaborate investigation by Dr. Baer,
head-physician at the Plötensee Prison, who has published a pam-
phlet with the title: 'Drunkenness and the Combat against it in
Germany.' A full account is given of the contents of Dr. Baer's
work in a report addressed to the English Foreign Office by Mr.
Consul-General Oppenheimer. The writer takes a very serious
view indeed of the mischief which he conceives is being wrought
among his countrymen by their devotion to spirit-drinking, and
his opinions are the more worthy of attention from the fact that
he is not in favor of total abstinence, either on moral grounds or
as necessarily conducive to health.'
"It is difficult, for reasons which Dr. Baer points out, to ar-
rive at the exact quantity of spirits produced and consumed in
Germany, but he has no doubt that the actual quantity is much
greater than that which he has taken as the basis of his calcula-
tions. According to these, every adult male German was in the
habit of drinking, ten years ago, an average of one litre of pure
alcohol a week, or four glasses daily; and four years later the
consumption had increased by nearly twenty-five per cent.
The
facilities for drinking have certainly been augmented; for, while
there were in Prussia in 1869 fewer than 120,000 licensed houses,
the number had risen in 1880 to 165,640. The population had
increased in the intervening eleven years by thirteen per cent.,
while the public-houses had increased by thirty-eight per cent. It
can hardly be said, therefore, that the creation of the empire has
tended toward temperance, whatever other good results it may
have had. The 165,000 licensed houses do not, however, include
all the places at which intoxicants may be procured. If all the
wine and beer shops are taken into account, it will appear that the
people of Prussia had, five years ago, just 200,000 places where
they could buy alcoholic drinks.'
BEER DEBILITATES AND RETARDS RECOVERY. 323
"There is a specialty about German spirit-drinking, if Dr.
Baer is right, which demands the serious consideration of all who
wish well to the Fatherland. It is bad enough that the consump-
tion of ardent spirits should reach the high average of four glasses
a day for the adult male population, but the drinking is said to be
more concentrated than in other countries, so that among the
regular devotees of the bottle the consumption is really much
greater than is thus indicated. According to Dr. Baer, the use of
spirits has almost gone out of fashion among the upper and well-
to-do classes; and if this is the case, it must have extended enor-
mously among the working-people. At the same time the con-
sumption per head of the population of beer, which is in Germany
not, perhaps, quite as specifically the poor man's beverage as it is
in England, has very much more than doubled in the last quarter
of a century.'"
In conversation with a German lady who had resided in this
country for several years, the writer called her attention to the
danger, not only to herself but also to her husband and children, if
she were to continue to set them the example of beer-drinking, and
the importance of never allowing beer to enter her home. In
astonishment she exclaimed: " Why, I cannot live without beer;
when I am confined and during nursing my doctor says I must
have beer. I have a very hard time, am very weak, and gain my
strength very slowly, and remain very feeble all the time while
nursing, and my babies are cross and troublesome; and what
could I do without beer"? In reply, the writer said to her: "I
am an older man than your physician, and have undoubtedly at-
tended a great many more patients than he has, and for more than
thirty years I have never given beer, fermented wine, nor any
other intoxicating drink to any woman during confinement or
nursing; and I have seen enough of the consequences of such
drinks when prescribed by other physicians to know that they are
injurious, and that patients do much better without them." As
she was expecting to be confined within a few weeks, the writer
earnestly advised her from that time forth to let beer and all other
intoxicants entirely alone; and he assured her that she would be
surprised and delighted by the results. She said that she would
follow the advice given. When her child was a few months old
the writer saw her again, when she stated that she had faithfully
abstained from beer and all other intoxicants, and that she never
before, with any of her children, had had such a comfortable
time, never had regained her strength so soon, and never before
324 DRUNKENNESS IN WINE AND BEER COUNTRIES.
was so strong and well while nursing, never had such an abun-
dance of nourishment for her child, and never had such a good-
natured and healthy baby-and her looks testified to the truth of
her statements.
Physicians are to be blamed for much of the drinking which
exists among the ladies; for some of them get so in the habit of
giving beer, and perhaps other stimulants, under certain circum-
stances, that they actually do not know how much better their
patients would get along without them. Beer, fermented wine, and
other intoxicants, not only give no strength, but they exhaust
patients, and often prevent them from gaining strength when they
would do so if these things were let alone. There is no better way
to keep a delicate, nervous woman always sick, debilitated, and
sending for the doctor, than to give her beer, fermented wine, and
other stimulating drinks and bitters, and medicines which contain
alcohol. Like opium, they palliate the symptoms which they
cause, and the patient soon feels that she cannot do without them.
There are few acts more reprehensible than that of parents
sending their children to the neighboring saloons for beer, or sad-
der sights than to see these little ones, who can hardly reach up
to the top of the counter, buying beer, and then stopping in the
street, as the writer has seen them do, to take a drink out of the
pails and pitchers of beer which they were carrying home. What
can such parents be thinking about? What other substance is
there beside alcohol that could so blind a loving parent to the dan-
ger in which he was placing his child? or so benumb his moral
sense as to make him thus risk his child's health and well-being in
procuring the gratification of his own depraved appetite?
"In every city of any size there are hundreds of dens that
cater especially to boys, teaching them not only the beer habit, but
showing them the way to the pawn-brokers, where goods stolen
from fathers and mothers may be converted into money to pay
their bills. This debauching of boys is just as much a part of the
business as selling beer to the workingmen. It is all a part of the
horrible trade. The claim that the law shall not take cognizance
of this wholesale debauching of the youth of the country, is too
absurd to be worth notice. The safety of every family in the land
is at stake. There is not a home in city or country that is not
threatened, there is not a child in its mother's arms to-day that
has not this pitfall before it."-Dominion Church of England
Journal.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG AND THE
INTERPRETATIONS THEREOF, AND FACTS WORTHY OF
NOTICE BY ALL LOVERS OF THE TRUTH.
SWEDENBORG'S writings are being so extensively read by both
clergymen and intelligent laymen that, in the opinion of the writer,
some of his comparisons should be carefully considered, so that
new readers of his writings may not fall into such mistaken views
as have troubled so many of the older readers of his works. Pro-
cesses, although very different in their results, may be compared,
as the separation of individuals and the organization of societies
in hell may be compared with the separation and organization of
societies in heaven, for in both they are organized according to the
ruling loves of those who dwell therein; but such a comparison
does not make hell desirable, nor the life which leads to hell a
desirable one. Comparisons, when made by Swedenborg, may or
may not be according to correspondences; but the spiritual world,
being the world of causes, effects in this world must always of
necessity correspond to the causes in the spiritual world which
have produced them. When Swedenborg compares, as he does in
Apocalypse Explained, No. 1035, "falses from evil to wine and
strong drinks which induce drunkenness; wherefore, also, that
insanity, in the Word, is said to be effected by wine of whoredom
and the wine of Babel, in Jeremiah li. 7," it is not difficult to
understand and see that this comparison is written in accordance
with correspondences; but when the editors of a religious serial
claim that alcohol is not a poison, and base this claim upon
the comparison which Swedenborg makes in Conjugial Love,
145, "where it is written that spiritual purification may be
compared with the purification of natural spirits which is
done by chemists, and is called defecation, rectification, castiga-
tion, cohobation, acution, decantation and sublimation; and
wisdom purified may be compared with alcohol, which is spirit
most highly rectified;" it is not easy to see the correspondence ;
and when from this comparison they attempt to justify the use of
326
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
intoxicating drinks, and even whisky, it is not difficult to see how
far they have wandered from the truth. The great object of the
above processes for purifying spirits, is especially to remove all
the water and other substances which these fluids ordinarily con-
tain. Take the fermented wine, for instance, from which this puro
alcohol can be made by the processes named by Swedenborg in this
comparison, everything, including the water as far as possible, is
carefully removed, leaving pure spirits or alcohol.
This pure
spirit, we know by its effects, corresponds to falses from evil, and
is to the human body a caustic fluid; and no one but the hardest
"old toper," the mucous membrane of whose mouth and stomach
has been indurated by a long course of drunkenness, would ever
attempt to drink it. This pure spirit, when drank in a given
quantity, causes drunkenness, and even death, more speedily than
any other intoxicating drink; and yet they who cite this compar-
ison would have us understand, that this purified alcohol, which
never has been used, and which cannot be used by any sober, sane
man, as a drink, corresponds to wisdom purified, and is every way
a suitable drink for man. Try it on a child! We ask every intel-
ligent reader, if wisdom purified, in its action upon the spirit of
man, bears any resemblance to the action of this pure spirit upon
his body and mind? The above editors do not seem able to see
that Swedenborg is here simply comparing a spiritual and a natural
process of purification, and the purity of wisdom with the purity
of alcohol thus produced; and that this comparison in no way
destroys the poisonous quality of the alcohol, or renders it a suit-
able article for drinking, as all experience shows.
As upon the above comparison, and another by Swedenborg,
the editors have based almost, if not quite all, of their arguments in
favor of the use of intoxicating drinks, we will quote the latter in
full, and call the special attention of the reader to the inconsistency
of the construction which they put upon it :
“A man's understanding is receptive of good as well as of
evil, and of truth as well as of falsity, but not his will, which
must be either in evil or in good; it cannot be in both, for the
will is the man himself, and therein is his life's love. But good
and evil in the understanding are separated, like internal and
external; hence a man may be interiorly in evil, and exteriorly in
good. Still, however, when a man is reformed, good and evil
enter into combat, and there then exists a conflict or battle, which,
if grievous, is called temptation; but if not, is like the fermenta-
tion of wine or wort. In such a case, if good overcomes, evil with
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
327
its falsities is removed to the sides, as the lees fall to the bottom
of a vessel; and good becomes like generous wine after fermenta-
tion, or clear liquor; but if evil overcomes, good with its truth is
removed to the sides, and it becomes turbid and foul like unfer-
mented wine or unfermented liquor. This comparison of fermen-
tation is used because leaven in the Word signifies the falsity of
evil, as in Hosea vii. 4, Luke xii. 1, and in other places."-D. P
284.
"In this beautiful extract," say our opponents, "evil with its falsities
is compared with leaven and with the lees; and good is compared with
generous wine.
One would naturally infer that these respective compari-
sons indicate resemblances between the objects compared; and hence that
good and wine were both genuine. And this conclusion would seem to be
the more evident from the adjective which Swedenborg uses; for generous,
when applied to wine, means noble, vigorous, pure, good.”
For a correct understanding of the above comparison, two
points must be borne in mind.
First That the word generous, as here used, does not neces-
sarily mean good, but it undoubtedly means vigorous or strong in
this instance. In this sense, the term is used by medical writers at
this day.
Second: In the process of fermentation, the gluten contained
in the wine as it is pressed from the grape, and which nourishes
the body of man as good does his soul, which is, in fact, similar to
the gluten in bread, is actually overcome and destroyed to the
extent fermentation progresses by the leaven, and the sugar which,
we are told by Swedenborg, corresponds to spiritual delights, is
often entirely destroyed, and even the vegetable salts so useful to
man, are, to a great extent, changed or precipitated; so that it is
perfectly clear that the changes which take place during fermenta-
tion do not in the slightest degree correspond with the spiritual
changes which tako place during man's regeneration.
Then, by what authority does the -'s organ say that in the
above extract, evil with its falsities is compared with leaven and
lees? It will be seen that this representation is not correct; for it
is the combat and separation and falling to the bottom which is
compared, and not the leaven and lees. Lees have a good signifi-
cation when this word is used in a good sense, as in Isaiah xxv. 6.
Speaking of the "feast of fat things, and wine on the lees, wine
on the lees well refined":"By the feast of fat things, of fat
things full of marrow," says Swedenborg, "is signified good, both
328
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
natural and spiritual, with joy of heart; and by the lees, and
lees refined, are signified truths from that good with the felicity
thence derived" (A. E. 1159). "A feast of fat things signifies the
appropriation and communication of good, and by a feast of lees,
or the best wine, the appropriation of truth" (A. E. 252), called a
"feast of lees" (A. C. 5943). Such is the signification of lees
when they result simply from the settling, after straining or fil-
tering-refining-of the heavier portions of the grape-juice or
new wine. But it is perfectly evident that the lees which fall to
the bottom during the fermentation of wine can have no such
signification, so that the editors, after all, are not so far from the
truth, when they claim that lees from fermented wine are compared
by Swedenborg to falsities, and, consequently, according to their
philosophy, correspond to falsities. Swedenborg, it will be seen,
as if afraid his readers might mistake the true meaning of the
above comparison, says: "This comparison of fermentation is
used because leaven in the Word signifies the falsity of evil.” If
the lees, which fall to tlie bottom from the action of leaven on
wine, instead of having a good signification as they do when they
are used in a good sense in the Word, have a bad signification,
how can the wine from which such lees have been separated by the
destruction of its good and nourishing ingredients fail to have an
evil signification? Unfermented wine, at the commencement of
fermentation, in which state it is generally seen at this day when
no effort is made to prevent fermentation, is turbid and foul from
the commencing action of leaven, and in this state it is unwhole-
some to the stomach; and Swedenborg explains fully what he
means when he says that "good becomes like generous (or strong)
wine after fermentation," by what he adds-" or clear liquor."
It seems so strange that men, as well read in the Writings of
the Church as the editors of the
are supposed to be,
should make such a serious and grave mistake, as to attempt to
justify the use of intoxicating drinks from such comparisons as
the above found in the Writings of Swedenborg; when the very
comparisons which they select, teach a very different doctrine,
which is, as we have seen sustained by reason, facts, and science;
the pure spirit or alcohol of the one comparison being so obnoxious
and irritating that no one but a drunkard would ever think of
drinking it, and even the lees of the other comparison, are ad-
mitted by them to correspond to falsities. Is it strange that Swe-
denborg should inform us, as he docs in the passage already quoted,
that the resulting wine may be compared to falses from evil ?—
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
329
please remember it is not the process which he here compares, but
the wine itself.
Seeing that the true objects of this comparison are so apparent
on eyen a cursory examination, and naturally wondering how it
could ever have been so strangely misconstrued, the question
arises how are we to account for this strange state of
darkness in which these editors so manifestly dwell upon this
most vital question, so intimately affecting the welfare of the
Church and the world? In reply to this question, we will first
state that, according to the Writings of Swedenborg, the first
Christian Church came to its end over a century ago, through evils
of life and the falsification of the doctrines taught by the Lord
when on earth, and by His disciples soon after Ilis ascension.
Even the ordinances of the Church became perverted, until a wine
which was prohibited to the Jews, and which was providentially
prohibited, owing to its known poisonous qualities, by Mohammed
to his followers, and which was regarded as so polluted that even
the ancient heathen would not dare to offer it to their gods, was
substituted for the Passover cup, or the fruit of the vine, or un-
fermented wine, of which our Lord and His disciples partook at
the last Supper. And this sad perversion seems to have descended
to some of the receivers of the doctrines of the New Christianity
unquestioned; and they seem to have been strongly confirmed in
such false views, even to the extent of justifying the use of intox-
icating drinks as beverages, from which we may as rightfully
select and use as we may from beneficial articles of food or drink.
We know very well how difficult it is for men who are con-
firmed in falses to see the truth, and especially for those who are
in evils to see the truth which condemns those evils. Men did not
often see that slavery was wrong while they held slaves, and this
fearful wrong was justified from the point of view of the Bible by
many clergymen; but now, that, in the providence of the Lord,
slavery has been overthrown, few, if any, fail to see that slavery
was wrong. It is equally, if not even more, difficult, to see that
evil habits of life are evil, so long as we continue to indulge in
them. The woman who compresses her waist does not see that
tight-dressing harms her, and is consequently an evil, so long as
she continues this pernicious habit, which does so much to ruin
the health of women, impair the vitality of our race, and shorten
human life. She actually feels that tight-dressing does her good
every time she indulges in it—without it she feels all gone, pre-
cisely as the rum-drinker does who has not had his morning dram.
330
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
The man who habitually uses that disgusting and deadly poison,
tobacco, does not feel that it injures him, and that it is wrong to
use it how can he? He "hankers" after it, and suffers when he
attempts to leave it off; and the resumption of its use relieves
him, cheers him, and makes him feel good. The same is true with
the habitual indulger in opium, and, in fact, with the consumer of
every other poison, when habitually used. This is especially true,
as we all know and have seen, with the drinkers of that fearfully
destructive and deadly poison, alcohol, in whatever form it may
be taken. Therefore, as a rule, and according to Swedenborg's
teaching, we cannot expect men who habitually indulge in the evil
habit of using intoxicating wine and whisky, however "judi-
ciously" they may select their liquors, to see that it is wrong to
use them. It will be seen that it would be asking too much of
poor human nature to expect them to see the fearful nature of
this evil, as those who are free from such habits clearly see it.
Nor need the teetotaler be discouraged even though many vener-
able Christians do not join our ranks, although we have hope even
for them still, and charity, too. But for the young, who have not
confirmed themselves in favor of drinking intoxicating drinks, and
who are free from the evil of drinking, we may labor earnestly,
faithfully, and hopefully, and the Lord will assuredly bless our
efforts. If men, with the clear light of this New Day shining into
their understandings, continue to drink intoxicating drinks, if
these escape drunkenness it will be as by the "skin of their teeth.'
We know very well that they cannot fail to be singed by this
"liquid fire," which we have seen has its origin from hell. May
the Lord protect our brethren of the
; but we think He will
require a little of their help-coöperation-before He can do this,
without interfering with their freedom, and that He never
does.
""
To the advocates for the use of intoxicants we will simply inti-
mate, that there is a slight difference between the excitement and
delight which follow the use of healthy articles of food and drink,
and the excitement and delight which follow the use of intoxi-
cating drinks; and that difference is to the body and mind what
the difference between heaven and hell is to the soul. The de-
lights which flow from the use of the former are natural and
orderly, and correspond to heavenly delights; whereas, we know
very well, by every day's observation, that the delights which flow
from the latter are unnatural and disorderly, and correspond to
infernal delights.
SPIRITUAL AND NATURAL FERMENTATIONS.
The editors of a religious serial say:
331
"The author (meaning Dr. Ellis) seems to wholly misunderstand the
use of ferments. We are taught that the Divine Providence of the Lord
causes that evil, and falsity may serve for purification (D. P. 21). This is
effected in various ways-one of which is as follows :
Spiritual fermentations take place in many ways, for there are evils
and at the same time falsities, which being let into societies, do the like
as ferments put into meal and must, by means of which, heterogeneities
are separated and homogeneities are conjoined, and it becomes pure and
clear.'
'"--D. P. 25.
The writer does not feel that the representation of the mean-
ing of the passage from "Divine Providence" 25 is correct
by any means. We will first give, for the benefit of such of our
readers as are acquainted with that language, Swedenborg's Latin;
and then the translation of the same as it is rendered in the
"Rotch Edition" of that work:
Fermentationes spirituales, fiunt multis modis, tam in caelis
quam in terris: sed in mundo nesciuntur quid sunt, et quomodo
fiunt; sunt enim mala et simul falsa, quae immissa Societatibus
similiter faciunt sicut fermenta immissa farinis et mustis, per quae
separantur heterogenea, et conjunguntur homogenea, et fit purum
et clarum."
{{
Spiritual fermentations take place in many ways, in the
heavens as well as on earth; but in the world it is not known
what they are, and how they are effected. For there are evils
having falsities with them, which do a work, when introduced
into societies, like that done by the things put into meal and into
new wine to cause fermentation, by which heterogeneous things
are separated and homogeneous things conjoined, and purity and
clearness are the result."
If purity results to the meal, it is not, as we well know, until
after it has been purified by heat, or has been baked, for until
then it is full of leaven and its products; and so, it would seem, it
must be with spiritual fermentations; they do not purify, but it is
the Divine love to which natural heat corresponds, which, flowing
in, purifies the spirit of man. The result in the must is clearness.
It is not said to be pure, and we know that it is not pure, in any
good sense of this word; for it causes drunkenness, which never
results, either spiritually or naturally, from imbibing pure unper-
verted truth; or its natural correspondent, pure, unperverted
wine; for these are heaven born, and can never cause drunken-
332
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
ness, unless perverted by man. We must remember that fermented
wine is never purified by heat, and consequently that it is pre-
eminently a leavened substance.
Unlike man, the juice of the grape has not fallen; conse-
quently it does not require purifying until leaven has commenced
its work of pollution. The unfermented juice as it flows from
the press may contain shreds of the cellular structure of the
grapes (which can be readily separated by straining), and of albu-
minous matters, which interfere with its transparency; but the
latter are good, wholesome articles of food; and when grape-jelly
is made, they enter into the jelly, and help to give it body. In the
unfermented wine they can readily be removed by filtering, by
keeping cool and settling, or by boiling and skimming-processes
well known to the ancients, and carefully described by ancient
writers, whose words have been quoted in preceding pages. Please
remember first, that according to Swedenborg, the grape, the
blood of the grape, and the juice of the grape have all an unques-
tionably good correspondence, as the writer has shown in this
work. Corn, also, and meal have a like good correspondence, for
all these substances have been carefully organized in the vegetable
kingdom, by the Lord, for the sustenance of man. Leaven, we
are told by Swedenborg, signifies "the evil and the false, which
should not be mixed with things good and true." It is never born
in the grape, but its germs float in the atmosphere. Now, it hardly
seems right for us to mix leaven with our food and drink, or to
permit it to be mixed; but if we practically destroy it and drive
off its products by heat, soon after it has commenced its action, as
we do in baking our bread, no great harm can ensuo; for heat
has a good correspondence when legitimately used, and it purifies
the bread. Leaven, then, is to the meal, flour, or pure juice of
the grape, strictly a heterogeneous substance, and by its action on
the wine it develops other heterogeneous substances. It is, there-
fore, perfectly clear that the heterogeneities referred to by Swe-
denborg are the ferment and substances generated by the ferment,
when it is put or let into the meal and must; and if, by "and it
becomes puro and clear," he had any reference to these natural
substances, he could certainly have had reference only to the
purity and clearness of the fermented wine, as fermented wine;
but, as to the meal, it is difficult to see how he could have applied
the terms "pure and clear" to it at all after fermentation. The
writer, therefore, inclines to the opinion that he had reference to
the change which takes place in the spirit of man, as intimated
CORRESPONDENCE OF FERMENTED SUBSTANCES.
333
in a former work on the wine question; but, be that as it may, it
is perfectly certain that Swedenborg had no reference to the inher-
ent quality of unbaked fermented or leavened bread, and unboiled
leavened wine; for he tells us that "what is leavened denotes
what is falsified " (A. C. 8051), and Swedenborg does not contra-
dict himself. He leaves us no chance to doubt as to the real
quality of the meal and must, both before and after they have
passed through the process of leavening or fermenting. The fact
that he thus associates the leavening of meal with that of must is
an important point in the consideration of this subject.
In a religious periodical, in the year 1880, the writer found the
most skillful and adroit attempt which, within his knowledge, has
ever been made to justify the use of intoxicating drinks by or
from the Writings of Swedenborg. The article is lengthy and
strictly partisan; and the argument which, taken by itself, is
quite plausible, is based upon a single paragraph from the "Ar-
cana; " but, as the reader will observe, it ignores the philosophy
of Swedenborg as to the origin of good and evil uses, and leaves
unnoticed a large number, perhaps hundreds of passages in his
works, which teach a very different doctrine; and the express,
positive declarations of Swedenborg as to the inherent quality of
fermented wine. But we will insert the essential part of the article
from the
so that our readers may have an opportunity to
judge for themselves, for we wish them to view both sides of this
important question. The truth is what we all should desire, that it
may be a lamp unto our feet; and if we would travel safely we
must walk in its light, and allow neither preconceived ideas nor
our sensual appetites to blind us, "so that having eyes we see
not." The
writer says:
>
HAS PURE FERMENTED SUBSTANCE A GOOD CORRESPONDENCE ?
"It would seem that no doubt can remain upon this point to one who
recognizes the truth of what Swedenborg teaches upon the subject. In
the Arcana, 7906, he says: "That the leaven denotes the false may be
manifest from those passages where leaven and leavened, also where un-
leavened, are named, as in Matthew, Jesus said: "Take heed and beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees;" afterward, the dis-
ciples understood that he had not said that they should beware of the
leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt.
xvi. 6–12), where leaven manifestly denotes false doctrine. Inasmuch as
leaven signifies the false, it was forbidden to sacrifice upon what was leav-
ened the blood of the sacrifice (Ex. xxiii. 18, and xxxiv. 25); for by the
334
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENborg.
}
blood of the sacrifice was signified holy truth; thus truth pure from all
falsity. It was also ordained that the meat offering, which was offered
upon the altar "should not be baked with leaven" (Lev. vi. 17), and that
"the cakes and wafers also should be unleavened "' (Lev. vi. 11, 12, 13).
"But notwithstanding these laws against leaven, and being baked with
leaven, it is most remarkable that, as Swedenborg proceeds to say, truth
cannot be purified from the false without what answers to leavening. He
says:
'As to what further concerns what is leavened and unleavened, it is
to be noted that the purification of truth from the false appertaining to
man cannot possibly exist without leavening (fermentation), so called, that
is, without the combat of the false with truth, and of truth with the
false; but after that the combat hath taken place, and the truth hath con-
quered, then the false falls down like dregs, and the truth exists purified,
like wine which grows clear after fermentation, the dregs falling down to
the bottom. This fermentation or combat exists principally when the state
appertaining to man is turned, namely: when he begins to act from the
good which is of charity, and not as before from the truth which is of
faith; for the state is not yet purified when man acts from the truth of
faith, but it is then purified when he acts from the good which is of charity,
for then he acts from the will; before, only from the understanding. Spir-
itual combats or temptations are leavenings or fermentations," in the
spiritual sense, for on such occasions falses are desirous to conjoin them-
selves to truths, but truths reject them, and at length cast them down, as
it were to the bottom, consequently refine. In this sense is to be under-
stood what the Lord teaches concerning leaven, in Matthew:
The king-
dom of the heavens is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in
three measures of meal until the whole was leavened" (xiii. 33), where
meal denotes the truth that gives birth to good. ** * * Because, as
was said, such combats as are signified by leavenings or fermentations have
place with man in the state previous to a new state of life; therefore, also,
it was ordained that when the new meat offering on the feast of the first-
fruits was brought, the wave offering should be baked leavened, and should
be the first fruits to Jehovah.'-Lev. xxiii. 16, 17.
"From this we see that though leaven represents what is false, yet we
cannot come into genuine good without conflict with it, which involves its
presence, nor without passing through a state of spiritual fermentation
answering to that of natural fermentation. Not to have leaven in our
houses is to banish the false from our minds in the only way it can be, by
successful combat against it in the Lord's strength, which actually and
effectually casts it out of our minds. We have no protection against the
false, and all our tendencies favor its presence, until in conflict with it we
obtain the victory.
"As man is not pure without this spiritual fermentation, so the passage
teaches us that the juice of the grape is not pure without natural fermenta-
tion; and that by the process of natural fermentation a liquid substance is
CORRESPONDENCE OF LEAVENED SUBSTANCES.
335
produced that justly represents truth in man purified from the false, which
is, in substance, the good of charity.
"It is especially to be noticed here, not only that the purification of
the juice of the grape is effected by means of fermentation, but also that of
ineal or flour. For Swedenborg says: 'Meal denotes truth that gives birth
to good.' As truth cannot be pure without spiritual combat against the
false, which casts it out, so good cannot otherwise be rendered pure. And
when the false is cast out by its subjugation in temptations, then both
truth and good become pure. And so if we think of things instead of
terms, we see that as leaven is the false, things become unleavened, that is,
free from the false by the very process of what is called leavening. This
subject is treated of in D. P. 284.
"That there is a real relation of correspondence between the effects
resulting from a successful meeting of spiritual temptation and the product
of natural fermentation, is most fully confirmed by the statement which
Swedenborg makes when he says: Spiritual combats or temptations are
leavenings in the spiritual sense.'
"When we consider what leaven represents-that is, the false and the
false united with and flowing from evil-we can understand why it is so
severely denounced in the Scriptures, and why he who eats it shall be cut
off, that is, be destroyed or condemned. It means that the appropriation of
falsity and evil destroys man's spiritual life.
"But when we understand that there are two results of a nature oppo-
site to each other, that may arise out of the presence of the false that causes
spiritual fermentation, one of which results is the adoption and confirming
of the false, and the other the effectual rejection and casting out of the
false, then we can see that the former result is what is aimed at in the con-
demnation and not at all the latter, which, though it is the presence of the
false that causes the fermentation, could never have been brought about
without it. It is the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees-the
false not seen as false and rejected, but confirmed-that makes deadly
leaven. But, on the other hand, the false seen, guarded against, and alto-
gether rejected, causes the leavening in its result to be the effectual estab-
lishing of the kingdom of heaven-causes it to be what is represented by
the 'leaven which the woman took and hid in three measures of meal till
the whole was leavened.'
"This expression is very suggestive; for a woman signifies affection
for the truth. It is an affection for the truth secretly fighting against
the false, which alone can cause a successful result to the spiritual fermen-
tation.
Very instructive also is the concluding portion of the extract given :
'Because with man such combats, which are signified by fermentations,
exist in the state preceding a new one of life; therefore, also, there is a
statute' that the two wave loaves of fine flour should be baked with leaven,
and should be the first fruits unto the Lord.
336
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
}
"Waving the offering represents the acknowledgment of the Lord.
Baking, as it is effected by fire, represents good flowing in from the Lord
when He is acknowledged. When from an affection for the truth we have
fought secretly against the false, until, in despair, we cease to trust in our-
selves, and look to the Lord for help; then there is an end of the conflict,
and the good of love, which the baking represents, flows in from the Lord,
and the leaven of the false is effectually removed. Then there exists a
new state of life, or a state of new life, which is the state for receiving the
Holy Supper."
""
The Lord says in Matthew, that "The kingdom of the heavens
is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures
of meal until the whole was leavened." "Meal in the above
passage," says Swedenborg, "denotes the truth that gives birth to
good. It is not difficult to understand this comparison in its
literal sense, for it shows the gradual progress of the kingdom of
heaven in man until he is wholly changed, as leavening progresses
until the whole of the meal is leavened; nor is it difficult to under-
stand how the sure and steady progress of the natural leavening
may even correspond to the sure and steady progress of the king-
dom of heaven in man during his regeneration.
Of one thing we feel confident; and that is, that, after reading
the numerous passages from Swedenborg to be found in this work,
and even in this chapter, the reader will be satisfied that the inter-
pretation given by the above writer, in the
of this
parable, and of several of the passages in the paragraph from the
Arcana, is not correct; for it does not accord with either the
Word of the Lord or the writings of the Church.
,
A respected and distinguished clergyman, to whom the writer
sent a proof-sheet of the above, writes as follows:
"By the kingdom of heaven in Matt. xiii. 33, is not meant the
good and truth that constitute heaven in the mind of man, but
the growth of those principles. The first parable (that of the
Sower) treats of the implantation of truth in infancy; the
second (Tares) of the parallel insemination of falsities in youth;
the third (of the Mustard Seed) of the first conscious effort
to live a spiritual life; and this fourth of the long process
by means of which falsities are separated from truths. The
woman signifies the Church; and it is said that the woman took
and hid the leaven in the meal, not because the Church is sup-
posed to implant falsities, but because the conscious acknowledg-
ment of the truths of the Church after a man grows up and the
germs of life, signified by the mustard seed, are born in him,
THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN.
337
gives him to perceive the falsities inherent in his nature, and so
institutes the long process of separation and elimination which
Swedenborg compares to fermentation. But it must always be
understood that the leaven, or the falsities and consequent evils
of man's nature, are born in him. They are incidental to the
corrupted state of man at this day by inheritance. They are not
put into him by the Lord or the Church, any more than the Lord
puts the leaven germs into the grape (which, as we have seen, He
never does).
Being in man the process of regeneration is compared to
the process of fermentation; but it is the process that is compared
to the growth of the kingdom of heaven, and not the leaven, and
it does not follow that the leaven has a good signification. With
regard to bread the analogy is perfect. The leaven causes the
bread to rise, the heat of the oven is applied, and no great harm is
done. So as soon as the falsities of the natural man are made
apparent in the process of regeneration, the man turns to the
Lord, the Divine love flows in, the false notion is dissipated, and
the result is falsities are put away. In the case of wine, Sweden-
borg's statements can only be understood as applying to the
process and not to the result, and thus as being mere comparisons
and not correspondences. Indeed, it is the process and not the
result in both cases that is compared to the kingdom of heaven;
because if the result is good in the case of wine, where the leaven
has had opportunity to work its will, and wholly destroy its
nutritive qualities, then by parity of reasoning the leaven ought to
have free course in the meal, in which case it would become a
putrid mass."
Another well-known clergyman, than whom no man is better
acquainted with the Writings of Swedenborg, to whom the writer
sent a proof-sheet, writes as follows:
"Your idea as expressed in the first part of the paragraph is
correct. The comparison in Matt. xiii. 33 is not merely with
leaven, but with all that follows to the end of the verse. The
process of establishing or building up the kingdom of heaven in
the human soul, is like the process of fermentation which goes on
when leaven is put into-gradual and progressive.
"We have a similar case of comparison in Matt. xxv., where
the kingdom of heaven is likened unto ten virgins. If the com-
parison stopped there, we should have the foolish as well as the
wise in the kingdom. But the comparison does not end till we
reach verse 14. This parable teaches that the kingdom is not
338
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
established or built up by truth alone (lamps in which is no oil),
but only by truth conjoined to good (lamps with oil in them)."
What are we to think of the ingenious theory of our brother—
for ingenious it really is-speaking of the fermentation of wine
and meal, that: "Things become unleavened, that is, free from
the false, by the very process of what is called leavening," so that
the wine and bread which have been through the process of leaven-
ing or fermentation are really unleavened wine and bread? The
writer confesses that this is a new idea to him, and he does not be-
lieve that it was ever thought of before by Jew or Christian, and
certainly not by Swedenborg; for, if the latter had ever thought
of it, and had thought the idea true and useful, it is quite certain
that, among all of his frequent references to unleavened and
leavened bread and wine, he would have said something about it.
But the fact so manifest in the Writings of Swedenborg, that he
never even thought of applying such an idea to the fermentation
of material wine and meal, does not prove that it is untrue. If
true, it is a very important prop, and will do much toward up-
holding wine and whisky drinking, and the consequent drunken-
ness, for all time to come. How the
will rejoice
when he gets hold of it! But unfortunately, perhaps, the writer
is too short-sighted to be able to see that this theory is correct. In
fact, when applied to material wine and meal, he believes it to be
entirely erroneous; and his reasons will become more and more
manifest to the reader all through this chapter; but he will name
some of them here. The essential product of fermentation or
leavening is alcohol, whether it be wine, bread, or barley that is
being fermented-that alone causes drunkenness. In the case of
bread it is all driven off by baking with fire, in wine it is all care-
fully preserved. Will our brother tell us which of these substances
is pure and unleavened? It is perfectly clear that one or the other
is not unleavened according to this new theory. Let him boil his
wine until all the alcohol is driven off, and the writer will cease to
controvert his theory; for it will then be as harmless as baked,
leavened bread. The bread has been, in a measure at least, puri-
fied by fire, but the fermented wine has not been; and the reader
will please bear in mind that it was the bread thus purified which
was offered in the wave-offering.
The fundamental mistake of our brother, and of other writers
who attempt to justify the use of intoxicating drinks from the
Writings of Swedenborg, lies in their assuming that the grape and
UNLEAVENED AND LEAVENED WINE.
339
its juice, and wheat and its meal, like man, have fallen from their
original state of purity, and can only be restored by fermentation;
as man is purified by combats during regeneration. While we
know that the grape and wheat may become uncultivated and
wild from the neglect of man, and may become diseased, yet there
is not one word to be found in the Sacred Scriptures nor in the
Writings of Swedenborg, nor a single fact in science to show that
good, clean, healthy, cultivated grapes and wheat are not as free
from impurity, and as capable of sustaining and supplying the
wants of the human body, when used as food, as they ever were.
How unreasonable, then, to attempt to base an argument in favor
of intoxicating drinks upon such a groundless assumption.
We shall see that Swedenborg gives to the grape and its juice,
and to corn, or wheat, and its meal, a good signification, which he
certainly would not have done, if they were so impure that they
are not fit for human food and for sacramental purposes, until
after fermentation.
Fermentation or leavening is but the first stage in the disor-
ganization of certain organized substances, and alcohol is the chief
product; the next change produces vinegar in wine and a similar
acid in bread. In fermenting dough it requires great care to pre-
vent the bread becoming sour; and the same is true of wine, for
by the time the wine is well fermented, a portion of the alcohol
has passed or changed into vinegar; therefore it is questionable
if there is a single gallon of what our brother would call or regard
as well purified, fermented wine in the country, which does not
contain vinegar; and much of it a comparatively large per cent.
Now, has vinegar a good correspondence? And is a wine contain-
ing it, pure and suitable for sacramental purposes? We think not.
Wine is not regarded as fermented or leavened wine until the
active process of fermentation has been completed. While fer-
menting it is neither called nor regarded as fermented wine, but
is still new wine or must; and that it was so regarded and
spoken of by Swedenborg is manifest; in fact, where care is not
used to prevent fermentation, new wine or must is rarely seen,
except by the maker, in any other condition than undergoing the
process of fermentation, consequently Swedenborg speaks of it as
disagreeing with the stomach; but new wine or must, before fer-
mentation has commenced, although containing more body, may
be as clear as fermented wine, and in a given quantity is more
acceptable to the unperverted taste, stomach, and head than fer-
mented wine.
340
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
In the above article from the
it will be seen
that the writer assumes and attempts to prove that the juice of
the grape, must or new wine, meal and flour, are not pure until
they have been through the process of fermentation; and, conse-
quently, before they have been fermented they are not suitable to
be used in the Holy Supper, and, of course, not suitable as articles
of food. He gives us to understand that, not being pure, their cor-
respondence is not good. Right here we will bring the testimony
of Swedenborg as to the inherent quality of the liquid which is
produced by his process of purification.
"Falses not from evil may be compared to water not pure,
which being drunk does not induce drunkenness; but falses from
evil may be compared to wines and strong drinks which induce
drunkenness."-A. E. 1035.
Now, surely, if unfermented wine is not pure, as our good
brother represents, it never causes drunkenness, like his wine
which has been purified by leavening; but we can see, from the
above comparison, that unfermented wine is to fermented wine
what pure water is to impure water. And we will bring another
comparison which will throw a little light, perhaps, upon one of
the comparisons on which our brother has based his arguments.
“Inasmuch as evil is contagious, and infects as a fermenting
body infects dough, thus at length infects all." (A. C. 6666.) In-
fect means to taint or corrupt.
(6
7
"Good uses," says Swedenborg, are from the Lord and evil
uses are from hell. Evil uses were not created by the Lord, but
that they originated together with hell." (D. L. W. 336.) Among
the evil uses he enumerates all kinds of poisons-in a word, “all
things that do hurt and kill men." (Ibid. 339.) Here, then,
is a criterion by which we must judge of the suitability of any
article for nourishing and supplying the wants of our natural
bodies. It should be evident to every one that substances
which have their origin from hell, which, when used as we
use legitimate articles of food and drink, seriously endanger,
hurt and kill men, should never be used for such purpose.
Now, gentle reader, you who desire the best good of your fellow-
men, we ask you seriously, if you do not see or witness all around
you a radical difference between the action of water, milk, and the
unfermented juice of the various fruits, and the action of fer-
mented wine, beer, and other intoxicating drinks?—all resulting
from the destruction or perversion of good and useful articles, by
leaven, a substance unquestionably having its origin or life from
COMPARISON OF PROCESSES.
341
hell. With what you have witnessed of the effects of such liquids,
are you surprised to find that Swedenborg compares intoxicating
wine and other strong drinks to falses from evil, and that he delib-
erately calls whisky "so pernicious a drink”?
With the philosophy of Swedenborg as to good and evil uses
or substances which are used with the idea of sustaining the body,
so clearly against the use of intoxicating drinks, with his com-
parison of such drinks to falses from evil, and with his solemn
declaration that intoxicating drinks are so pernicious that their
immoderate use threatened the downfall of the Swedish people
in his day, and with the sad results of their use which we behold,
why should any reader of his works strive to find passages which
he thinks can be so construed as to justify their use; thus, per-
chance, justifying himself and encouraging others to pursue a
course of life which has destroyed so many of his fellow-men,
body and soul?
To render Swedenborg consistent with himself and with well-
known facts, as we believe he always is, we shall find ourselves
compelled to place a very different construction upon the quota-
tions made by our brother from what he has done. We under-
stand that Swedenborg means simply to liken the combat of the
false with truth and of truth with the false, which takes place in
the purification of truth from the false in the regeneration of man,
and the purity of truth after truth has conquered, to the ferment-
ing process which results and the clearness of the wine; for he
says that, after "truth has conquered, then the false falls down
like dregs and truth exists purified, like wine which grows clear
after fermentation, the dregs falling to the bottom." This seems
clearly to be his meaning; and, that he could have had no refer-
ence to the inherent quality of the resulting wine excepting its
clearness, is manifest; for leaven signifies the false, and the un-
fermented must or new wine signifies "truth derived from the
good of charity;" also, "the divine truth of the New Testament,
consequently of the New Church." There is no evidence to be
derived either from the Word of the Lord, the Writings of Sweden-
borg, or from science, that it contains any impurity, or anything
which does not correspond to truth and good, most harmoniously
united by the Lord in the fruit of the vine for the nourishment of
man.
The blood of grapes, we are told by Swedenborg, denotes the
good of love, “and in the supreme sense the Divine Good of the
Lord from His Divine Love." (A. C. 6378.) Does this look as
342
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
though the blood of the grape were impure, and that it requires
leavening to purify it?
"And the floors shall be filled with pure corn, and the wine-
presses shall overflow with new wine and oil' (Joel ii. 24). And
again (iii. 18): 'It shall come to pass in that day the mountains
shall drop new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the
rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall go
forth from the house of Jehovah ;' speaking of the Lord's king-
dom, where, by new wine, by milk, and by waters are signified
things spiritual whose abundance is thus described.”—A. C. 3580.
Do presses overflow with fermented wine, or mountains drop
fermented wine? We know that it is unfermented wine to which
reference is made in the above passages, and it is not difficult to
understand that wine and new wine, when spoken of in a good
sense in the Word, always mean unfermented wine. There are
two or three expressions, in the quotation from Swedenborg, made
by the writer in the
as a basis for his argument; which, if
he had heeded, we think would have shown him that the ideas in
regard to purifying natural wine and meal, which he has advanced,
are not justified by the quotation he has made.
(
2
First: It is the purification of truth from the false apper-
taining to man, (which) cannot possibly exist without leavening,
SO-CALLED "-or without combat.
Second: "And the truth hath conquered; " but supposing, as
in the case of fermented wine, the truth has not conquered in the
combat; what then?
Third: " 'Spiritual combats or temptations are leavenings in the
spiritual sense." Now, if the writer in the
had read the
last sentence here quoted in the light of the first, it would seem
that he could hardly have failed to see the truth upon this im-
portant subject.
In the various passages which we have already quoted in this
work from the Writings of Swedenborg, in regard to the blood of
the grape, and must or new wine, we have these various unfer-
mented products of the vine having a good correspondence,
according to Swedenborg; but the reader will find this subject
more fully considered in the chapter on "Two Kinds of Wine."
Now leaven signifying, as Swedenborg tells us, "evil and the
false, which should not be mixed with things good and true,”
becomes mixed with the must or new wine, and a combat ensues;
but, alas! for the argument of our brother, the leaven overcomes,
conquers, and actually destroys the most of the sugar, gluten, and
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
343
phosphorus, and casts down as dregs the vegetable salts, all so
useful to nourish the material body, and "make glad the heart of
man." The resulting leavened wine is full of a poisonous substance
or liquid, the effete product of leaven, which, as to its inherent
quality, is so pernicious that Swedenborg compares even the wine
which contains it to falses from evil, as we have shown elsewhere.
It is not the abuse which is compared, but the wine itself. That
there is no true correspondence between the two processes is per-
fectly clear, for in the spiritual fermentation or combat the truth
overcomes, or should overcome, the false; whereas, in the natural
fermentation of wine, that which corresponds to the false over-
comes that which corresponds to the truth and good, and actually
destroys and casts it down; leaving a fluid which derives its life
from the activity or perversions wrought by the leaven, and which
is never found in the grape, nor in wine, until man has preserved
it in man-made vessels, and with care retained it at a certain tem-
perature (and in the warm climate of Syria this required great
care), and leaven has commenced its work of destruction. It is
then, as we see, produced by the action of leaven, and leaven
alone, on the true and good wine. Is it possible, we ask, for such
a fluid to have a good correspondence? We know that it has not,
by its effects on man when he appropriates or drinks it.
The above writer says: "It is especially to be noticed here, not
only that the purification of the juice of the grape is effected by
means of fermentation, but also that of meal or flour. For Swe-
denborg says, 'meal denotes truth that gives birth to good.' As
truth cannot be pure without spiritual combat against the false,
which casts it out, so good cannot otherwise be rendered pure."
Now we understand this very differently. Truth and good as
they appertain to man are not pure, but as they come from the
Lord they are pure; and the same is true of the grape and its
juice, and wheat and its meal, before either man, leaven, or decay
has perverted them; for they are the "good gifts of God to man."
This view, we think, is abundantly confirmed by Swedenborg,
for he says:
"Flour or meal signifies celestial truth, and wheat
celestial good." (A. R. 778.) Are these impure? Have we any
natural substances of a higher signification? Fine flour, and also
meal, denote truth which is from good.-A. C. 9995.
Now, my reverend brother, do you really think the above sub-
stances can be purified by leavening them? No, no! For "what
is leavened," says Swedenborg, "denotes what is falsified."—A.
C. 8051,
344
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
"The thing falsified, which is signified by what is leavened,
and the false which is signified by leaven, differ in this, that the
thing falsified is truth applied to confirm evil, and the false is
everything that is contrary to truth."-A. C. 8062.
"By its being unleavened, or not fermented, is signified that it
should be sincere, consequently from a sincere heart, and free
from things unclean. * ** K Fine flour made into cakes in
general represented the same thing as bread, viz., the celestial
principle of love, and its farina the spiritual principle."—A. C.
2177.
Now, does it appear in the light of the above extracts from
Swedenborg's teachings, that meal requires to be purified by leaven.
or fermentation, before it is fit for use? The action of leaven
upon meal or dough is similar to its action on wine; it destroys
and perverts, to the extent it progresses, the true, good, and useful
organic compounds which exist in the meal or flour; but as the
dough is generally put into the oven and baked before this disor-
ganizing process has proceeded so far as to waste any considerable
quantity of it, and the leaven is destroyed, and the chief product
of fermentation-alcohol-is driven off by heat from fire, which
signifies love or good from the Lord; for this reason the leaven
in bread becomes comparatively harmless, and never causes drunk-
enness like fermented wine; and, therefore, there is not the same
objection to the use of leavened bread either as an article of food,
or in the most Holy Supper, that there is to the use of fermented
wine; but the writer would not recommend it for the latter pur-
pose, yet he would many times rather use it than to use fermented
wine.
Speaking of "unleavened bread," Swedenborg says: "Un-
leavened bread is good purified from the false.”—A. C. 8058.
"By leaven is signified the false, and thus by unleavened or
unleavened bread, good purified from falses."—A. C. 9287.
"That hereby is signified what is purified from all falses, appears
from the signification of what is unleavened, as denoting what is
purified from the false: the reason why unleavened has this signifi-
cation is, because leaven signifies the false."—A. C. 7853.
"And ye shall observe unleavened bread,' that hereby is sig-
nified that there shall be no false, appears from the signification of
unleavened bread, as denoting what is purified from all falsity."-
A. C. 7897.
"The reason why what is unleavened signifies what is purified,
is because leaven signifies what is false derived from evil; hence,
CURIOUS ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS.
345
what is unleavened signifies what is pure, or without that false
principle. The reason why leaven signifies what is false derived
from evil is, because this false principle defiles good and also truth,
likewise because it excites combat, for on the approach of that false
principle to good, heat is produced, and as it approaches to truth it
excites collision."-A. C. 9992.
This is precisely what follows when leaven approaches new wine;
the wine becomes warm, thick and muddy. A very useful lesson is
taught us in the above paragraph; and that is, that we should shun
the false because it defiles good; and for the same reason we should
shun leavened or fermented wine, which we have seen corresponds
to the false, for its use defiles both body and soul, as every day's
observation shows us.
Another number of the same periodical publishes an article
on "Wine in the Word and the Doctrines," which contains some
curious statements, to say the least. Among them the following:
Speaking of the "extremists," in the temperance reform, the writer
says: "Of which the writer wishes to say that he is an earnest, and
for his brethren's sake, a totally abstaining advocate." And yet
our brother labors with might and main to justify the use of fer-
mented wine from the point of view of the Bible, and the writings
of the Church.
But if fermented wine is a good and useful article to drink, why
does he abstain, and advise others for their own sakes to totally
abstain from its use? Is it not perfectly clear from the above
admission, that our brother regards fermented wine, when used as
a drink, as a seductive and dangerous fluid?-and that it is not
safe for any other man than himself to use it; and as to himself
the above language leaves it a little questionable whether he regards
it safe for him to use it or not. The present writer will simply hint
to him that it would be unquestionably more dangerous for him to
use it than it would be for many other men; for it seems quite
clear that he would use it, if he were to use it at all, if we may
judge by his language, in violation of the clear dictates of his
understanding, and the promptings of his conscience. It is never
well to act thus.
We think that if the writer had examined the subject a little
more carefully in the light of the Word of the Lord and the writings
of the Church, he would have hesitated before making the following
positive statement, or of including must or unfermented wine with
tirosh :
346
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
1
"It will be seen, then, that the attempt to make the Word com-
mend tirosh, and to infer that sweet wine has always a good signifi-
cation, is not only unreasonable when we think of the pervertible
nature of man, but utterly breaks down when we examine the
passages themselves."
And the following are the Scriptural illustrations by which he
attempts to justify the above conclusions. "Whoredom and tirosh
[mustum] take away the heart" (Hos. iv. 11). "They assemble
themselves for corn and tirosh [mustum], and they rebel against
me."-Hos. vii. 14.
If tirosh has a bad signification in both of the above passages,
so has corn; if one is condemned, so is the other; but it seems
perfectly clear in the light of a careful study of the Writings of
Swedenborg, that neither of these substances in the passages
referred to, especially in the last one, has a bad signification. In
Swedenborg's "Angelic Wisdom," concerning the divine love and
wisdom, speaking of the uses for sustaining the body, he says that
there are good and evil uses; and that the good uses, or, in other
words, substances, are created by the Lord, and are useful to build
up and sustain the body, and "make glad the heart of man.”
"Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and tïrosh [mustum]
the maids" (Zech. ix. 17). Good uses, Swedenborg informs us,
can be abused, but abuse does not take away use, except in those
who abuse them. Now, when men give themselves up to a
gluttonous use of corn and wine, and drink sweet unfermented
wine (as we are told by ancient writers that some of their gor-
mandizing epicures did at feasts, until their stomachs could hold
no more, and then produced vomiting that they might enjoy the
pleasure of drinking again), although it never causes drunkenness,
it becomes an abuse of a good use, but it does not change the
substance into an evil substance or use. Cannot our brother see
this? Substances which nourish and build up the body, giving
substance, strength, and health, and which do not cause disease,
are always good uses, and never bad uses; but we have shown
above, from the testimony of Swedenborg, that although they
may be abused, yet their life is from Heaven and abuse cannot
change it.
Swedenborg informs us that evil uses are of a totally different
character. Among such uses he classes all substances which, when
used as food or drink, do hurt and kill men. He assures us that
they have their origin from hell. As we have stated elsewhere, of
no other substance of earth have we such long-continued, uniform
SIGNIFICATION OF MUSTUM-MUST.-
347
testimony, sustained by our own observation, that it hurts and kills
men as we have that fermented wine does this; and it not only
hurts and kills the body, but it also debases and depraves the mind,
and causes the most fearful delirium and insanity.
The reader should bear in mind that must is used to designate,
not only the unfermented juice of the grape, but also the juice
during the process of fermentation; and that during the latter
state it is polluted by ferment, consequently during that state it
has an evil signification, so that must may have a good or a bad
signification, according to its state. But the reader will find this
whole subject treated more fully in other chapters.
Again, says the writer in the
"We have seen that the
Word has yayin, tirosh and shechar; that it uses all three in both
a good and bad sense, and that there is no room for argument
that tirosh is alone commended." Now we have read many
volumes on the subject under consideration, and we remember
no writer who argues that tirosh is alone commended in the Word.
It is universally admitted, we believe, by the advocates of total
abstinence, that yayin, like the Latin vinum and the English
wine, is a generic name like our word cider, and includes new and
old wine, unfermented, fermented, boiled, and that which is
preserved by filtering, settling, and by adding sulphur and other
materials. We do know of one writer who claims that tirosh
is only used for the fruit of the vine and sweet or unfermented
wine, in which opinion he is perhaps mistaken, as we have shown
elsewhere.
C
Again, says the above writer: "We notice at once that mustum for
tërosh is used (by Swedenborg) carefully, and with consistent reference to its
use in the Word." "It means the truth of the natural man' (A. E. 509);
'truth from good in the natural' (A. E. 5117); corn signifies good, tïrosh
[mustum] natural truth-of the rational, bread and wine [vinum] are
predicated'” (A. C. 3580). Again, the above writer says: "We have
seen that mustum is understood to denote good in the natural, or good
which is exterior.
The result of some study is the conclusion
that he used vinum for fermented wine, as opposed to mustum for unfer-
mented."
The writer from whom we have quoted gives no intimation
that mustum or unfermented wine has ever any higher signifi-
cation than what is natural and exterior, and thus he leaves the
reader to infer that such is his opinion.
Now, we ask the intelligent reader of Swedenborg if the above
348
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
is a fair representation of Swedenborg's teachings; and if the con-
clusions arrived at are those which an unbiased mind would be
likely to reach after a fair examination of this whole subject?
Let us look, and we shall readily find passages which will certainly
give a very different view from that which he presents; and,
on a more careful examination, we shall find that there are many
passages which show that unfermented mustum or sweet unfer-
mented wine, has a much higher signification than that represented
above-in fact, that it has as high a signification as is ever given to
wine. Surely not many will pretend that the blood of the grape
is fermented wine, yet we read that: "The blood of the grape
signifies spiritual celestial good, which is the name given to the
divine in heaven proceeding from the Lord." (A. C. 5117.) Does
this need refining by man's ingenuity?
66
"Must," says Swedenborg, signifies the same as wine, viz.,
truth derived from the good of charity and love." (A. E. 695.)
It will be seen that the above is a general declaration, and not a
specific application, as in the instances quoted by the above writer.
Again, we are told that, "By the produce of the wine-press was
signified all the truth of the good of the Church, the same as by
wine."-A. E. 799.
The produce of the wine-press is neither more nor less than
unfermented wine.
Not a single drop of fermented wine was ever produced by a
wine-press from sound, healthy grapes, pressed immediately after
they were crushed. Fermented wine is produced by the violent
action of ferment, and by ferment alone, on the juice of the
grape, decomposing and destroying the organized substances
created by the Lord in the grape, most admirably adapted for the
sustenance of man.
On a careful examination, it is imposible to avoid the conclu-
sion that must or new wine always means either the unfermented
juice of the grape, or the juice during the first stages of fermenta-
tion. Now, when it is spoken of favorably and commended in the
Word, it is evident that it must mean unfermented juice of the
grape; for surely no one can for a moment suppose that wine or must
during fermentation, full of ferment and the heterogeneous sub-
stances which it has developed, can have a good signification.
Even the above writer cannot claim this.
New wine" (Luke xv. 29), says Swedenborg, "is the divine
truth of the New Testament, consequently of the New Church,
and old wine is the divine truth of the Old Testament, consequently
SWEDENBORG'S COMPARISONS.
349
of the Old Church." Now, will our brother tell us which has the
highest signification-new or old wine? We have abundantly
shown elsewhere that the best old wines of the ancients in Bible
days were not generally fermented wines, but that they were un-
fermented wines.
There remains but one subject more in the article in the
which requires notice, and that is Swedenborg's com-
parisons; and, although we have already considered them, still as
the arguments of some of the advocates for the use of intoxicating
drinks are generally chiefly based upon these comparisons, we will
present to the reader the comparisons selected by the above
writer, with his comments in full, adding a few notes of our own
in brackets, so that the reader may have the latest presentation by
our opponents of the comparisons from Swedenborg before him.
The writer says:
“He (Swedenborg) says of spiritual fermentation, that 'purification is
effected in two ways, by spiritual temptations and fermentations; the
former are combats against evils and falsities,' the latter are 'evils and falsi-
ties which, being let in, act like ferments put into meal and unfermented
wines-mustis [that is, they excite combat.-E.], by which heterogeneous
things are separated and homogeneous conjoined and made pure and clear'
[manifestly in the spirit of man and not in the wine.—E.]—D. P. 25.
"This is unmistakable. The leaven [spiritual leaven] is evil in its
character. The result, if the process is carried out, is good, namely,
[spiritual] purification.
CC
Again, he likens the reforming process to the fermentation of vinum
or sicera, and he adds:
"If the good overcomes, the evil with its falsities is removed to the
sides as the lees fall to the bottom of the vessel, and the good becomes like
generous vinum after fermentation and clear sicera. [Becomes clear, like
generous or strong wine after fermentation.-E.] But if the evil over-
comes, then the good with its truth is removed to the sides, and becomes
turbid and foul like unfermented vinum and unfermented sicera.' (D. P.
284.) [Wine is called unfermented wine until the active stage of fermen-
tation is completed; and as fermentation generally commences within
twenty-four hours from the time the wine flows from the press, if no
measures are taken to prevent it, it is evident that Swedenborg had in
mind wine in this state; for wine in which fermentation has not com-
menced is neither turbid nor foul, and, as we well know, is often kept for
years without becoming either.-E.]
"These are plain words, a comparison being made which would not be
made if clear sicera was a decayed product, nor if unfermented vinum was
perfect wine.
350
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
"So again we read :
"The purification of truth from falsity in man cannot take place
without fermentation, so-called; that is, without combat. But after that
the combat has taken place and the truth has conquered, then the falsity
falls like lees, and the truth exists purified; like vinum, which, after fer-
mentation, grows clear, the lees falling to the bottom.' (A. C. 7906.)
[By spiritual fermentation, so-called, we are told above he means spiritual
combat--falsity falls like lees, and the truth grows clear like wine after
fermentation-that is all.-E.]
That this was Swedenborg's full understanding of the process of fer-
mentation also appears from his use of the illustration in a letter to Dr.
Beyer, dated Stockholm, December 29th, 1769, in which, speaking of
opposition, he said: 'Such a noise does no harm, for it is like that of fer-
mentation in the preparation of wine, by which it is cleared of impurities;
for unless what is wrong is ventilated and thus expelled, what is right
cannot be seen and adopted.' [Fermentation simply clears the wine of the
impurities developed by the ferment.-E.]
"There is no word adverse to this, so far as is known."
With all due respect to the above writer, we unhesitatingly
affirm that Swedenborg's writings are full of words adverse to the
construction which he has placed upon the above comparisons which
he has selected from Swedenborg's works. To admit what the
above writer assumes, would be to admit that Swedenborg con-
tradicts himself and scientific facts with which he was unquestion-
ably familiar, which is not true.
The above writer, and others who attempt to justify the use of
fermented wine, assume, as the writer has stated before, that un-
fermented wine, as it is squeezed from grapes, or flows from the
press, is not a perfect wine, but that, like man, it has fallen ; one
writer assumes that it contains earth-born impurities; and that as
man is purified from his evils by the aid of evil spirits, flowing in
and exciting them, and by man's combat against them, so wine
can only be purified from its impurities by the use of leaven or
ferment; which we are told by Swedenborg signifies "evil and the
false which should not be mixed with things good and true."
Now, as we have stated elsewhere, we know not of a single
passage in the Word, or in the Writings of the Church, or a single
scientific fact which will sustain the assumption that the wine as
it flows from the press contains any impurities, or that it is not a
perfect wine. We have seen above, that the blood of the grape,
must or new wine, before the process of fermentation, has the very
highest signification; and that must and even all the produce of
FERMENTED WINE NOT HOMOGENEOUS.
351
the wine-press have the same signification as wine. Where, then,
are your impurities? Where, then, are your imperfections in this
good product of the vineyard, one of the most homogeneous sub-
stances in the world, organized by the Great Chemist, for nour-
ishing and sustaining the human body; and containing in a liquid
form, most wonderfully blended, the very materials required by
the body. It seems almost a profanation to talk of its having im-
purities and imperfections.
Until ferment commences its destructive work, wine has no
impurities; but, after that, it speedily becomes turbid, foul, and
full of heterogeneous substances; and it cannot become a clear
liquid until the active stage of fermentation ceases, and the result-
ing heterogeneous substances are separated from the liquid by
falling to the bottom, or otherwise. It is the fermentation com-
pared to spiritual combats, and the clarification of the wine pro-
ducing a clear liquid, which Swedenborg manifestly intends to
compare in the above passages, and not the inherent quality of the
resulting fluid. Swedenborg knew very well that fermented wine
would cause intoxication, and in A. E. 1035, he compares such
wine to falses from evil. Does that look as though he thought
fermented wine was a good and perfect wine, or that it had a good
correspondence? He knew as well as we know that the important
or chief active ingredient in fermented wine is alcohol, and that
the alcohol in wine is in every respect similar to the alcohol in
whisky, which he declared, long after his illumination, was "so
pernicious a drink."
Fermented wine is not a perfect or homogeneous wine; for if
the process of fermentation has been arrested, by bottling and
corking, keeping it cool, or by the addition of alcohol or any other
substance, which will either prevent or check the fermentation,
you necessarily have unfermented wine, which the above writer
represents as an imperfect wine, mixed with the fermented wine;
whereas, if the process is allowed to go on until it is fully com-
pleted, before that time arrives the acetous fermentation com-
mences, and you have vinegar mixed with your wine, so that in
either case it is an impure and polluted wine. There is no avoid-
ing this conclusion.
The following is the conclusion of the
article:
"When our Lord instituted the Holy Supper, He used the expression
'fruit of the vine,' and this has been declared to mean an unfermented
drink; but, looking merely at the words, it would be difficult to see that
352
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
they carry on their face any such meaning. Swedenborg, in speaking of
this act (T. C. R. 708) uses always the term vinum. The Lord gave them
vinum, saying: This is my blood,' and vinum signifies Divine Truth."-
T. C. R. 706.
Of course, vinum signifies divine truth when it is applied to
unfermented wine; but never when it is applied to wine after the
process of fermentation has commenced. Vinum is a generic
word covering all kinds of wine, as we have shown elsewhere.
Says the Rev. Dr. Samson : "Not a shadow of doubt, then,
rests on the fact, that, in the wisdom of Him who wished His will
to be known as to the intoxicant, which, from Noah's fall to our
day, has been, as Luther styled it, the sauf-teufel, or drink-devil
(the tempter of Noah being, to the reformer's mind, the tempter
most successful since the flood), not a shadow of doubt rests as to
the fact that the word known to all nations was selected by divine
inspiration, as the one in reference to which the least possible
mistake could be made in the records which teach God's laws as to
the beverages whose nature must be learned by the effects they are
stated to produce. Yayin is like oinos, and vinum and vin and
wein and wine as universally generic as it is universally cognate ;
and the Divine mind, that has made its meaning in all human
literature to be manifest to the reader, meant that it should be, as
it certainly has been, manifest also to men responsible as trans-
lators."
Chemistry, as the writer has already stated, shows that in no
true sense is fermented wine the fruit of the vine; for almost all
of the organic constituents of the fruit as contained in grapes, and
the wine as it flows from the press, have been either partially or
wholly destroyed, changed or precipitated by fermentation; and
alcohol, which will cause drunkenness, disease and insanity (de-
veloped by the destruction of a heaven-born substance, sugar)
becomes the chief ingredient in the wine.
How contrary it is to the facts in the case, to either assert, or
pretend, that fermented wine is the fruit of the vine, or that it
was the kind of wine used by our Lord when He instituted the
Holy Supper. Unfermented wine is truly the fruit of the vine,
and is nothing else. Of this there can be no question. Let us
either use it, or let wine alone. We must let fermented wine alone
if we would live in safety; for all experience shows that no man
can use it with assurance that he will not become a drunkard ;
and the man who has the most confidence in his own prowess will,
COMPARISONS AND CORRESPONDENCES.
353
as a rule, be quite sure to be the first to fall. Let us beware!
We cannot violate the laws of God, as manifested in our physical
and mental organizations, with impunity.
A writer in the
for May, 1880, says:
"There is no poison in the wine which 'makes glad the heart
of man,' none in that which the good Samaritan poured into the
wounds of the man who fell among thieves; none in that which
cheers but does not inebriate in declining age.
""
Every word of which is true; but oh! when the above writer
assumes, as he does, that the kind of good wine to which he
alludes is fermented wine, how far from the truth he is can be
seen at a glance. We know that there is poison in fermented wine,
and that it every day makes the hearts of men mad, and their
wives and children fearfully sad, and never glad. Who would
think for a single moment of pouring such an irritating fluid as
fermented wine into fresh wounds? Such a wine will inebriate
the old man more readily than the middle-aged; and how can any
Christian writer, when Swedenborg compares it to falses from evil
(A. E. 1035), represent it as the "most holy earthly emblem of
the truth which is divine"?
Have we, as rational and accountable beings (simply to gratify
our perverted appetites), a right to enter upon an unnecessary
course of life, and to teach others by precept and example to do
the same, which the experience of thousands of years has shown
is attended with such fearful danger to our present and eternal
welfare, as is the drinking of fermented wine? Have we a right
to thus endanger the happiness and welfare of those whom we
should love by such a course? Will our friends of the one wine
theory answer the above questions? Will they tell us where the
enormous sin" of drunkenness lies, if it does not lie with the
"beginners"? The drunkard is insane, and, consequently, com-
paratively irresponsible.
เ
A few words more in regard to comparisons :
In the A. C. 8226, Swedenborg likens or compares the order
which exists in the hells with the order which exists in the heavens;
but from this comparison have wo any reason to suppose that a
life here in accordance with the order which exists in the hells,
however temperately indulged in, or however diluted, if you
please, would have a good signification and would be a true
life?
"If there is no difference between comparisons and corre-
spondences, the Lord Himself, said to come like a thief in the
354
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
night, would be accountable for the evil man whom He is merely
likened to or compared with.”—H. S. Sutton.
The July number (1885) of The
lowing from a correspondent :
contains the fol-
"I notice a statement from a prominent total abstinence advocate-' I
know of no instance where a good signification is ever given to any leavened
substance, excepting to leavened bread after it has been purified by heat.'
Then his copy of the writings must be queerly translated. I find in mine
' plenty of them. (E. g: A. C. 7906; D. P. 25, 284; T. C. R. 820, 834;
A. C. 1517.) Only I find, also, that, with most other correspondences,
they have an opposite evil significance (see A. C. 6377), which, however,
does not take away the good (see D. L. W. 331). However, contrary to
his reading, I find that leavened bread is usually used in an unfavorable
sense, as in Arcana (n. 7887-8), where it represents 'truth not purified
from the false,' and n. 9295, where it signifies 'good not yet fully
purified.
"Truth not purified from the false," and "good not yet fully
purified" are not altogether bad, like falses and falses from evil.
The total abstinence advocate, referred to above, certainly did not
intend to convey the idea that the correspondence of leavened bread
is ever absolutely good, like that of unleavened bread; but that,
having in a great measure been purified by heat while baking, it is
relatively pure when compared with fermented or leavened wine,
which has never been thus purified, but contains all the soluble
effete substances which have been excreted or secreted by the living
leaven cells, the chief of which is alcohol, which renders it an un-
clean, poisonous and intoxicating fluid.
Now, if the reader will turn to the above named numbers in the
A. C., D. P. and D. L. W., he will find simply comparisons which
refer to the apparent combat which takes place during fermentation,
to the separations which take place, and to the clearness of the
resulting liquid; and that no reference is made to the inherent
quality of the fermented wine, or to its ability to affect man, or to
its suitableness for use as a beverage. It is certain that fermented
wine never has a good correspondence in itself; for, as has been
repeatedly stated, the results which follow or are produced by fer-
mentation are directly the opposite of those which follow spiritual
regeneration or purification; for in the latter process the good
and the true overcome the evil and the false; whereas in the
fermentation of wine, the leaven, which corresponds to the evil
and false, overcomes and either perverts, destroys, or casts down
COMPARISONS OF SWEDEnborg.
355
or out, everything in the pure juice of the grape, which nourishes
and delights the natural body as good and truth do the spirit of
man, to the extent that fermentation progresses. This simple fact,
gentlemen, settles the correspondence of fermented wine; and you
may as well give it up first as last.
If the reader will turn to the passages in The True Christian
Religion named above, he can judge whether reference is had to
fermented wine or not. The writer will quote them. Speaking of
the changes which take place among Papists, when in the spiritual
world they are instructed and begin to see the truth, Swedenborg
says they are "like sailors who after a tedious voyage come to the
desired haven; and then they are invited by the members of the
society to feasts, and delicious wine is given them to drink out of
crystalline cups" (T. C. R. 820). Again, in speaking of the heat
in the Christian heavens, when the delight of their love is perceived
as an odor, Swedenborg says it "is like the fragrance of gardens,
vineyards and shrubberies
* and in other places like
the scent arising from wine-presses and wine-cellars."-T. C. R.
834.
In reply to the above, we would simply remind the writer in
the
that the fiery, polluted wine, which he evidently
regards as a delicious wine, would never be so regarded by a child
or man of unperverted taste. Place the unfermented wine and
fermented wine to the lips of children or men for the first time,
and there is not the slightest doubt which would be chosen every
time-and it would not be the vile product of leaven.
The odor of a vineyard when the grapes are ripe is delightful,
and the same is true of a wine-cellar filled with new wine; but if
filled with fermenting wine, and not ventilated, the atmosphere is
suffocating from the presence of carbonic acid gas.
The writer has called repeatedly upon the advocates for the use
of fermented wine, to produce a single instance in which Sweden-
borg, in giving the spiritual sense of passages of the Sacred
Scriptures in which wine is named, has ever given to wine a good
signification, when it is clear that reference is had to fermented
wine, and yet such a passage has never been produced; and it never
can be, for the simple reason that in giving the spiritual sense of
the Scriptures, Swedenborg never contradicts either himself or any
well known, fully established scientific facts.
In the following quotations from the Apocalypse Revealed, the
reader will see that pure truths can never be the cause of spiritual
drunkenness. This is admitted by the most zealous advocates for
356
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
the use of intoxicating wine; the question then arises, how can a
wine which will intoxicate correspond to spiritual truths which
never intoxicate? We ask the reader if it is not self-evident that
the good wine which corresponds to genuine unperverted truths
must be a wine which will not cause intoxication?
“Drunkards signify those who are insano in spiritual things
(No. 235). That to drink and to be drunken signify to imbibe
falses and to commix them with truths; also to imbibe truths and
to commix them with falses (No. 235). That to be made drunken
signifies to become insane from the falses, thus not to see truths
(No. 240). That drunkenness signifies insanity in spiritual things.
(n. 276). That the drunken, but not with wine, signifies those who
are in falses from ignorance of the truth (No. 376). That drunken-
ness also signifies falling into errors (No. 376). That spiritual
inebriation is delirium in truths by falses (No. 887).
the earth drunk, signifies to infatuate the Church, so that no
longer any truth is seen (No. 960). That to be made drunk signi-
fies to be insane in spiritual things (No. 1034). That the insanity
signified by inebriation and by drunkenness in the Word is not
from falses, but from truths falsified (No. 1035). That to be
drunk signifies to bo insane in spiritual things from the falses of
evil (No. 1049).”—Index.
That to make
Now is it not self-evident, in view of the above clear state-
ments, that a wine which actually corresponds to the falses and
falsified and perverted truths which cause spiritual drunkenness,
must be a wine which will cause natural drunkenness, which we
know is fermented wine ?
FACTS WORTHY OF ATTENTION BY ALL WHO DESIRE TO KNOW THE
TRUTH UPON THIS IMPORTANT QUESTION.
First-As the writer has abundantly shown in this and his
former works, the word wine, and the corresponding word in the
Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages, is a generic name, and in-
cludes all kinds of wine, new and old, unfermented and fermented ;
and that it is thus used in the Sacred Scriptures and in the Writings,
and in the English translations of both. The tirosh of the Hebrew
Scriptures and the mustum in Swedenborg's Latin, which generally
denote unfermented grape-juice, but may include formenting must
also, are not unfrequently translated by the English word wine, in
our present English Bible and in the English translations of
Swedenborg's works; and to show that such a translation, especially
ד -
FACTS WORTHY OF ATTENTION.
357
so far as the Hebrew Scriptures are concerned, is no new or care-
less rendering, we will here state, as we have heretofore stated,
that the Hebrew word tirosh, about three centuries before the
Christian era, was translated by distinguished Hebrew scholars into
Greek in the Septuagint, or Greck Old Testament, by the Greek
word oinos, or wine, and not by glukos, or the Greek word for un-
formented juice of the grape. Here, then, we have one fact which
is beyond being called in question; which is, that we have to-day,
and have had for thousands of years, two kinds of wine-the un-
fermented and fermented juice of the grape, although very different,
yet both called wine in the different languages with which we have
to do in the discussion of this question.
Second-That the fermented juice of grapes is called wine, and
has been so called in all ages, and with but few exceptions, among
most nations, is beyond question; but we have no evidence that
such a wine is the good wine of either the Word or of the Writings.
Between unfermented and fermented wine there is a great gulf
fixed as broad and deep as that between heaven and hell, and
every way similar; for the former derives its life and life-giving
qualities from the Lord through heaven, and the latter derives
its life and body and soul destroying qualities from hell, according
to the plain teaching of Swedenborg in his D. L. W., to which
reference has heretofore been made. In unfermented wine we
have the nutritious substances most wonderfully adapted for sup-
plying the wants of the human body, and the whole bearing a strict
resemblance to blood, all organized by the Lord in the fruit of the
vine. In fermented wine wo have these nutritious substances
destroyed and decomposed by an unclean living substance called
leavon, which pours out its excretions into the wine, rendering it
unclean, and a fluid which will harm and kill men when they drink
it freely as they may drink unfermented wine or other good and
useful fluids.
Third-There are in the Sacred Scriptures and in the Writings
of the Church a large number of passages in which reference is had
to the juice of grapes, either under the name of wine, must, sweet
wine, or new wine, or old wine. Please bear in mind always that
wine or old wine may be either unfermented or fermented; and that
must or now wine may be unfermenting or fermenting, but very
rarely tho lattor as reference is made to it in the Sacred Scriptures.
Now, in a large number of instances in which the juice of grapes
is referred to, under any of the above names, in the Bible and
in the Writings, the kind of wine to which reference is made is
358
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
perfectly clear from the text and context; whether it is unfer-
mented, or fermented, or fermenting. If it is spoken of as being
either squeezed from grapes, trodden from grapes, pressed from
grapes or flowing from the press, or, again, as it exists in grapes,
or as dropping from the mountains; we know that it is unfer-
mented wine or juice of the grape that is meant. On the other
hand, when the juice of grapes, under any of the above names, is
spoken of as causing drunkenness and insanity, or is likened to
the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps, or when we
are told that it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder,
surely no one can have the slightest question but that reference is
had to either the fermented or fermenting juice of the grapes. It
is not to the abuse that reference is had in the above instances,
but to the inherent quality of the wine-to its ability to injuri-
ously affect man when he drinks it. The writer recognizes dis-
tinctly the fact that a good thing, like unfermented wine, may be
used to excess or abused, when its abuse will not have a good
signification; and also he will not deny but that a substance
having a vile origin, like alcohol, when applied to a good purpose
as in the arts, or by its poisonous qualities preserving substances
from decomposition, and even for preserving remedies, or when
used for burning to generate heat, its use may have a good corre-
spondence, the correspondence being always with the use or
function and never with the substance itself. Gold has a good
correspondence; but gold, if ground up finely or dissolved in
acids, and used as we use other food, would cause disease and
death; and if so used, its use would have no good correspond-
ence. We should strive never to confound good and evil, or
truth and falsehood.
Now, Swedenborg, in giving the spiritual sense of the Sacred
Scriptures, has quoted and given the spiritual signification of
most, if not all, of the passages which speak of the juice of grapes,
or wine in any form; and on a careful examination we find not a
single instance in all of his writings where he has ever given to
fermented wine or grape-juice a good signification, where it is
clear from the text or context that reference is had to fermented
wine. On the other hand, we find not a single instance in his
writings where he has ever given to the unfermenting or unfer-
mented juice of good, sweet, cultivated grapes or unfermented
wine, a bad signification, when it is clear from the text or context
that reference is had to unfermented wine. Now, there is also a
large number of passages in the Sacred Scriptures where wine is
FACTS WORTHY OF ATTENTION.
359
spoken of favorably, and where Swedenborg has given a good
signification to the wine, where there is nothing in the text or
context, with the exception of a good signification, by which we
can determine whether the wine in question was unfermented or
fermented. Now, we ask with what show of truth or justice the
advocates for the use of fermented wine, can claim such passages
to justify the use of fermented wine as a beverage and as a sacra-
mental wine, when there is not a passage where the character of
the wine is beyond question, which will justify their claim? On
the other hand, we appeal to the common sense as well as to the
highest intelligence of every man and woman, to say if they cannot
all be claimed legitimately and fairly as referring to unfermented
wine; which we have found, when we are certain that it is unfer-
mented, always has a good signification? If any one has the
slightest question, let him look again at the origin of the two kinds
of wine, and their effects on man when he drinks them. Unfer-
mented wine is the unperverted natural product of the vine, which
nourishes, warms and thus makes glad the heart of man when he
partakes of it freely. Fermented wine is the product of leaven in
its destructive action upon the pure juice of the grape, and full of
its excretions; and when man drinks it freely it is capable of
causing almost innumerable diseases, drunkenness, insanity and
death. We ask the intelligent reader again, if it is possible that
two fluids so different in their origin, in their chemical compo-
sition, and in their effects on man when he partakes freely of
them as he does of other healthy fluids, can both have a good
signification? If, as has been abundantly shown, the signification
of unfermented wino is good, does it not necessarily follow that
the signification of fermented wine is bad? We know, if we will
reflect a moment, that it is bad; for as the leaven, or the corrupt
tree which produces it, perverts and corrupts the juice of the pure
fruit of the vine, so leavened or fermented wine perverts the
appetite, the body, the understanding and heart of those who
drink of it as freely as they may of healthy fluids. We see evi-
dence of this all around us among wine-drinkers, in every nation
where fermented wine is drunk; in every church, and among all
classes, even among clergymen. It is a sad reflection that we
have teachers and writers belonging to the Church, who will not
only drink intoxicating drinks, which is bad enough; but who
strive with all their might to justify their use, and thus lead
others, even the young, to follow their example in drinking; and
who do not hesitate to justify and require the use of an intoxicant
360
COMPARISONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
at the most Holy Supper. May the Lord enlighten and forgive
them !
A clergyman writes in regard to Church organizations: "The
Church has hitherto busied itself chiefly with questions pertaining
to ecclesiastical matters-what form of church government, of
worship, of prayer, of sermon and of sacrament? In this she has
done well; but she has too much neglected a vast field of issues
open to her, and to her only. Not only in the questions of absti-
nence and temperance and tobacco, but in all reforms it rests with
the Church ultimately to speak the decisive word. We see on
every hand the birth of new devices and of new contrivances.
They are the footprints of the New Age. And yet the Church,
she in whose hands the entire fate of the New Age and the shaping
of its entire course lies, rarely says a word on these subjects.
From the question of teaching Hebrew, Greek and Latin in our
colleges, up to the Revision of the Sacred Scriptures, and to the
issues between labor and capital, between unions and monopoly,
the Church is generally severely silent. And yet she alone can
speak the final and decisive word."
With the exception of a few very rare instances of either acci-
dental or intentional poisoning from intoxicating drinks, all of the
diseases of the brain, lungs, heart, stomach and kidneys, all of
the insanity and consequent crime, drunkenness and premature
deaths, which wo witness around us at this day, or which have
ever occurred in the world, from the drinking of intoxicating
drinks, have started from the one fountain, namely, the moderate
drinking of intoxicating drinks; generally of fermented wine, beer
and other fermented drinks; and they are but the legitimate
results which have always flowed, and which, we know, always
will flow, so long as moderate drinking of intoxicants is continued;
and it is perfectly safe to say that no moderate drinker has escaped
entirely unharmed. The greatest obstacles to the descent of the
New Jerusalem are the moderate drinking of intoxicating drinks,
and the use of fermented wine at the Holy Supper; a fluid that is
unclean in its origin, and which, as we well know, fills man phys-
ically and mentally with all manner of uncleanness when he drinks
freely of it, as he may of healthy drinks, such as unfermented
wine, milk, etc.
CHAPTER XV.
PROHIBITION-INSURANCE STATISTICS AND
AVERAGES-
CHRISTIAN NATIONS SENDING INTOXICANTS TO GENTILE
NATIONS-THE AFRICANS.
It is perfectly safe to say that among one-half of the native-
born citizens of the United States, there is not a single natural
drunkard—not one; and while they hold firmly to their "modern
reform" principles there never can be a drunkard among them,
for they never drink from the drunkard's cups. Nor are they
ruined by even the hardest "rough handling of evils," for we
know that they withstand manfully all the temptations by which
they are surrounded in their native country; and the writer has
often, at tables in foreign lands, where the use of intoxicating
drinks was universal, or nearly so, been able to point to men and
women and say: "They are Americans, or, it is barely possible,
they are English, for they have no intoxicating cups before them.”
These people have been taught, and principally by religious
teachers, and by reading their Bibles and other good books-the
present writer was so taught--that to use intoxicating drinks is to
endanger one's own health, freedom, reason and life, and the
happiness of others, and his own eternal salvation; all of which
is a violation of the Divine commands, to love the Lord with all
our heart and our neighbor as ourselves.
We know that the use of intoxicating drinks is, directly or indi-
rectly, the cause of more than one-half of the crimes committed
and of the poverty, wretchedness, and insanity which exist in the
communities where they are used; and their use is the most pro-
lific of all of the causes of disease, and even of idiocy. As to the
mortality which results from this cause, we clip from the Morning
Light of May 7th, 1881, the following letter, which is a fair pres-
entation of the results of careful observation :
THE DEATH RATE AND TOTAL ABSTINENCE.
"DEAR SIR,-With reference to Mr. Bingham's speech in your
issue for April 23d, the following particulars may interest your
readers:
362
INSURANCE STATISTICS AND AVERAGES.
"At the end of 1878 the average death rate in the General
Section of the Sceptre Life Office for the fourteen years of its exist-
ence, had been 8 in the 1,000, in the Temperance Section 44. The
number of deaths expected in the Temperance Section of the same
office for the five years ending 1879 was 90, the actual number
dying being 47.
"The number of deaths expected in the General Section of
the Temperance Provident Institution for the years 1871-75 was
1,266, the actual number dying being 1,330; in the Temperance
Section for the same period the number expected to die was 723;
only 511 died. Referring to this report, John Bright said the
figures are most remarkable. There is no mistake about it, that
the men who abstain from intoxicating drinks have an immense
advantage, both physically and morally, over the rest of the com-
munity.'
"The report of this same office for the year 1879 shows the
same thing. During the year preceding the annual meeting the
number of deaths expected in the General Section was 305, the
actual number dying being 326; in the Temperance Section ‘196
were expected, and only 164 were obstinate enough to die.' For
the four years ending since the last division of profits, the claims
made in the Temperance Section were 215 less, in the General
Section 2 more than expected.
"A map of the township of Toxteth Park, Liverpool, shows
that a division containing no public houses and five-twelfths of
the whole population, rejoices in enough (45) paupers; the remain-
der of the township, with seven-twelfths of the population and 200
public houses, contains 1,453 paupers.
* * * ((
เ
'Finally, may I call the attention of your readers to the
village of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, U. S. A. The Maine Liquor
Law is enforced there with the result that its six constables work
in the scale manufactories except on special days, when they don
their uniforms to make a little show. * * ** No loafer hangs
about the curb-stones. Not a beggar can be seen. No drunkard
reels along the streets. There seem to be no poor. I have not
seen, in two days' wandering up and down, one child in rags, one
woman looking like a slut.'-Hepworth Dixon-Letters from
America.
“The figures I have quoted seem conclusive, for we must recol-
lect that the General Sections are not composed of drunkards,
only moderate drinkers are admitted to them. If, then, the mor- -
IT IS RIGHT TO PROHIBIT EVILS.
363
tality rate amongst total abstainers is so superior to moderate
drinkers, total abstinence cannot be otherwise than better.
"GEORGE GORDON PULSFORD.
“HAMSTEAD, near Birmingham, April 18, 1881."
Governor Begole, of Michigan, in a late address, asserted that
he had found from an accurate study of statistics, that ninety-one
per cent. of the crime and pauperism of the State came direct
from the use of intoxicating drinks.
The only argument that can be urged to-day against prohibi-
tion is that of expediency. The time has passed when any intelli-
gent man can seriously question the right of the community to
protect its members against such dire evils as result from the use
of intoxicating drinks. Liberty is constantly restrained where its
exercise may be used by any to his neighbor's detriment, or his
own injury. A man cannot build a dwelling-house on his own
land, and for his own use, until the proper department has certi-
fied that his plans are safe for his neighbors, and healthful for his
own indwelling. A family living contentedly under ground, with
insufficient light and air, are expelled from their home, and the
cellar is closed, regardless of the complaint of landlord and tenant.
No other evil is so productive of injury to the community as this
curse of alcohol; yet almost any other may be legislated against
if this is let alone. We punish with relentless severity the poor
drunken wretch who has violated the law, though we know that
the crime was committed when the stupefying and poisonous
draught had deprived him entirely of that sense of right and
wrong, which lies at the very foundation of moral responsibility.
We punish the drunken criminal, not for the tippling which has
led to his insanity and crime, but for the crimes that he would never
have committed in his sober senses; and then we renew the licenso
of the rum-seller whose liquor has crazed him; so that when his
term of punishment has expired he may again be subjected to the
same temptation, and society again suffer from his evil-doing.
Against every other danger wo may protect ourselves without the
cry of fanaticism, or danger to private rights. The officers of the
law go into our most private apartments to search for sewer-gas,
or some source of ill-health, that may work harm to a few occu-
pants of the house, and pass by the licensed shop that corrupts a
neighborhood and ruins bodies and souls. We compel the fencing
in of an area, lest some unwary passer-by or some child may fall
into it; and allow the rum-sellor his public bar-room, where he
364
INSURANCE STATISTICS AND AVERAGES.
may display his decanters, and his beer-pump, and his free lunch
to entice our young men into the broad road which leads to drunk-
enness and death. We enter by force if needs be, and take away
sick children from their parents' care to a public hospital, and dis-
infect houses where there has been a contagious disease. We break
up gambling-hells, and policy-shops, and disorderly houses, be-
cause they are detrimental to the morals of the community. But
there is no contagion more deadly, no gas more pernicious, no
allurement to vice so potent as this curse of bar-room drinking.
Where gaming ruins one fortune, rum ruins many; and no other
vice is so thoroughly destructive of all manliness as rum can be.
What vice or weakness can we name that leads to crime as this
does? What vice or misery can we name to which the first glass
may not lead? Look at the squandered fortunes-the diseased
frames-the imbecile minds-the ruined homes-the blighted lives
-the broken hearts! See in how many families of your own
friends the curse comes, striking the brightest and best; see the
poverty, the ruin, the crime, and the vast multitudes going on in
never-ending succession to fill drunkards' graves; and then sce
the community lopping off little branches of evil, and letting this
giant tree of evil stand to scatter its baleful seeds!
We ask you, intelligent reader, if such a course of conduct is
worthy of a Christian or even a civilized people? Is it not clearly
our duty to protect the young and the weak from such a degrading
evil as the sin of indulging in intoxicating drinks?
It does certainly seem that we should, at least, withhold the
sanction of the law from the sale of such drinks. And it does
seem that, if it is ever proper to enact laws to prevent crime and
the contamination of the young, it is clearly our duty, if practi-
cable, to do so in this instance. But we know very well that
before a law can be enforced, the honest convictions of a very
large majority of the people must sustain it. If there is any
doubt upon this point, our first duty is clearly to do all we can to
enlighten the people; rather than strive to enact prematurely a law
which we have good reason to suppose will not be enforced.
But the writer thinks that if the advocates of total abstinence,
even in the State of New York, would strive to enact a law to close
all bar-rooms where intoxicating liquors are sold or given away
publicly to be drank on the premises; and yet not attempt to
prevent their sale in quantity to be taken away from the place of
sale, that the good sense of the community would sustain such a
law. The advocates of the liberty of drinking what they choose
PROHIBITION AMONG THE ANCIENTS.
365
could not raise the cry that it interferes with their right to drink,
and get drunk if they choose. The habit of drinking intoxicants
at this day is generally acquired in bar-rooms, where young men
can invite their comrades up to take a drink with them. Very few
young men who have not acquired the habit of drinking would
ever purchase liquor to carry it to their homes where, as a rule,
even drunken parents do not favor their children's drinking.
Under the operation of such a law the race of drinkers would
materially lessen in a very few years, when there would be little
difficulty in enacting and enforcing a prohibitory law, which
should unquestionably be done at the earliest practicable moment.
In the meantime "local option," if adopted, would enable the
people in towns, cities and villages to put away the saloons in their
midst; and their example, and the results which would follow,
would help on the good work.
The Rev. Dr. Samson, in a work entitled "Science the Inter-
preter of History as to Fermented Wine-a Supplement to the
'Divine Law as to Wines,'" speaking of the efforts of the ancients
to control and prohibit the use of wines, says :
"That it was not the excess, but the use of wines, which the
ancients sought to control by law, is seen in the entire list of pro-
hibitions to youth, to women, to nurses, to men in public service,
which Plato and Aristotle, Numa and Cato urged. That it is not
the excessive use, but the intoxicant itself, that controls modern
legislation is attested by the fact that it is not bread-shops, nor
milk-dealers, that need to be restrained and prohibited; while all
unite in the effort to restrict and suppress beer-saloons, and to
supplant them by coffee-shops. It is not wines, but intoxicating
wines, that earnest Christian leaders seek to have exchanged for
the ancient unintoxicating wines; which Pliny states, though
costly, as were choice fruits, were sought for the wealthy of his
day. It is such wines that are now sought for the tables of the
princely in wealth and intellect; and above all, for the table of
the Lord around which the rich and the poor meet together. The
noble condescension, if not the conscientious conviction, of Ameri-
can Christians cannot fall behind that of Churchmen of England
in seeking and permitting the use of such wines.”
In Maine, as is well known to disinterested inquirers and ob-
servers, the law prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and giving
away of intoxicating drinks, has been very fairly enforced for
many years, perhaps as fully as laws against many other crimes;
and this notwithstanding the immense pressure which has been
366
INSURANCE STATISTICS AND AVERAGES.
brought against it from its opponents all over the country. It will
be much easier to enforce such a law when it is enacted by other
States.
As to Kansas, where such a law has been enacted for some years,
based upon a constitutional amendment, it is being from year to
year more and more carefully enforced, and is doing a great deal
of good.
"The New York Evening Post recently published a letter from
a Mr. Clayton, of Atlanta, Ga., claiming that prohibition had
greatly damaged that city, and that its trade had been circum-
scribed, many more houses to rent than ever before, etc. But now
comes the Daily Constitution of Atlanta, with three columns of
testimony from wholesale dealers, merchants, house-agents, and
other business men, together with Mayor Hillyea, all giving facts
and evidences to prove Mr. Clayton's statements to be false, and
that Atlanta has been the gainer every way from the passage of
the prohibitory law. The liquor interest dies hard. It knows it
must break down prohibition in Atlanta or see it spread all over
the country. All sorts of lies will be invented and spread over
the country to carry their point. The fact that the liquor interest
is so much opposed to prohibition is one of the strongest argu-
ments that it is not only right in itself, but that it prohibits the
sale of liquor in Atlanta."—National Temperance Advocate.
THE LAW OF AVERAGES.
The editors of a religious serial say :
"Dr. Ellis alleges that life insurance companies are beginning to make
a difference between abstainers and those who use alcoholic beverages.
This would probably be the only plan really excluding drunkards who
ought to be excluded, or be required to pay higher rates of insurance. But
we do not believe that any one who rationally uses these good gifts of God.
would consent to pay a heavier rate because there are drunkards. This
'beginning,' therefore, even if it has been made, will surely remain a
beginning, and will tend to make such concerns simply total abstinence
insurance companies, leaving other companies as before.'
A beginning which commenced forty years ago is not a very
new beginning, and bonuses which have arisen from seven per cent.
to twenty-three per cent. are not likely to be given up by sensible
people. Mr. Joseph Cook has specially examined this subject, and
we will make a few extracts from his lecture on "The American
and Foreign Temperance Creeds";
REV. JOSEPH COOK ON AVERAGES.
367
"The law of averages, as exhibited in the experience of life assur-
ance companies during the last forty years, has once for all triumph-
antly justified the temperance principle of total abstinence. Among
serious and thoroughly well-informed persons debate is over on
this matter. Yes, my luxurious friend, yes, my moderate drinker in
the pulpit, you are marked men, because benighted and belated.
When I was in London I took much pains to ascertain exactly the
facts as to the experience of British life assurance societies in
making a distinction between moderate drinkers and total ab-
stainers. Every one knows, or ought to know, that for nearly
half a century now many of the best life assurance societies of
England have insured moderate drinkers and total abstainers in
separate sections, and that a bonus has been paid to the sections
made up of total abstainers of seven, thirteen, seventeen, and, in
some cases, of twenty-three per cent. over that paid to the section
of moderate drinkers.”
After giving the results in different assurance societies, he
says:
"To summarize details which I might easily make voluminous,
the experience of nearly forty years and the insurance of more
than 100,000 lives in societies making a distinction between tem-
perate non-abstainers and total abstainers have proved that under
the law of averages a bonus of from seventeen to twenty-three per
cent. must be paid to the sections of total abstainers.
"Where is the Church, where is wealthy society, where are our
circles of culture and advanced thought, where are our serious and
intelligent young men, that they are not awake to these stern facts
of mere business? I have been citing to you not temperance
documents, but the reports of life assurance societies. They are
not fanatical organizations; they are not governed by this or that
pet theory as to temperance reform. Here is cool, stern business
sagacity applied to one of the most complicated commercial mat-
ters, and the outcome we have in this great proposition, sus-
tained by the most exact application of the law of averages, is
that nearly twenty-five per cent. bonus must be paid to total ab-
stainers above what is paid to moderate drinkers. Of course,
many of these total abstainers have not been such for all their
lives. Their health may have been injured in many cases by early
indulgences. By and by, when these societies come to have sec-
tions filled by men who have been total abstainers from birth, the
average of bonusos will be higher to the temperance sections.
You ought, also, to keep in mind constantly that the section not
368
INSURANCE STATISTICS AND AVERAGES.
total abstaining is not a section of drunkards, but a section of
those who are merely moderate drinkers, respectable men, most of
them only wine-drinkers.
"The law of averages in life assurance societies is now the
pedestal of adamant on which stands triumphant for all future
time, in the name of science, the abused and once even humiliated
principle of total abstinence."
Now, gentle reader, we ask how any Christian, in view of
mathematical facts like the above, strives to justify himself in
pursuing and in encouraging others to pursue a course of mod-
erate drinking of intoxicating drinks, with the full knowledge
that such a course shortens the average duration of human life
to such a fearful extent. Is there no wrong in doing this?
No sin?
The Rev. Joseph Cook, in a sermon, speaking of the conse-
quences and danger of moderate drinking, says:
Do you say that I am declaiming now, and leaving the ground
of hard, stern facts? How many of your moderate drinkers can
be insured on the same basis as total abstainers? This is a very
practical question. Since I came to England, I have been study-
ing up the history of some of your life assurance societies, and I
hold in my hand literal extracts from their own documents—not
temperance publications at all; and the great outcome is that the
total abstainer is paid from seven or ten up to fifteen and seven-
teen per cent. bonus over and above the moderate drinker. That
is an actual result; that is not the fancy of sentimentalism; that
is a broad, indisputable fact which Britons ought to respect as the
result of experience. Not long ago, one of the assurance societies
was addressed on this point, and made, through its secretary, the
following report—I have the original letter in my possession :
'During the past sixteen years we have issued 9,345 policies on
the lives of non-abstainers, but are careful to exclude any who are
not strictly temperate, and 3,396 on the lives of abstainers; 524
of the former have died, but ninety-one only of the latter, or less
than half the proportionate number, which, of course, is 190.'
Less than half the number of abstainers have died compared with
the number that have died among non-abstainers who were strictly
temperate; and this is after an experience of sixteen years.
"Are life assurance societies to be allowed to go beyond the
Church in their regard for the health of men, body and soul?
** These societies are not governed according to Biblical
rules; they are not governed by this or that theory in science.
*
THE NECESSITY OF PROTECTING CHILDREN.
369
Theirs is stern common-sense applied to a selfish problem, and the
outcome of it, under long experience, is like a peal of thunder
from Sinai. It is high time for the pulpit, it is high time for the
pew, it is high time for the young men to arouse themselves when
such are the signs of the times in secular societies. Here is the
sea rising in a tide that kisses the Alps.'
""
But there are a great many children born into this world, and
there are some parents who believe that it is their duty to strive to
“train up their children in the way they should go,” and they be-
lieve that "evil communications are liable to corrupt good man-
ners"
; consequently, they endeavor to keep their children out of
bad company, and from being led into temptation; and for this
purpose they believe that the gambling-houses, bad houses and
saloons on our street corners and elsewhere, should be done away
with by law, and that schools, Sabbath-schools and churches
should take their places. Such parents honestly believe that, if
they can keep their children out of temptation and from ultimating
their hereditary inclinations to evil in external acts until they
come to years of discretion, and are able to perceive, when taught,
that certain acts and the harboring of the thoughts which lead to
them, are contrary to the Divine commandments, and consequently
a sin against God, that it will be good for their children. Is this
belief a delusion?
Many of the religious societies of Great Britain are especially
active in this great modern reform movement. They have organ-
ized temperance societies and "Bands of Hope" where the young
are led by precept and example to shun the use of intoxicating.
drinks, and to engage actively in working for the restoration and
preservation of others. Their General Temperance Societies meet
annually during the sitting of Church Conferences.
Many a child which is allowed to be in bad company and to visit
cigar shops, saloons, gambling-houses, etc., without restraint, be-
comes a slave to bad habits before he or she is fifteen years of age;
and in cities and villages where children need as much as in the
country, active out-door exercise, it is one of the most difficult
things in the world for parents, however careful, whose employ-
ments prevent them from being with their children constantly,
to keep them out of temptations; and from being led into
bad habits by men and women who profit by their unlawful
indulgences. Frequently, when the writer has spoken to boys.
from ten to fifteen years of age, who were smoking, and called.
370
INSURANCE STATISTICS AND AVERAGES.
their attention to the consequences which would almost surely
follow, they have replied, "I have been smoking for years, and
have the habit, and I cannot give it up"; and they did not give it
up. Many a young man, before he is of age, acquires a love for
intoxicating drinks which it is very difficult, if not impossible, for
him to control; and this chiefly through the temptations of saloons.
Has a community no right to protect its young against such evils?
Is there no advantage in a young man's shunning a life which
endangers and may destroy "his intellectual faculty, whereby
he is a man; which hastens his death, damages his body, and
wastes in extravagance what might be of use to many"?— S. D.
2422.
HOW DRUNKARDS ARE MADE.
"Now, you watch those children. They'll drink half that beer
before they get home, and their mother will scold me for not
giving a good pint, and I've given nearly a quart," said the bar-
tender of a down-town saloon the other day, referring to two little
girls of six and eight, thinly clad, who came in for a pint of beer.
The reporter did watch the young ones. They had scarcely got
outside of the saloon-door when the one that carried the tin pail
lifted it to her lips and took a draught. Then her companion
enjoyed a few swallows. A little further on they entered a tene-
ment-house hallway, and both again took a sip. "I have lots of
such customers," said the bar-tender, when the reporter returned
to the saloon to light his cigar. "Girls and boys and women
form half our trade. We call it family trade. It pays our ex-
penses: Our profits come from the drinkers at the bar. But I
tell you what-half the children who come here drink. That's
how drunkards are made. Their mothers and fathers send 'em
for beer. They see the old folks tipple, and begin to taste the beer
themselves. Few of the children who come in here for beer or ale
carry a full pint home. Sometimes two or three come in together,
and if you watch 'em, you'll hear one begging the one who carries
the pail for a sip. We must sell it, however, when their parents
send for it. We are bound to do so. Business is business. We
don't keep a temperance shop."-New York Herald.
Petroleum V. Nasby (D. R. Locke), in an article in the North
American Review on Prohibition, speaking of the methods adopted
by at least some saloon-keepers to obtain customers, says:
"How does he do it? He has a thousand ways. He makes
his rooms as pleasant as possible; he takes the daily newspapers,
THE EFFECTS OF BEEK DRINKING.
* * **
371
which are free to his customers; he hangs cheap but attractive
pictures upon his walls.
He provides games of chance
and skill for his customers, the stake being always beer; he in-
vites workingmen to sit in his place, where there is a warm stove
in the winter, and artificially cooled air in the summer; he spreads
a cheap lunch which is free to all comers, the viands being invari-
ably thirst-provoking, and all this sort of thing.
((
Now, the workingman who comes into this place may have
before, on occasion, taken a glass of beer, when he happened to
be in the way of it, but he had no especial appetite for it, and no
regular craving. Before the opening of this place in his neighbor-
hood, he went to his home sober, and spent his evenings with his
family, as a decent workingman should, and there was always
bread and meat in his larder, and his wife and children were de-
cently and comfortably clad. For the purpose of meeting his
mates and discussing the current topics of the day, and for the
unhealthy pleasure of playing games, he becomes very quickly
habituated to frequenting the saloon, and, of course, takes his
glass of beer. He must do this, for he is too proud to enjoy
the facilities of the place without making some return. Soci-
ability being the chief attraction, he is invited to drink by the
other frequenters, his sense of liberality compels him to recip-
rocate, and so he, who dropped in for one glass, goes out with a
dozen under his belt, comfortably drunk. He didn't mean to, but
custom, the custom of the place, most artfully devised, forced
him into it. He goes home drunk every night, after a month or
two of it.
"The effect of the alcohol poison is not well enough under-
stood. No man can touch it without fastening upon himself a
craving for more. This is a physiological law which is fixed and
certain. The man who comes to stopping at a place of this kind
every night and taking one glass, within a week finds a half-dozen
necessary. And the seller helps him along the downward road as
rapidly as possible. There is always upon the counter a plate of
picked codfish, or red herrings cut into proper lengths, or pretzels
covered with salt, all thirst-provokers, and they actually put salt
into the beer, that the desire for the pleasant liquor may be in-
creased. Beer becomes a necessity to him before he is aware of
it, and his fate is fixed. The seller can count upon so much a day
from him as certainly as though he had it in his till.
"And this is not all, by any means. Lager-beer originally
contained only three or four per cent. of alcohol, but it now con-
372
INSURANCE STATISTICS AND AVERAGES.
tains ten and twelve per cent. The original beer did not make
drunkards fast enough. It took too long a time to fix the habit
so as to make the victim profitable. Hence they threw in glucose
to make more alcohol, and all sorts of cheap drugs of the mad-
dening kind, that the drinker might be bound hand and foot, and
put into their possession in an absolutely helpless condition as
soon as possible. It was not enough to make a beer-drinker of
him-to get the largest profit it became necessary to make a
drunkard of him. It resulted as anticipated. The beer-drunkard
is the worst drunkard in the world, and his chains are the heaviest
and strongest.
>>
Again says Petroleum V. Nasby:
"It is upon the certainty that, the appetite once fixed, it can
never be broken, that those in the liquor traffic build, and they
have, in the very nature of the connection between the stomach
and the mind, a very broad and wide corner-stone. They know
that, with the liquor made in this day, all that is necessary for
them to acquire a man's estate is to get the habit fixed upon him,
and they know, just as well, that to keep their trade good, all that
is necessary, when a customer dies, is to fasten the appetite upon
a fresh boy. They quite understand that the boy will graduate
into a spendthrift, and, finally, a thief and a nuisance, and that
they will get everything he can beg, borrow and steal, but they
take him just the same. So much beer will run through him
before he dies, and that beer he will manage somehow to pay for.
He will not pay his butcher, baker, or tailor, but he does manage
to pay for his liquor, and that is all the liquor-seller thinks of.
"This fact in the make-up of men converts every seller of
liquors into a hunter of men and boys. This fact was what
changed the lager-beer of the country from three or four per cent.
of alcohol to ten and twelve. It was to make drunkards faster, to
get men and boys under control quicker, to fasten them in three
months instead of a year. This is what caused the adulteration
of what are known as 'hard liquors,' and the additional strength
put into malt liquors.
"There are paid across the bars of this country, for alcoholic
stimulants, something near one thousand millions of dollars, an-
nually, for alcohol, and the amount is increasing frightfully.
Rum costs the country more than its bread, clothing, schooling,
churches, education, and all combined. To illustrate, take one
city.
Toledo, with 90,000 population, supports 800 saloons. Each
PROFESSED CHRISTIANS POLLUTING HEATHEN NATIONS. 373
one of these must sell, to live, $10 worth of liquors each day.
This average is very low, for the smallest cannot live upon less
trade, and there are many whose daily receipts run up into the
hundreds of dollars. It is probable that $15 per day would be
nearer the figure. But at $10 per day it foots up $8,000. Mul-
tiply this by 365-for, mind you, they are open nights, days, and
Sundays—and you get the appalling sum-total of $2,920,000 paid
for liquors yearly in one small city. The amount is a long way
beyond this-probably $3,500,000 would come nearer the mark.”
Now let us look at these figures for a moment; and we will take
the smallest amount. It is safe to say that women and men who
do not drink intoxicating drinks constitute at least one-half of the
adult population of Toledo; and that nearly one-fourth are chil-
dren too young to be allowed to drink intoxicating drinks; leaving
about one-fourth, or 22,500, who do the drinking; it will be seen
that every man and woman who drinks must spend upon an
average about one hundred and thirty dollars a year for intoxica-
ting drinks—an amount which, if put at interest annually, in a few
years would give any man a home and competency. And when
we bear in mind that most of this money is spent by laboring men
who have commenced life without capital, is it strange that pov-
erty and suffering and crime surround us on every hand?
CHRISTIANITY AND TEMPERANCE-SENDING INTOXICANTS TO GENTILE
NATIONS.
Shall Christians in this free country have less sympathy and
regard for their own children, and be less anxious to protect them
by legal measures against temptation, than are missionaries and
rulers of Gentile lands to protect the inhabitants dwelling therein,
against temptation and ruin from the use of intoxicants? What a
shame it is to a professedly Christian community, that it allows
open saloons to tempt the inexperienced young and the simple;
and that they allow their citizens to manufacture and send to
Gentile nations these poisonous fluids which have been so terribly
destructive to our own people. Gentle reader, please read the
following, and say before the Lord, if you can, that we have no
responsibility in this matter. Remember that it is not England
alone which is guilty in the sight of God and of man.
The Rev. H. J. Ellison, in a letter to the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, just published, draws a dark picture of the result of Chris-
tian Missions. He says:
374 SENDING INTOXICANTS TO GENTILE NATIONS.
"What is the general witness which English Christianity is
bearing to the new standard? There have not been wanting inti-
mations, from time to time, of the havoc which the strong drink
and drinking customs introduced by the English have been causing
among the native races.
They have come at one time in piteous
cries, such as were addressed to us by the Indian reformer, Chun-
der Sen, or by the Native African Chief Khame; at another in
the protests of the late Bishop Selwyn, or in the dignified remon-
strance of the King of Madagascar. But it was left for the
Colonists themselves to set forth the indictment against us in all
its terrible dimensions.
"In Ceylon' the reputation of the Natives for sobriety is being
undermined by the increasing prevalence of Western notions and
habits, a large number of European mercantile houses being
directly interested in the drink trade.'
“In Burmah 'the religion is Buddhism, whose fifth command-
ment is, Thou shalt not drink or touch any strong drink; but that
since Upper Burmah has been annexed it is a fearful place for
strong drink and heavy crime.'
"In Madagascar, in consequence of the introduction of rum
from the Mauritius, 'crime has risen by leaps and bounds, the
contamination of drink having struck the inhabitants with all the
force of a pestilence.'
"That in China, thirteen years ago, you could scarcely see a
drunken man anywhere, more especially in Shanghai, but that
now if you go down the principal streets you will see hundreds of
Chinamen intoxicated, not with native drinks, but with those
imported from this country.'
"In Victoria, at the gold-diggings, there was at first 'no drink
and no public house, but that an influx of barbarism in the shape
of a hundred thousand barbarians, who came from England to the
diggings, brought the desolation of drink upon them in a way that
crushed the temperance forces, and gave them their work to do
over again.'
"In Africa, Sir C. Warren says: 'We were in the habit of
taking the Bible in one hand and the brandy-bottle in the other to
the natives of South Africa. There were many thousands of the
natives who were reduced to the lowest depths of poverty and an
early death by the drink traffic which was forced upon them by
the laws of this nation.'
"It is in India, however, that the evil appears in its most
destructive and dangerous form. There we are told that the
PROFESSED CHRISTIAN NATIONS AND GENTILES. 375
nation of abstainers is gradually becoming a nation of drunkards ;'
that 'drunkenness is spreading among the native population with
the rapidity of an epidemic;' that when, 'through caste influ-
ences, the prohibition of the Shastras, and the usages of Hindoo
society, the vice of drunkenness had disappeared, it had been re-
introduced by the British;' that'nothing was being done to check
the evil by legislative means;' that 'the consumption had been
greatly increased by a desire of the Government to raise a revenue
from the native liquor;' that now 'nearly every village has its
liquor shop, and the natives believed they were conferring a favor
on the Government by buying the liquor.'
"In the world at large, therefore, in the words of the chair-
man of one meeting of the Conference-Archdeacon Farrar—we
are told that' we have girdled the world with a zone of drink.'
"At a meeting at Lambeth Palace the late Bishop Selwyn said :
'You have heard it constantly said that the native races of the
earth are passing away before the advance of civilization. It is
not civilization; it is our detestable vice, carried out into those
native races by men professing Christianity. They used to come
and say to me, How is it? You who profess to be Christians, you
who read the Ten Commandments, seem to take no account of the
sin of intemperance, which, within our experience, is effectually
destroying the morals of our people. How is it? Is it the will of
God, or is it not? Is it true or is it not, that no drunkard can
inherit the kingdom of God? If this be the law, and if it be true,
how is it that men professing Christianity, belonging to that race
who come here to teach us, are seen reeling about in drunkenness
and forcing upon us these liquors which we never wanted and
never tasted till they came? '
"Of this same once fine race of Maoris a high Government
official recently said: They are now almost as bad as the English,
polluted and contaminated with their drink.'
"Mr. S. H. Kearsey, Mankapar, Oudh, says: The Europeans
in India are blamed for introducing drinking habits among the
natives, and I fear we must plead guilty to a great extent. That
drinking habits were unknown in many districts until Europeans
introduced them is a fact. At one time I resided in a native state
where liquor could only be found at the house of the only other
European in the state. The inhabitants were healthy, happy, and
independent.
"Native Christians are all supposed to be abstainers, it being
one of the conditions of church membership in most mission
376 SENDING INTOXICANTS TO GENTILE NATIONS.
churches; but I am sorry to say many of them soon follow but too
well the drinking customs of the Europeans, and these customs
are among the greatest drawbacks to Christianity in India.'
"Rev. J. Gelson Gregson writes: 'Government sells liquor
licenses to one contractor in a district by auction to the highest
bidder, and he, in his own interests, does everything in his power
to multiply the liquor shops in the towns and villages of the dis-
trict for which he had contracted; by this means increased induce-
ments for drink multiply throughout India; and the result is the
same in every country where increased facilities are available for
the sale of intoxicating liquors, namely, an augmented number of
drinkers and drunkards.'
"To such an extent has it prevailed, that the heathen regards
the use of intoxicating liquor as a sign of a Christian.'
'Nanda Lal Ghosh writes: 'We have statistics, and know well
that the people are in abject poverty, and yet there comes the
demon of drink to intensify their misery-introduced by a Chris-
tian Government.'
"The Church of England Temperance Chronicle, commenting
on the report on the Congo district, by the Rev. Horace Waller,
says 'Piece by piece the evidence is put together, authorities are
cited in proof of the various statements, so that it will be impossi-
ble for any unprejudiced reader to resist the humiliating conclu-
sion that England-Christian England-has, to put it very gently,
helped to enchain a people with a desolating vice.'
"Mr. John Thompson, F.R.G.S., the well-known traveler, in
an address recently given to the members of the Manchester
Geographical Society, said: 'We talk of civilizing the negro, and
introducing the blessings of European trade, while at one and the
same time we pour into this unhappy country incredible quantities
of gin, rum, gunpowäer, and guns.'
"Paper by Rev. W. H. Little, Missionary C.M.S.: 'The stuff
(i. c., the damaged spirit of the Christian colony of Mauritius)
was taken down to Tamatave to be bartered for Malagasy native
produce. The native villages soon became scenes of frightful
havoc and misery. The crime of the island rose in one short year
by leaps and bounds to a height too fearful to record. Like a pes-
tilence, the rum of Mauritius flowed along the public way and up
the country, till it invaded the capital, Antananarivo, 200 miles
from the coast. The native Government was seized with conster-
nation. This was a plot of the English to destroy them. The
then King, Radama I., a prince of great sagacity and courage, at
SWEDENBORG'S ACCOUNT OF THE AFRICANS. 377
once saw that something must be done to save his people. The
custom dues at the ports were paid then, as now, in kind. Every
tenth barrel of the cursed spirit imported was sent to the Govern-
ment stores. But Radama ordered it to be left on the sands and
then to be taken to the water's edge and poured out, every drop,
into the sea. The merchants of Mauritius were amused, but they
speedily became indignant, as they saw that the aggressive action of
the king was leading the natives to look upon the rum with fear
and distaste. A grave representation was therefore made to
Radama by the officials of the English Government on the
subject.
'Poor Radama had to allow the cursed stuff free course, or
quarrel with his best friends and strongest ally. From that time
to this the flood has flowed uninterruptedly over the land. And
the Malagasy are suffering to-day, and will suffer till public opin-
ion at home proves too strong for this thing to be done in the name
of England any longer.
"Radama's son, Radama II., a youth of great promise, fell
under the influence of the cursed habit of intoxication, taught him
by men of a Christian nation, and he perished, after a brief reign
of nine months, crowded with acts of folly and sin, in his own
palace, assassinated by order of his own privy council.'
Maliki, Emir of Nupe, a country lying on the river Niger, has
written a letter to the Episcopal Bishop Crowther: 'Salute Crow-
ther, the great Christian minister.
"The matter about which I am speaking with my mouth,
write it; it is as if it was done by my hand; it is not a long
matter ; it is about rum. Rum, rum, rum, it has ruined my
country; it has ruined my people; it has made my people become
mad.
"I have given a law that no one dares buy or sell it; and
any one who is found selling it, his house is to be plundered; any
one found drunk will be killed.
"I have told all the Christian traders that I agree to every-
thing for trade except rum.
To-day, professedly Christian nations are sending to Africa
explorers, missionaries, and rum, as in the past they have sent
slave ships and slave hunters and slave dealers to desolate the
land. May the Lord protect the Africans against the inroads of
the liquor dealers-more to be dreaded, if possible, than the slave
traders. Emanuel Swedenborg, writing about one hundred and
378
SENDING INTOXICANTS TO GENTILE NATIONS.
twenty-five years ago about things seen and heard by him in the
Spiritual World, says:
"In Heaven the Africans are the most loved of all the Gen-
tiles; they receive the good and truths of heaven more easily
than the rest; they wish to be called the obedient, not the faith-
ful."-Heaven and Hell, 326.
"Since the Africans are of this character in this world also,
there is now a revelation among them which goes from the middle
around, but not as far as the sea. They acknowledge our Lord
for the God of heaven and earth."-T. C. R. 840.
* * **
"The best and wisest are in the interior of Africa; those who
are not good are near the Mediterranean Sea, near Egypt, and the
Cape of Good Hope. The mountains, where are the good ones of
Ethiopia, are towards the middle.
At this day some
speak with Africans in the world, instructing them orally; this
speech falls with them especially into their interior perception,
and they perceive the influx, and thus receive revelations with
illustration. Such is the speech which takes place with the in-
structors." "I have heard it announced that a Church is at this
day instituted with many in Africa, and that at this day revela-
tions take place, and that they are receptible of the Heavenly
Doctrines, especially concerning the Lord." "The Africans are
more receptible of the Heavenly Doctrines than others on this
earth, because they freely receive the doctrine concerning the
Lord. They have it, as it were, implanted in them that the Lord
will appear altogether as a man. They are in the faculty of re-
ceiving truths of faith, and especially its goods, because they are
of a celestial nature."-Last Judgment (Posthumous) 124, 116-
118.
"The Africans spurn those who arrive from Europe who be-
lieve man to be saved by faith alone. *** They call ingen-
ious wickedness stupidity."-- See Continuation of Last Judg-
ment, 76.
·
In Swedenborg's work descriptive of the “Last Judgment," 74,
we read:
"A nation far distant from the Christian world, * *
which nation is such that it is capable of receiving spiritual light,
and of being made a celestial-spiritual man, and they [the angels]
said, that at this day interior divine truths are revealed in that
nation, and are also received in spiritual faith, that is, in life and
in heart, and that it worships the Lord."
The above is supposed to have reference to the inhabitants of
THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AFRICA.
379
Central Africa, for it accords with quotations from his writings
where he names Africa.
Swedenborg claims to have obtained the knowledge which he
possessed of the inhabitants of Central Africa, from the inhab-
itants of the Spiritual World, and the reader will doubtless be in-
terested in knowing what light recent explorations throw upon his
revelations. We take the following from the New Jerusalem Mes-
senger, of Sept. 3d, 1884:
"The Churchman quotes Mr. Cappa, 'who says that he has
traveled four thousand miles on foot down the African coast,
besides living many years in Central Africa,' to the effect that his
'experience is that in manliness and shrewdness, in intelligence
and honesty, and in the essentials of government, the black man is
quite as good as the white.' The Churchman explains that 'he is
speaking here of the inhabitants of Central Africa, the population
becoming blacker, physically and morally, as it approaches the
sea.' And the secular press reports the following astonishing
statement made by the Rev. Wm. Taylor, the recently appointed
Methodist Bishop for Africa, at the farewell reception given him in
Boston. 'It is reported that a most extraordinary discovery has
recently been made in Africa in a tour from east to west. There
have been found nations of people hitherto unknown, who number
50,000,000, and live in houses built of stone, with gardens in the
rear, and properly laid-out streets, who work in iron, copper and
ivory, and are pretty well up in the industrial arts, many of them
being well-to-do.'
"How reliable this information may be, we know not,' says
the Rev. J. E. Bowers in a recent article in the Messenger. 'But
there is an interesting coincidence between Swedenborg and one
thing Mr. Cappa is above quoted as saying, namely, that the
inhabitants of Central Africa become blacker, physically and
morally, as they approach the sea. And Swedenborg describes
the spiritual and mental characteristics of the Africans, which are
of a high order, and then says :
"Such being the character of the Africans, even in the world,
there is at the present day, a revelation among them, which com-
mencing in the center of their continent, is communicated around,
but does not reach their coasts.'-Con. Sp. W. 76; see also T. C. R.
835-840.
"In the Messenger of March 7th, 1883, will be found by the
inquirer, another editorial on 'An Enlightened African People.'
In it are given some interesting extracts from the Berlin corre-
380 SENDING INTOXICANTS TO GENTILE NATIONS.
spondence of the London Telegraph. I will briefly quote from
these, as follows:
* * ***
* *
"German explorers have thrown so much light on the immense
tract of country situated
to the south of the great bend
of the Congo, that it may interest your readers to hear a short
account of what has been done by them.
* They unveil to
us the existence of a Utopia where strangers are gratuitously sup-
plied with food; and they reveal that the Bassonge, subjects of
King Katshitsh, a strong and handsome race in a densely popu-
lated country teeming with natural produce, excel in artistic
manufacture of workmanship of various kinds, in wood, clay,
copper and iron, weaving stuffs out of the Mabele plant, and
showing skill in basket-making. Wissmann declares that no foreign
influence has ever touched them.'
"Further on in the same article, things are said that are highly
favorable to those people in the interior of Africa:
(
"Pogge tells us that the inhabitants of one village, or some-
times of several villages, can be looked upon as a family, for each
inhabitant is treated by the rest as a relation, and one member of
the community stands by another for better and for worse.'
* * * In the midst of a splendid tropical vegetation they saw
villages arise, 'where, in clean and roomy dwellings, with gardens
neatly hedged in, forming streets as straight as an arrow, the
Bassonge live under the shadow of palm-trees and bananas.
"From what the explorers tell us, it is evident that the natural
circumstances of the people in Central Africa, agree with the
spiritual characteristics which Swedenborg ascribes to them. They
are industrious and skillful in various arts. They have good
dwellings and gardens, and are spoken of as excellent farmers.
They live in mutual charity with each other, and are kind and
hospitable to strangers who come among them. And shall we not
reasonably conclude that all this is from a principle of religion?
"While Swedenborg was engaged in writing his theological
works, the Lord in His divine mercy gave a revelation of the
doctrines of the New Church to the people in the interior of Africa.
This revelation, evidently, was given in the form of oral teaching,
by means of angelic spirits. They were in such a state that they
could receive 'interior divine truths,' and the circumstances would
not admit of their being reached and instructed by means of a
written revelation. The Lord, therefore, for His own wise reasons,
taught these Gentiles, who were in genuine natural good, definite
spiritual truths, and this by angels sent to them for the purpose.
EXPLORATIONS IN CENTRAL AFRICA.
381
"A word, in conclusion," says the Rev. Mr. Bowers, "respecting
the white people in Africa. Five or six years ago, while on a
missionary tour in Central Pennsylvania, I found on a New Church-
man's table a copy of Stanley's Through the Dark Continent.'
The thought occurred to me to search the book for any account
there might possibly be given of a white people in Africa. I soon
found an interesting description, of which there is a note, in a
little book before me, made at the time, as follows:
"There is a mountainous region in the interior of Africa, the
altitude of which is about 5,500 feet. On the summit of this
mountain there dwells a tribe of people who are white, and in
appearance are like Europeans.' On first seeing some of those
people, Mr. Stanley thought they were Europeans. They have
'kinky' hair, of brown color. Their features are regular, lips
thin, and noses well shaped. They are a handsome race, and many
of the women are very beautiful. Mr. Stanley was told of other
tribes of white people living in remote regions. 'They could give
no information as to how many ages their ancestors had inhabited
that region.'
"Some statements which appear above are, to some extent at
least, verifications of Swedenborg. And when, in the future, New
Churchmen shall obtain actual knowledge respecting the people of
Central Africa, they will, in all probability, find that there are in
that region of the earth many who worship the Lord in the divine
human, and are enlightened with spiritual ideas such as are
taught in the heavenly doctrines of the New Jerusalem. For the
Lord, in His own wise ways, also provides for his 'other sheep,
which are not of this fold,' that is, for the Gentiles who can be
saved and brought into the kingdom of heaven."
“The Morning Star of January 6th, 1887, contains an account
of a letter from a missionary at Stanley Pool, Central Africa,
saying that the German explorer, Weissmann, who entered the
country at St. Paul de Loanda, twenty months ago, had arrived
at that place. He traversed a large extent of country, and settled
some important points. The following is one of the most interest-
ing of his discoveries :
"The newly-discovered country is rich and fertile, the people
friendly, and, what is a matter of surprise as well as of joy, not
without a knowledge of religion. They believe in a God who lives
in the sky, who sees and knows all that they do; and they expect
to go to Him when they die."-New Church Messenger.
In our country, since the war, the negro race has shown its
382
SENDING INTOXICANTS TO GENTILE NATIONS.
ability to withstand the vices and evils of our present civilization,
and to multiply and replenish the earth, as the Indian has not
been able to do, having increased from four to six millions; so it
is evident, whether the Puritan stock can or cannot survive its own
evils, the negro race is here to stay, and probably to people in the
end the semi-tropical and tropical portions of this continent.
Well, the Lord has created man for happiness, and the negro,
compared with other races, does not lack capacity in this respect ;
and he is not a warlike man, so he cannot be readily killed off by
war; and he possesses pre-eminently one noble and heavenly trait
of character, viz., a disposition and ability to serve and be useful
to others; therefore, we may look upon the negro as a permanent
part of our population which is susceptible to improving influ-
ences, and which will not be destroyed by the prevailing evils;
and we shall not labor in vain if we strive to enlighten and elevate
the colored race in this our day.
But what a fearful, what a horrible thing it is that Christian
nations should permit their citizens, in their greed for money, to
carry intoxicating drinks into Africa to destroy the natives of that
country, as though by their slave ships, and slave dealers, and
slave stealers in the past, they have not done enough to desolate
that land.
Let stronger and better armed nations and races than ours,
send their slave ships and piratical bands to the shores of our own
land, and raid upon our people, and excite State against State;
and steal from their homes fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and
children, and carry them off into slavery, never more to return;
and how long would it be before the inhabitants of our coasts
would be as barbarous and degraded as are the natives of the out-
skirts of Africa? Is it not the duty of Christian nations, which in
the past have been guilty of such cruel injustice to the inhabitants
of Africa, to combine and protect the Africans, not only from the
further encroachment of slave dealers, but also from those who
would degrade and debase them by selling them intoxicating
drinks?
'
CHAPTER XVI.
NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
POISONS generally act upon the human system either as irri-
tants, or excitants, or as sedatives; and, although some of these
substances excite in a measure the whole system, yet they gen-
erally spend their force more especially upon different organs or
parts. Alcohol and opium upon the brain and nervous system ;
calomel and other mercurials upon the glands about the mouth ;
antimony and ipecac upon the stomach; jalap and aloes upon the
bowels.
When man fell and came to love himself and the gratifications,
pleasures, and possessions of earth, more than he loved the Lord
and his neighbor, his moral sensibilities became blunted, until at
last, he came to be scarcely able to distinguish between good and
evil, or between truth and falsity. Nor did his fall end here;
for the nourishing and life-giving substances in the natural world
correspond to man's good affections and thoughts, for they nourish
his natural body, as heavenly love and wisdom derived from
the Lord and His Word, nourish his spiritual body; but the
poisonous substances, and such as become poisonous when per-
verted from their legitimate use, hold a special relation to man's
perverted or evil affections and thoughts; and when used to feed
and nourish the natural body, they destroy, more or less rapidly,
as has already been stated, the natural appetite for simple, plain
food, and the healthy action of the organs of the body, and sub-
stitute an unnatural appetite, and a diseased and unnatural action
in the organism, which lead to structural diseases and death, in
the same manner that their corresponding evils and falses, when
harbored, tend to destroy all true or heavenly life in man, and
substitute infernal life, or the life of self and worldly love. When
man spiritually partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
and his affections and understanding became perverted, nothing
was more natural than that he should, when he made evils his
own by acting them out, desire, or even crave those poisonous sub-
stances in the natural world, which corresponded to his own evils
384 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
and falses, and as far as he could discover their action, use them ;
for such substances excited and gave new life to the perverted
affections, and filled his mental atmosphere with thoughts in har-
mony with such affections. Thus man began to use various poi-
sonous substances as articles for nourishment, or as luxuries; and
as he continued to use them, gradually his perceptions and natural
sensibilities became blunted, and his taste perverted, until at
present he is scarcely able, even with the aid of science, to dis-
tinguish between proper and improper food.
We certainly have reason to fear that our race has not yet
reached the bottom of the ladder, but that a state of degradation
even lower than heretofore reached awaits us, towards which
we are slowly but surely descending. M. J. Michelet, a French
writer, in a recent work on "Love," says:
"We cannot conceal from ourselves that in these latter times
the Inclinations have undergone profound changes. The causes of
this are numerous. I will state two only, mental and physical at
the same time, which, going straight to the brain and deadening
it, tend to paralyze all our moral faculties.
"For a century past, the increasing invasion of spirituous
liquors and narcotics has been marching irresistibly, with results
varying according to the population-here obscuring the mind,
hopelessly depraving it-there, penetrating deeper into the physi-
cal economy, reaching even the race itself-but everywhere iso-
lating man, giving him, even in his home, a deplorable preference
for solitary enjoyment.
"No need to him of society, of love, of family; in their stead
the dreary pleasures of a polygamic life, which, imposing no re-
sponsibility upon the man, not even protecting the woman (as the
polygamy of the East does), is therefore more destructive, indefi-
nite, limitless, stimulating and enervating continually."
At present, having lost the power of perception, we have no
certain means of distinguishing poisons except by carefully watch-
ing their effects when they are brought in contact with, or are
taken into the living organism.
It would seem, then, to be a very important preparation for
both the spiritual and physical regeneration of individual men,
and our race, that we should be able to distinguish poisons from
healthy food; and when we possess a knowledge as to what sub-
stances are poisons, we cannot but see that it is all-important that
EVILS BLIND THE EYES OF MEN.
385
we shun their use, as we must the spiritual evils which are stimu-
lated, and, as it were, nourished by them, if we would arrive to
a state of health and happiness in this world, and heaven in
the next.
Hundreds of physicians, men of science and careful observa-
tion, scattered over the world, are engaged in the work of care-
fully proving the various substances, supposed to be poisonous,
upon themselves during health, by cautiously taking them and
carefully watching their effects, or the symptoms which they
cause, and writing them down for the benefit of others; so that
we now have a knowledge of the effects of a large and increas-
ing number of poisons, such as man has never had before since
the fall.
The reader may perhaps ask, does not the man who is in the
constant use of a poison, and has used it for years, understand its
effects better than he who, without a love for it and with an appe-
tite unperverted, takes it simply to watch its effects? He cer-
tainly does not, any more than the man who is sunken down in
spiritual evils, understands the fearful character and consequences
of those evils better than he who shuns them. The evil man makes
his evils his delight, and they become his very life, and seem to
him good; and had not the Lord bowed the heavens and come
down to man in his lowest estate, in the fullness of time, with the
light of His Divine Truth, showing him the evils of his heart, man
must have perished spiritually; and by ultimating those evils in
external life by the gratification of perverted passions and sensual
appetites, our race would have been swept from the earth. So
true is it that man can never, by his own unaided vision, see the
evils of his own heart; even conscience becomes seared; and it is
only by acknowledging the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way, the
truth, and the life, and by receiving into his understanding the
truths of the Divine Word, that man can ever see his evils and
thereby be enabled to shun them.
The more a man strives to shun evils the more distinctly will
he be able to see the evils within himself; and it is only after
the warfare of a lifetime that the Christian is able to enter into
his rest.
Among the pernicious poisonous substances in use at present,
not only in our country but throughout the world, will be found
certain narcotic poisons, especially tobacco and opium. Narcotics
are poisons, which, when taken into the system, affect chiefly the
functions of the brain and nervous system. When taken in small
386 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
doses, they generally excite the nervous system to unnatural ac-
tivity for the time; but, of course, corresponding depression fol-
lows. If taken in large doses they act as sedatives, and depress or
diminish the natural action; and in very large doses, cause stupor,
paralysis, and death,
TOBACCO.
The writer is more and more impressed with the conviction
that tobacco is doing more towards sapping the physical constitu-
tions of the American people than even alcoholic drinks. Its
effects are more insidious, and comparatively unperceived by the
popular eye, and even by the victim himself; therefore destruction
is more certain and irresistible. Then, again, the habit is quite as
strong and as difficult to break as the habit of using alcoholic
drinks, and therefore it makes its votaries no less abject slaves.
One of the most notorious drunkards we have ever known, who
was also in the habit of using tobacco, assured the writer that he
would much sooner be without his whisky than his tobacco; that
his sufferings and cravings were less. Such, we think, will gen-
erally be found to be the testimony of those who have come fully
under the dominion of both habits.
That tobacco is a poison will be questioned by no one who has
seen the deadly sickness which a very small dose will cause in a
person not habituated to its use; even smoking part of a cigar, or
chewing for a few moments a small portion. In fact, tobacco is
one of the most virulent poisons in nature. It seems to act, not
only upon the brain and spinal cord, but also especially upon the
great sympathetic system of nerves, which is the very citadel of
organic life. These nerves preside over or supply the nervous
influence required by the heart, arteries, lungs and digestive
organs, to enable them to perform their functions, and thereby to
sustain the life of the whole organism or body.
Few substances in nature are capable of destroying life so sud-
denly as tobacco. It is said by medical writers that a single drop
of the concentrated oil put upon the tongue of a dog, will destroy
life. Dr. Mussey, of Cincinnati, rubbed a small drop of the oil of
tobacco upon the tongue of a large cat: immediately the animal
uttered piteous cries and began to froth at the mouth, followed by
various symptoms of distress; seven minutes after applying the
first, he rubbed a large drop upon the tongue; in an instant the
eyes were closed, the cries were stopped, and the breathing was
suffocative and convulsed. In one minute the ears were in rapid
THE POISONOUS EFFECTS OF TOBACCO.
387
convulsive motion, and presently after, tremors and violent con-
vulsions extended over the body and limbs; in three and a half
minutes the animal fell upon its side senseless and breathless, and
the heart had ceased to beat. In another experiment, three drops
of the oil of tobacco were rubbed upon the tongue of a full-sized cat;
in an instant the pupils of the eyes were dilated, and the breath-
ing became convulsed; the animal leaped about as if distracted,
and presently took two or three rapid turns in a small circle, then
dropped upon the floor in frightful convulsions, and was dead in
two minutes and forty-five seconds from the moment the oil was
put upon the tongue.
Dr. Brodie, a celebrated English physician, applied a single
drop of this oil to the tongue of a cat, upon which bodily prostra-
tion and convulsions ensued. Another drop was applied, and the
animal died in two minutes. One drop injected into the rectum
of a cat occasioned death in about five minutes; and two drops
administered in the same manner to a dog was followed by the
same result. Dr. Franklin applied the oily material which floats
on the surface of water, when a current of tobacco smoke is passed
into it, to the tongue of a cat, and found it to destroy life in a few
minutes; yet the cat is more tenacious of life than almost any
other animal.
Tobacco, "when very moderately taken, quiets restlessness,
calms mental and corporeal inquietude, and produces a state of
general languor, or repose, which has great charms for those who
are habituated to the impression.” But when taken in large
quantities, it causes confusion of the head with more or less stupor ;
great faintness; most distressing nausea and vomiting; great feeble-
ness of the pulse, with death-like paleness of the skin; and cold-
ness of the surface, which is covered with a cold, clammy sweat;
and with great and general debility of the nervous and circulatory
functions. Fainting, alarming and fatal prostration, or convul-
sions and death, soon close the scene, if a very large quantity has
been taken. Tobacco is sometimes used as an injection in cases of
obstruction of the bowels, but its use requires the utmost care, as
death has sometimes occurred from its administration, even in the
hands of skillful physicians.
Dr. L. B. Coles, in his excellent work on the "Beauties and
Deformities of Tobacco Using," which should be placed in the
hands of every young man, says:
"A single leaf, dipped in hot water and laid upon the pit of
the stomach, will produce a powerful effect by mere absorption
388 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE—TEA.
from the surface. By being applied to a spot where the scarf
skin, or external surface of the skin is destroyed, fearful results
have followed. Professor Mussey, in his essay on Tobacco, gives
a case:
"Dr. Long, of New Hampshire, was consulted by a mother, to
know whether she might apply tobacco to a ringworm, scarcely
three-fourths of an inch in diameter, on the nose of her daughter,
then about five years old. He objected to it as an exceedingly
hazardous measure, and confirmed his judgment by relating a
case which he had seen recorded, in which a father destroyed the
life of his son by putting tobacco spittle upon an eruption on the
head. Immediately after the doctor left, the mother, thinking she
knew more than her medical adviser, proceeded to moisten the
ringworm from the essence of the grandmother's pipe, remarking
that if it should strike to the stomach it must go through the nose.
The instant the mother's finger touched the part, the eyes of the
patient rolled up in their sockets, she sallied back, and falling,
was caught in the arms of the alarmed mother; the part was im-
mediately washed, but to no purpose; the jaws were locked, the
patient was senseless, and apparently in a dying state. The doc-
tor was immediately called back, who found the following symp-
toms: Coldness of the surface and extremities, no pulsation
at the wrist, jaws set, deep insensibility, countenance death-
like."
By the application of friction to the surface, and the adminis-
tration of spirits of ammonia, at the end of about an hour and a
half, the patient became able to speak, but did not fully recover
from the shock for years. For the first four or five years after-
wards she was subject to fainting fits every three or four weeks,
which sometimes lasted from twelve to twenty-four hours. The
smoking of a single cigar, by a person not long habituated to the
use of the weed, will increase the frequency of the pulse from ten
to fifteen beats.
We have thus hastily noticed some of the prominent symptoms
caused by tobacco when it is taken by persons not previously
accustomed to its use, and when it is taken in large quantities
even by those who habitually use it; also the alarming and dan-
gerous symptoms which result from an excessive dose. But we
desire more particularly to call the attention of the reader to the
not less destructive, although more gradual effects which result
from its habitual use. These effects are less manifest, for the
human organism possesses the capacity to accommodate itself in
DEATHS CAUSED BY TOBACCO.
389
a wonderful degree to the use of poisons, if the quantity taken
only be gradually increased. There are many men who use tobacco
enough in a single day to kill several who are not accustomed to
its use, if they were obliged to take it in the same manner during
the same period.
Among the symptoms and diseases often caused by the habitual
use of tobacco, may be named the following:
Depression of spirits, melancholy, and despondency, as a nec-
essary result of over-excitement; great fear of death, irritability
and peevishness, loss of memory and dullness of perception. One
of the most intelligent teachers of Detroit said to the writer, that
those young men under his instruction who used tobacco, seemed
to be much more dull and stupid than those who did not use it.
He found it far more difficult to make them comprehend or under-
stand subjects taught. Such are a few of the mental symptoms
which tobacco causes.
Physically, it causes great general weariness, languor, and debil-
ity of the extremities, and trembling of the hands and feet, cramps
in the muscles, spasms and convulsions, emaciation, and even con-
sumption. The late Dr. Twitchel, of New Hampshire, relates a
case of consumption saved by giving up tobacco, and also a case
of nearly fatal nightmare cured by abstaining from its use.
"Dr. Twitchel found that nearly all the cases of sudden death,
occurring during sleep, which came under his observation were of
men who had indulged largely in tobacco. And the correctness of
his statement was confirmed by investigations made by the Boston
Society for Medical Observation." Seeing a notice of the death of
a woman during sleep in a village in the State of Ohio, a few years
ago, the writer immediately wrote to a physician of his acquaint-
ance in the place, and requested him to inquire, and inform him if
she was in the habit of using tobacco. He received, as a reply, the
statement that she had used it freely for many years.
Dr. Twitchel expressed the opinion that tobacco is doing a
worse work to the physical character of the present generation
than alcohol. Tobacco causes a great variety of headaches, with
dullness and heaviness of the head; heat in, with congestion
of blood to, the head, and apoplexy; stoppage of the ears, and
deafness; pain and inflammation of the eyes; amarosis, or pa-
ralysis of the optic nerve, and even blindness; various discases of
the tongue, mouth and lips. The celebrated Dr. J. C. Warren,
of Boston, reports a case of cancerous tongue, attributable to
tobacco, in which the life of the patient could not be saved by
390 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM- -COFFEE-TEA.
an operation. The case of the late ex-President Grant is familiar
to our readers.
Both smoking and chewing produce marked alterations in the
most expressive features of the face. The lips are closed by a cir-
cular muscle, which completely surrounds them and forms their
pulpy fullness. Now, every muscle of the body is developed in
precise ratio with its use, as most young men know, they endeavor
to develop and increase their muscles in the gymnasium. In
spitting and holding the cigar in the mouth, this muscle is in con-
stant use; hence the coarse appearance and irregular development
of the lips in chewers and smokers, when compared to the rest of
the features. The eye loses its natural fire and becomes dull and
lurid;
it is unspeculative and unappreciative, it answers not be-
fore the world; its owner gazes vacantly, and often repels conver-
sation by his stupidity."-Scalpel.
Tobacco is a frequent cause of dyspepsia. It occasions spas-
modic pressure of the stomach; heartburn; feeling of coldness of
the stomach; nausea and frequent eructations; pains in the region
of the liver and diseases of this organ; pains in the bowels, with
disposition to diarrhoea or costiveness. It produces difficulty of
breathing, oppression and pains in the chest, with inability to take
in a long breath, and violent palpitation of the heart. It causes
pain and stiffness of the back. Tobacco also creates a tendency to
paralysis both general and local. It gives rise to drowsiness, unnat-
ural sleep, nightmare, troublesome, anxious and frightful dreams;
together with a great variety of symptoms which we have not space
to notice. In fact, we have described but a small share of the symp-
toms and diseases which are noticed by our best medical writers and
most careful observers, as having been brought on or aggravated
by the use of this poison. Not that it will cause all of these
symptoms in any one person, for it affects different individuals
differently, manifesting its action in the weak organs, or upon the
parts of the body which are least able to resist its influence. But
there is no one who uses tobacco, who will not find himself
troubled with more or less of these symptoms the very moment he
quits using the poison; but while he is using it freely, it will pal-
liate, as do all poisons, the symptoms its habitual use has caused.
In the morning, after having abstained during the night, the
tobacco user will get a slight glimpse of his waning vital energies,
but his view will soon be covered over by the oblivious leaves of
the demon, when he again partakes.
The writer was never more painfully conscious of the terrible
USE OF TOBACCO A FILTHY HABIT.
391
effects of the habitual use of tobacco, than during a visit to a
locality where reside many of the friends of his childhood and
youth. He found a large number of the gentlemen, the sons of
robust parents, addicted to its use, and its effects were to be seen
in every lineament of their countenances, emaciated, prematurely
wrinkled and sallow; looking, in fact, almost as much like wilted
tobacco leaves as like human beings in the full pride of manhood.
But he found two gentlemen who had used tobacco for many years
formerly, and when last seen they were suffering excessively from
its use, but they had given it up and were looking like new creat-
ures. They were better in flesh, better in spirits, and free from
a multitude of aches and pains which had formerly tormented
them.
The use of tobacco is a filthy and disgusting habit, as well as
destructive to health and life. It causes a constant inclination to
spit, which is regarded by all civilized nations, with the exception
of Americans and tobacco users, as a filthy and unnecessary prac-
tice; and it adds to the character of the saliva the juice of the
nauseous weed.
A good anecdote is told by Dr. Coles, in the work to which
reference has been made, illustrating this point. He says:
"A Professor in a Western college related to him the follow-
ing: He was traveling in company with a clerical brother. They
stopped to spend the Sabbath, and the Professor was invited to
preach in the evening. His brother in the ministry, who was a
practical admirer of tobacco and its fruits, was with him in the
desk. The Professor set his hat-a new one-at the end of the
pulpit sofa; and while preaching, saw his brother, who was near-
sighted so that he mistook the hat for a spit-box, delivering the
contents of his mouth every moment into his hat. But he was
obliged to submit to the process. It would not do to make an
apostrophe in his sermon by saying, 'don't spit your vile stuff
into my hat!' so he bore it like a saint, and let his brother spit
away-casting into his new-fashioned spittoon, not only the syrup
from his powerful tobacco-mill, but cud after cud of the solid
refuse. Think what a hat the Professor had when the meeting
was closed !”
We were told that he threw it away, and went home bare-
headed.
So nauseous is even the taste of tobacco that, in all the animal
kingdom, but two animals, aside from man, have been discovered
which will taste it, the tobacco worm of the South, whose intol-
392 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
erable visage is disgusting, and the rock goat of Africa. The goat
is thought by one writer to possess a bodily odor which prepares it
for association with those who produce in themselves the tobacco
stench. The smell of this goat is so terrible that no other dumb
animal will ever associate with it. The very atmosphere for a dis-
tance around is tainted with his effluvia, and his whole visage is
said to be disgusting. The tobacco user is said to become so
pickled with tobacco that cannibals detect it in the flesh of those
who have used it, and throw that flesh away as unfit to use. It is
immaterial how tobacco is used; whether it be by smoking, chew-
ing, snuffing or dipping, the effects are similar. As the reader
may not understand what is meant by the latter practice, we will
explain it. Some years ago, while sojourning in a Southern State,
the writer frequently noticed women with one end of a small stick
in the mouth; a lady one day asked if dipping injured the teeth.
"Dipping-what do you mean by dipping?" She laughed heartily
at the ignorance of the writer, but very graciously went on to ex-
plain the mystery of the small stick, which she exhibited. The stick,
about as large as a small pipe-stem, is split or broomed up at one
end; this is dipped into a box of snuff, and then rubbed against
the teeth and held in the mouth.
When tobacco is brought by any of these methods, in contact
with the living structures of the body, the poisonous juice is
absorbed, enters the circulation, and passes throughout the whole
system, even to the delicate structures of the brain and nervous
system. It excites directly the various animal propensities beyond
their proper balance, and tends to debase the moral character, and
to make man more animal and less intellectual and moral. It
therefore tends directly to destroy both body and soul. But we
fancy we hear some young reader say, "My father used tobacco
many years, and died an old man; if tobacco killed him it was a
very slow poison." Let us say to you, young man, that if you
were born after your father commenced using tobacco as freely as
most young men use it to-day, for that very reason, if not for
others, you do not possess your father's strength of constitution,
but have to suffer for the folly of your parent; and you cannot
follow in his footsteps without the risk of going to a premature
grave. Nor can you say how much this habit blunted the per-
ceptions of your father in his declining years, clouded his intellect,
impaired his health, and shortened his life. The crown upon the
head of the old man should be wisdom, and the chief pearl
innocence; and in the innocence of wisdom should he go to his
EFFECTS OF TOBACCO ON MEN.
393
fathers free from pain and disease. We are aware that some men
of strong constitutions, active life, and of otherwise good habits,
may use alcohol or tobacco, and even get drunk often, and yet
live to a good old age; but they are the exceptions to the general
rule
a much greater number will die young. But it will be
found that most of those who have lived to old age, did not com-
mence the use of these poisons very young; or else that they either
used them moderately, or only occasionally had a spree, and were
never what we call hard drinkers or smokers. Whatever impairs
the physical energies of individuals, impairs the energies of our
race as a whole; and man has no right to entail, through his own
folly, a tendency to disease, suffering, and premature death to his
children; to say nothing of destroying his own health and the
comfort of those around him. Tobacco is not natural food for
man; it will not sustain life; it is a poison, as has abundantly
been shown; always injurious during health, and never necessary
except in rare cases of disease, and then only for a temporary
period. Its use is a bad example to the young, even to innocent
children, leading them astray; it is expensive, costing the inhab-
itants of the United States an immense sum annually; and even
the professed Christians of our country spending many millions
for it. Its use is a direct violation of the Divine command-thou
shalt not kill—which includes the willful shortening of one's own
life, it matters not whether it be done by knife, pistol, rum or to-
bacco, in an hour or more slowly,-the work of years,-therefore
more deliberately. We ask all who profess to be Christians or
philanthropists, How you can neglect to abstain from this fleshly
lust, which not only wars against the soul, but also the body?
How can you spend many times as much to gratify this perverted
appetite, as you give to send abroad the Bible and missionaries
to those whom you acknowledge it to be your duty to feed with
the bread of life? Is it not plain that the habitual use of to-
bacco is a sin against your physical organizations and against our
Father in heaven; and that those who are addicted to this habit
must shun it as such, or the love of the poison will abide with
them?
"A distinguished Doctor of Divinity," says Rev. J. L. Corning
in his work on Amusement, "died not long ago, and in the obituary
notice which I saw in the newspapers, I observed the remark made
by another Doctor of Divinity, that his brother minister had died
from the effects of hard study. Now, I am sorry that a minister
of the Gospel should be found uttering such a libel on the
394 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
!
Creator. The fact is, the deceased minister had been in the con-
stant practice of chewing tobacco for more than half a century.
And which committed the greatest sin-he, to kill himself in
that way, or his brother minister to affirm, in the face of it, that
he died of hard study-I will not undertake to say. But that
both were great sinners, no man, with any common sense, will
deny."
It matters not that good men and even Christians may have
used it before our day; or that they drank brandy, and occasion-
ally, perchance, got drunk; they did it ignorantly, we trust, and
though they violated a physical law of God, they did not violate
conscience. But even with them, perhaps, a certain elderly lady's
dream, which is recorded in the spirited work of Dr. Coles, may
have been found more than a dream. She is said to have been
very pious, "but allowed for many years her devotion to her pipe,
like thousands in our churches, to exceed her devotion to her God.
She was more sure not to forget her vows to this carnal appetite,
than not to forget her closet for prayer. One night she dreamed
of an aërial flight to the region of the spirit world, where not
only her eyes could feast on the beauties of elysian fields, but
where she could converse with perfected spirits. One of these she
asked to go and look for her name in the book of life.
He com-
plied; but at length returned with a sad countenance, saying it
was not there. Again she besought him to go and search more
thoroughly. After a more lengthy examination he returned with-
out finding it. She wept bitterly. But she could not rest till a
third search should be made. After a long and anxious absence,
he returned with a brightened countenance, saying it had, after
great labor, been discovered; but that so deep was the covering
which years of tobacco smoke had laid over it, that it was with
great difficulty that it could be discovered. She awoke and found
herself prostrated with weeping. She cast her idol to the ground,
and gave unto God, not a divided, but a whole heart; and she
no more spent her time, money and vital energies upon tobacco's
unholy altar."
We sometimes hear boys of twelve or fifteen years of age, and
young men of twenty or thirty, say that they cannot give up the
use of tobacco, and often they have not sufficient energy to even
make the attempt. Sad indeed is their fate; poor, weak-minded
boys and young men, living slaves to their appetite; when a little
energy and perseverance would break their chains, and save them
from a life of slavery if not from disease and a premature death.
THE TOBACCO PROBLEM-META LANDER.
395
Our Heavenly Father has given us reason to guide our foot-
steps here below; and if He does not intend that we shall be guided
by our understanding in our eating and drinking, what mean those
denunciations against drunkenness and gluttony, to be found in
His Word? We will ask the believers in a Divine revelation if a
man is not certainly a drunkard or a glutton in the Bible accepta-
tion of these terms, when he deliberately uses a poisonous substance,
knowing it to be injurious and destructive to health and life, and
entirely unnecessary. Loving the sensual gratification more than
he loves his God, or even health, life, and the welfare and comfort
of his neighbor, does he not deliberately make the sensual selfish
gratification his ruling love? and must not man's ruling love, when
thus deliberately and intelligently formed, govern his destiny to
eternity? and will he not almost necessarily seek, as his chief de-
light, corresponding evils in the next life, when his days of probation
here are over?
""
In a work, by "Meta Lander," on "The Tobacco Problem,'
third edition, published by De Wolf, Fiske & Co., Boston, Dr.
Nathan Allen, a distinguished medical writer, says:
"I am glad to learn that you are soon to publish a work on
'Tobacco.' Having made, for many years, a specialty of the
study of the laws of health and disease, I consider this one of
the greatest evils of the present day. Language cannot describe
the terrible effects which tobacco produces upon both body and
mind. It perverts the taste, impairs mental capacity, corrupts the
moral sense, and stimulates the animal nature.
"But its pernicious effects are not confined to the present
generation, nor to this life. Its dreadful evils, through the laws
of inheritance, extend to offspring, even to the second, third and
fourth generation.
'In view of such facts, that smoking should increase, especially
among young men, is alarming-yes, shocking! I pray that
your book may prove a powerful auxiliary in this much-needed
reform."
The work of "Meta Lander," on the Tobacco Problem, noticed
above, is a very valuable work and should be most extensively
circulated by parents, teachers and clergymen among the young.
The Authoress has shown great industry and research, and pro-
duced a work valuable especially on account of the authorities
cited, and the abundance of facts and statistics given.
During his travels through Europe in 1885, the writer was
greatly disappointed at the physical appearance of two races of
396 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
men, viz., those who dwell in Switzerland and Spain. From the
climate and countries where they dwell, and their past history, ho
was led to anticipate finding superior races of men, both physically
and mentally; but instead of this, he beheld more cases of do-
formity, paralysis of the extremities, and prematurely wrinkled
and withered men and women, than in any other of the countries
which he visited. He could but feel that these races are not what
they once were. He found that tobacco was used more generally
than elsewhere. It was not uncommon for children and, especially
in Spain, for women to use it. We were more annoyed by tobacco
smoke in the cars than elsewhere. In Switzerland we found it
often difficult to get a chance to ride except with smokers; and in
Spain we could not get even a sleeping-car which was unpolluted
by tobacco smoke. As in no other country which we visited,
smoking-cars were the rule and not the exception. It seems to the
writer that the use of tobacco is very seriously impairing the phys-
ical vitality and mental stamina of those races; and it is surely
doing the same to our people in this country, but more slowly
because its use is not so universal. What man or woman who
cares for the welfare of children and the prosperity of the Lord's
Church on earth, can see, without extreme pain and sorrow, a
member of the Church walking our streets smoking a cigar, and a
child following behind him smoking a cigarette? or a lady enter-
ing a church with a wasp-like contracted waist, and little girls
admiringly following, anxious to grow up like her?
While writing the above we received the following letter from
a young Englishman:
"DR. JNO. ELLIS.
"Dear Sir,-I beg to offer you my sincere thanks for your
kindness in forwarding me several of your valuable and interest-
ing publications.
I have read them with great interest and delight, and though
only just attaining my majority, I have entered into several heated
and prolonged debates in our 'Mutual Improvement Societies,'
etc., on the subject of Total Abstinence.
(6
Having chosen for my profession the responsible office of a
school-master, and having had charge of boys who are constantly
leaving to go to work in the mines, foundries and factories, I
have frequently given lessons to them on the Benefits Derived
from Total Abstinence; the Evils of Drinking, Smoking and
Swearing, and Bad Companions; and to enable these lessons to
DR. RICHARDSON ON USING TOBACCO.
397
be more firmly impressed on their minds, I ask them to write an
essay on any of the above; and I find that they are, as a rule,
very creditably done.
"The boys, I am glad to say, take very great interest in the
above subjects; but the great drawback is this: My master and
fellow-assistant are inveterate smokers, and 'moderate drinkers.'
The children often say, 'Mr. A and Mr. B-smoke; I've
seen them.'
"The only thing that I can do, is to follow the old proverb,
'Example is better than precept,' and await the issue.
Drinking in the town is, I am glad to say, on the decline,
though it is still very bad; and friends and members (some of
them) of the Church are of the same opinion as The
the 'Drink Question.'
"I remain, yours faithfully,
""
on
Rev. Francis Wayland, in a letter from Cuba to the National
Baptist, speaking of the incessant and universal smoking of
tobacco, says: "The effect of this indulgence is apparent to
the most careless observer; the race is dwindling, mind and
body. Several Cubans confessed to me that this was the prime
cause of the general degeneration of the human species in the
island."
In a speech made by Dr. Richardson, at Exeter Hall, London,
on the occasion of starting a Society for the Suppression of Juvenile
Smoking, he says:
"In my early life I was not a smoker; I went through all the
arduous work of a medical student, by being present at the opera-
tions in large hospitals, in studying anatomy in the dissecting and
post-mortem rooms, and in the fever hospitals, and I never smoked,
though I went through my work with great facility. Later on I
learned to smoke, and continued to do so for many years. The
whole of that time I was dyspeptic from smoking. At length I
resolved to give it up. It was hard work to do so, but I eventually
succeeded, and have never been more thankful than for the day on
which it was accomplished. I gave up wine, beer, and every other
alcoholic drink with infinitely less trouble than smoking. It is
very difficult indeed to abandon this pernicious habit.
I am
informed by jail surgeons that their prisoners crave tobacco
far more than anything elso they are deprived of, which shows
that the habit is one which is very inveterate when once estab-
lished.
398 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
"Smoking is to a certain extent connected with drinking. Very
few persons smoke without taking spirits. I admit there are some
who are exceptions to this, for I could name some friends of mine
who are engaged in very active work in the Temperance cause,
and yet are smokers. They are so strong-minded as to keep from
the alcohol. But these exceptions are very few in number; and
we generally find that when a man smokes, he has a desire for
alcohol to relieve him of the sinking sensation which the smoking
produces. While smoking has not the same injurious effect
upon the system as drinking, it produces a disease which is func-
tional in its character. Persons who smoke, experience a faint-
ness, followed by nausea, which alcoholic drinks often allay.
On this point I can speak from personal experience. I should
have been led into the field of total abstinence five years before
I was, had it not been for the smoking habit which I had con-
tracted.
"Tobacco stops the proper working of the digestive powers; it
causes an irregular circulation, so that there is not a correct dis-
tribution of blood; and it deranges the whole nervous system. If
it were a fact that all our young women and young men were to
smoke, and continue the habit until they became fathers and mothers,
their offspring would be so stunted and little as to be thoroughly
incapable of carrying out the duties required by our generation.
We cannot praise our mothers too much for the fact that they have
not become smokers. They have conferred a boon upon us by
this forfeiture of indulgence, of which we cannot speak with too
much earnestness and warmth; and now, happily, we find men
who can efficiently carry out a movement which is certainly one
of the best national movements that could be started, and one
which is absolutely needed. We feel ashamed when we walk along
our streets and see boys of tender age using the pipe; and more
so when we find friends of Temperance and hard workers in that
cause saying, 'If you cannot drink, you may smoke; that will do
you no harm.””
"That distressing disease, dyspepsia, is one of the commonest
diseases resulting from the use of tobacco. Dr. Drysdale examined
200 smokers who were patients of the Metropolitan Hospital, and
he found many who complained of habitual constipation, often
alternated with diarrhoea and various other forms of dyspepsia,
sometimes with emaciation, Dr. Hardwicke says, after much
observation, that he thinks no one who smokes is perfectly healthy.
They may say they are, but if you get into conversation with
THE TOBACCO SMOKE NUISANCE.
399
them, you will find them complaining sometimes of very serious
diseases.
"Others know it hurts them. Dr. George Trask tells of meet-
ing a finely-built young man who looked quite sickly. He engaged
him in conversation, and soon he acknowledged, 'I am killing
myself with tobacco, and I know it.' 'How long have you smoked
tobacco?' inquired the doctor. 'I have never smoked very much
till of late, but I have chewed the article ever since I was sixteen
years old.' 'How old are you now, sir?' Thirty-three.' He
had consequently used the weed about seventeen years.
"On further inquiry, it was found he was suffering from dys-
pepsia. His liver was somewhat affected as well as his whole
alimentary canal. 'I would give $500,' he continued, 'to be free
from the vile habit.' Why, then, do you not leave it off?' 'I
cannot do it. I must die a miserable slave !'
"And so this pitiable craving robs its victim of the very energy
that is necessary to free himself from its clutches; and in the midst
of his young manhood, when he ought to be delighting himself
with buoyant health and looking forward to a long life of useful-
ness, he finds himself a miserable dyspeptic, a tobacco slave, with
no prospect of freedom but in death.”—From a leaflet published
for the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union by the
National Temperance Society and Publication House, 58 Reade St.,
New York.
We ask you, intelligent reader, is there no violation of the
Divine commandments, no sin against God, in a man's deliberately
entering upon, and persistently following, a course of life, simply
for the sake of sensual, selfish gratification, which so certainly,
sooner or later, impairs his own vitality and health, and endangers
his life; and which is sure in many cases to shorten his days on
earth, and also to impair so seriously the vitality of his children ;
and which sets a bad example to all, especially to the young,
leading many of them to ruin; and which pollutes the atmosphere
which others are obliged to breathe, with a vile stench which is
sure to be exceedingly disagreeable, offensive, and sometimes
nauseating to those not accustomed to it? A habit which generally
leads those who indulge in it to totally disregard the right of
others to pure air and to have their sensibilities respected, until
they will smoke wherever it is not absolutely prohibited, be it on
our sidewalks, in cars, in our steamboats; and even in our sleeping
and drawing-room cars they now require that a room shall be set
apart for their use, which is practically ventilated through the
400 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
1
cars, through one door which is generally open and another door
which is being frequently opened; so that it is impossible to avoid
the smell of tobacco smoke in such cars. To-day a man or woman
cannot find on some of our railroads a sleeping or parlor or draw-
ing-room car, free from the smoking-room, and the vile smell of
tobacco smoke.
"Horace Greeley said of it, 'It is a profane stench.' Daniel
Webster said, 'If those men must smoke, let them take the horse-
shed.' One reason why there are so many the victims of this
habit, is because there are so many ministers of religion who smoke
and chew. They smoke until they get the bronchitis, and the dear
people have to pay their expenses to Europe. They smoke until
the nervous system breaks down. They smoke themselves to
death. I could name three eminent clergymen who died of cancer
in the mouth, and in every case the physician said it was tobacco.
There has been many a clergyman whose tombstone was all covered
up with eulogy, which ought to have had the honest epitaph,
'Killed by too much Cavendish !' Some of them smoke until the
room is blue, and their spirits are blue, and the world is blue, and
everything is blue. Time was when God passed by such sins; but
it becomes now the duty of the American clergy who indulge in
this narcotic, to repent. Dr. Prince, for a long while superintend-
ent of the insane asylum at Northampton, Mass., says: 'Fully
half of the patients who have come to our asylum for treatment
are the victims of tobacco.' It is a sad thing, my brother, to
damage the body; it is a worse thing to damage the mind, and
any man of common sense knows that the nervous system imme-
diately acts upon the brain. More than that, nearly all reformers
will tell you that it tends to drunkenness, it creates an unnatural
thirst.
"Hear the testimony of Dr. Rush. He says: A desire is
excited by tobacco for strong drinks, and these lead to drunken-
ness.' Hear Dr. Woodward. He says: 'I have supposed tobacco
was the common stepping-stone to that use of spirituous liquors
that leads to intemperance.' Nearly all wise men of all professions
give advice against it. What did Benjamin Franklin say? 'I
never saw a well man in the exercise of common sense, who would
say that tobacco did him any good.'
"Put into my hand the moneys wasted in tobacco in Brooklyn,
and I will support three orphan asylums as grand and as beautiful
as that to which you have this last week been contributing. Put
into my hand the moneys wasted in tobacco in the United States
THE DANGER OF USING OPIUM.
401
of America, and I will clothe, feed and shelter all the suffering
poor on this continent."-Talmage on the Plague Narcotic.
How often is the heart made sad to hear individuals, even
young persons, say that they would continue the use of certain
injurious substances if they knew that it would shorten their
lives for years. To such a lamentable degree do these poisons in
use blunt the moral nature of man, that he becomes but a wreck
of a true man.
The greatest slave in the world is he who is a slave to his sen-
sual appetites. What truly intelligent and wise man would
consent to have the appetite for alcohol, opium or tobacco
fastened upon him for all the gold in California, for all the
wealth of the world? The treasures of earth will pass away,
but the effects of these poisons, if their use is continued, will never
pass away; even if they are indulged in ignorantly, the appetite
for them will but strengthen with time, and eternity cannot eradi-
cate their effects-at best a void will remain in the human soul
which should be filled by the development of good and useful
affections. Humanity, justice and truth, call upon us to use our
utmost efforts to stay the use of these poisons. Every one has
more or less influence over his fellow-men by precept and example ;
especially have parents over their children. The writer's father
early became a temperance man, and not one of his children has
ever used alcoholic drinks.
OPIUM.
Opium has been used as a medicine from the earliest periods of
the medical science, and has, perhaps, been more extensively used
than almost any other remedy, and in a greater variety of diseases.
Taken in a moderate dose, "it increases the frequency and fullness
of the pulse, augments the temperature of the skin, invigorates
the muscular system, quickens the senses, animates the spirits,
and gives new energy to the intellectual faculties." ("U. S. Dis-
pensatory.") This excitement soon subsides and a calmness and
placidity of body and mind succeed, all painful impressions, all
care and anxiety are banished, and the partaker enters the indolent
opium-eater's paradise, and submits to a current of undefined and
unconnected but agreeable fancies, with no other feeling than of
quiet and vague enjoyment; which state usually continues from
a half hour to an hour, when all consciousness is lost in sleep.
After from five to ten hours the subject awakes, and upon attempt-
ing to arise from bed, he is usually troubled with more or less
402 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
headache, dizziness or tremors, also nausea and sometimes vomit-
ing, together with general prostration of the nervous system, In
a dose sufficiently large to destroy life, it causes little or no ex-
citement; but almost immediately reduces the frequency but not
the force of the pulse, diminishes muscular strength and causes
drowsiness, which is soon followed by deep apoplectic sleep; and
in six or eight hours or more, if not relieved, the patient dies.
Opium, in any perceptible dose, acts very unpleasantly on
some, causing excessive nausea and vomiting, faintness, sometimes
spasms of the stomach, and in other instances headache, obstinate
wakefulness or even delirum.
The habit of using opium, in this country, is rarely acquired
except by using it first as a medicine; for, although the first
symptoms are very enticing to many, the secondary effects are so
extremely unpleasant that few persons in health will be found willing
to encounter them the second time, simply for the short period of
excitement and pleasure which they experience soon after taking the
drug. Opium will generally relieve pain temporarily, and is often
given for this purpose, but when used for the relief of pain it is usu-
ally only a palliative remedy; yet, in many cases of disease, where
the cause is temporary and the disease transient, opium may, and
will, if given, relieve the suffering until the disease is overcome;
therefore many physicians use this substance extensively, and their
patients often think they derive great benefit from its administra-
tion; and it is rare that individuals acquire the habit of using
opium simply from taking it in such transient cases. But there
are many diseases which are far more tedious in their duration,
during the continuance of which, if the physician is so unwise as to
recommend this remedy, or the patient takes it on his own responsi-
bility, he is almost sure of getting into the habit of using it. This is
true in chronic rheumatism, neuralgia, and especially in the various
forms of nervous diseases, which are so common among those who
pride themselves on looking delicate. This remedy will generally,
when its use is first commenced, relieve temporarily the pain in
such diseases; although it will not cure them, nor do any permanent
good. Not only is this true, but more, it generally seems to fix
the disease, as it were, upon the patient, and actually makes it
much more obstinate than it otherwise would have been; besides
adding to it innumerable symptoms peculiar to this poison.
If a patient, suffering from one of the diseases named above,
commences the use of opium, and obtains more relief from pain
than he suffers from the effects of this substance, he is almost sure
OPIUM HABIT THE STRONGEST KNOWN.
403
to continue it; for he has entered upon a road which has no end,
certainly, on this side of the grave. It will come, in the language
of the late celebrated Dr. Eberle, "At first like an angel, with its
balmy powers, to dispel pain, lowness of spirits, and mental dis-
quietude of every kind; it will bring hilarity and pleasantness of
feeling when its aid is invoked; but it will not fail ultimately to
insinuate itself into every fiber, and to cause indescribable wretch-
edness and suffering to the unfortunate victim."
The time will soon come to the patient when opium, even in
enormous doses, will fail to palliate the symptoms for which it is
given; but, unfortunately, before that day arrives, it will have
bound its victim over to the judgment of his last day, in chains
which few have the resolution ever to break; for the most terrible
sufferings follow the attempt to discontinue its use.
The poor
victim is therefore almost doomed to a life of suffering and
wretchedness, a perfect slave; reason controls not; the will
is overwhelmed; and he is too frequently a poor, helpless,
wretched sot.
"A total attenuation of body," says Oppenheim, "a withered,
yellow countenance, a lame gait, a bending of the spine, and glassy,
deep-sunken eyes, betray the opium-eater at the first glance. The
digestive organs are in the highest degree disturbed; the sufferer
eats scarcely anything; his mental and bodily powers are destroyed
-he is impotent."
The use of opium is by far the strongest habit known, and
causes the most wretchedness to its victims. Let every one shun
the path which leads to this habit, as he values health, comfort,
life, the use of reason, freedom of will, and present and future
happiness. Scarcely any one can be so wretched from any chronic
malady, as he can be made by the use of this substance alone;
and to have added to existing chronic sufferings the torments of
the opium-eater, by a voluntary act, is worse than a mistake, it is
a crime against the body and soul.
It is wonderful to what extent the human system will accom-
modate itself to the use of this poison, if it is only taken in gradu-
ally but steadily increasing doses or quantities. We have known a
delicate female to take from eighty to ninety grains a day; whereas
a well person, not addicted to its use, cannot take five grains with
impunity, and from fifteen to twenty, if retained, will often
destroy life.
Physicians who prescribe opium, cannot be too careful in re-
quiring their patients to discontinue its use at the earliest moment.
404 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
COFFEE AND TEA.
That these substances are yet to be banished from use is per-
haps certain, for if the inhabitants of our earth ever come into
true order, they will certainly cease to use, as articles of food or
drink, disease-creating substances. But coffee and tea are not as
poisonous as alcohol and tobacco, and perhaps many other articles
in use; and we shall be content with simply pointing out a few of
the symptoms caused by their habitual use, and protesting against
the establishment of coffee or tea rooms or houses, in the place of
saloons, or in any way encouraging the use of coffee or tea. What
we want to encourage is not a miserable shuffling from the use of
one injurious substance to the use of another, even though it may be
less objectionable; but we want to teach and lead men and women
to shun all known evils, because it is wrong to indulge in them ;
and also to instruct them as to what are evils. The reader will
please bear in mind that healthy articles of food do not cause spe-
cific diseases.
Coffee causes a great variety of symptoms. It causes a pecu-
liar form of headache which commences in the morning, gradually
increases until the middle of the day, or later, and then declines.
Both coffee and tea palliate the symptoms they cause, and patients
always suffer from such symptoms, for several days, when they
discontinue their use. Coffee excites the bowels to unnatural ac-
tivity, and consequently weakens the digestive organs. It often
entirely destroys the appetite for breakfast, especially with chil-
dren. It excites more powerfully than almost any other substance
in use the sexual propensity, and is a fruitful cause of licentious-
ness; and this over excitement is followed by premature im-
potency.
Tea causes headache, violent palpitation of the heart, and a
peculiar gone feeling at the pit of the stomach. These symptoms
are worse when the patient has been some time without tea, and
are ameliorated when he again partakes.
It is said that the tea drinkers of China, who indulgo freely,
are thin and weak, of a leaden complexion, with black teeth, and
are very subject to diabetes. Who can say that the use of tea,
during successive generations, may not have been a cause of phys-
ical, and perhaps, moral degradation of the inhabitants of that
land?
Coffee and tea excite the nervous system and brain, and hasten
on a premature, but consequently imperfect, development of both
COFFEE AND TEA.
405
body and mind. If parents will persist in using these injurious
substances themselves, they have no moral right to give them to
their children; thereby polluting their natural appetites, and giving
rise to an unnatural craving for these substances, the use of which
will do incomparably more injury to the growing organizations of
the young than to those of adult men or women.
These drinks not only hasten on a precocious development, and
consequently premature decay of the body and mental faculties,
but their use also engrafts upon the organism the particular
diseases which, as we have seen, they are capable of causing.
Multitudes suffer from nervous and sick headaches, palpitation of
the heart, goneness at the pit of the stomach, loss of appetite,
dyspepsia, derangement of the stomach and bowels, etc., from
the use of coffee and tea, without ever suspecting that these
beverages injure them; in fact, feeling all the time that they do
them good, because they suffer when they attempt to leave them
off, for they palliate the symptoms they have caused, as do all
poisons.
If parents have no regard for their own health and lives, may it
not be a duty which they owe to their children to set them a better
example than to use these substances before them? Every one can
but see, upon reflection, that it is very wrong to allow children to
use these poisons.
But we are told by some that tea and coffee contain more or
less nourishment. Well, supposing they do, and so do the body
and head of a serpent; but if we were to steep up his snake-
ship, head, poison and all, and drink the tea, we might perhaps
pay dearly for our folly. The deadly nightshade, hemlock, hen-
bane, and all poisonous plants when analyzed, may be found to
contain more or less of materials which are useful for food; but
they also contain substances which are poisonous, and therefore
they are unsuitable for food or drink. The nutritious portion of
tea is, in a great measure, if not entirely, insoluble, so that if
we do not eat the leaves, we fail to get the nourishment they
contain.
A writer who advocates the use of tea admits that tea in excess
is well known to "produce an exaltation of the actions of the
heart, amounting in some persons to a painful and irregular
palpitation." He also admits that the active principles of coffee
in excess cause "increased action of the heart, rigors, headache, a
peculiar inebriation, and delirium; also perspirations and augment-
ed activity of the understanding, which may end in irregular trains
406 NARCOTICS-TOBACCO AND OPIUM-COFFEE-TEA.
of thought, restlessness, and incapacity for sleep." Now healthy,
nourishing, life-giving food causes no such results; yet multitudes
are suffering from these and many other symptoms every day, not
from what this writer would call an excess, but from the steady
persevering use of about a given quantity, month after month,
and year after year, who can never bo cured until they give up
these drugs entirely; for the smallest quantity will often keep up
the symptoms. Cold drinks are more invigorating than warm,
and are generally preferable except at meals. There are persons
who are in the habit of drinking freely at their meals (a bad habit,
by the way), who cannot use cold drinks with impunity; and,
perhaps, they are best for no one; but surely there is no excuse
for taking tea and coffee so long as hot water, milk and sugar are
more plenty, and cheaper than either, and much more delightful
to the unperverted taste. And as for the sociability and excite-
ment caused by these stimulants, we want a different kind of
sociability and excitement from that which results from unnatural
sensual indulgences. We want the cheerful, playful innocence of
childhood, coupled with the wisdom of manhood, to flow forth
from warm hearts-warın not from the fires of earth, but from
the Divine Love, which is ever seeking a habitation in the human
heart or soul; seeking to flow forth in smiling words, kind acts
and innocent social recreations and amusements. Who would
think of adding to the joyous happiness of early childhood, by
administering whisky, tobacco, coffee or tea to the young child ?
Surely no one. If we would be happy like children, we must
diligently cultivate, by permitting them to flow forth into act,
those innocent, kindly and cheerful affections which make the
child happy, and which we are smothering by unnatural sensual
indulgence and selfishness, until we become cold-hearted and
almost dead, so far as their existence is concerned. One hour
spent in the performance of kind acts, or enjoying active social
amusements, if the old adage be true-"Laugh and grow fat "-
will do more towards clothing the muscles with fat, and filling the
heart with joy, than a pound of coffee or tea.
The physician who is aware of the symptoms and diseases
which tea and coffee so frequently cause, and has seen such
symptoms and diseases gradually abate when the use of these bev-
erages has been discontinued, as has the writer, can have no doubt
about their being improper articles to be used as beverages. We
want no coffee-houses and no tea-houses in the place of whisky and
beer saloons.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PERNICIOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
MISS CATHERINE BEECHER, in her work on "Domestic Econ-
omy," says:
“One of the greatest difficulties peculiar to American women
is a delicacy of constitution which renders them early victims to
disease and decay; and the fact that their youthfulness and beauty
are of shorter duration than those of any other nation, is one
which always attracts the attention of foreigners, while medical
men and philanthropists are constantly giving fearful monitions
as to the extent and alarming increase of this evil. Investigations
make it evident that a large proportion of young ladies from the
wealthier classes have the incipient stages of curvature of the
spine, one of the most sure and fruitful causes of future disease
and decay. A large portion of the young ladies in our boarding-
schools are affected in this way, or have other indications of
disease and debility. An English mother at thirty or thirty-five,
is in the full bloom of perfect womanhood; as fresh and healthful
as her daughters. But where are the American mothers who can
reach this period unfaded and unworn?"
The more I traveled," says Miss Beccher, "and the more I
resided in health establishments, the more the conviction was
pressed on my attention that there was a terrible decay of female
health all over the land, and that this evil was bringing with it an
incredible extent of individual, domestic and social suffering, that
was increasing in a most alarming ratio. At last certain develop-
ments led me to take decided measures to obtain some reliable
statistics on the subject."
She obtained statistics from about two hundred different places,
in almost all the free States, and she could learn of but very few
strictly healthy women in any place. In regard to country places
she says:
"But the thing which has pained and surprised me the most,
is the result of inquiries among the country towns and industrial
classes in our country. I had supposed that there would be a
408 PERNICIOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
RUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
great contrast between the statements gained from persons from
such places, and those furnished from the wealthy circles, espe-
cially from cities. But such has not been the case. It will be
seen that the larger portion of the accounts inserted in the pre-
ceding pages are from country towns, while a large portion of the
worst accounts were taken from the industrial classes."
We hazard nothing in saying that the women in every city,
village and rural district throughout our broad land, are not as
robust, strong and healthy, when compared with the men in the
same localities, as they should be, and as females are in other
nations. We simply state that which we all know, or can see to
be true. Here, then, we have positive evidence that the chief
causes of our physical suffering and diseases are to be sought in
the habits and lives of the female portion of our community; for
the climate affects men as well as women; and yet we find that the
latter are deteriorating more rapidly, even in a single generation,
than the men. So that we are compelled to cease accusing our
climate of the mischief, and to charge it to those who have been
called the better half of creation; and respectfully to ask them to
mend their ways, that our race be not destroyed by the just visita-
tions of the Lord, in the penalties which follow the violation of
His laws. Bayard Taylor, in his letters from Northern Europe,
speaking of the women of Sweden, says:
"Their clothing is of a healthy, substantial character, and the
women consult comfort rather than ornament. I have not seen a
low-necked dress or a thin shoe north of Stockholm. The damsel
who trips at day-break is shod like a mountaineer. Yet a sensible
man would sooner take such a woman to wife than any delicate
Cinderella of the ball-room. I protest I lose all patience when I
think of the habits of our American, especially our country girls.
If over the Saxon race does deteriorate on the American side of
the Atlantic, as some ethnologists anticipate, it will be wholly
their fault."
We intend, in this chapter, to point out some of the causes of
the present debility, suffering and disease among the women of
our country, and to press home to their consciences the import-
ance of their shunning these evils. Can any duty be more sacred
to those who are to be the mothers of the next generation, than
that they shun those evil habits which are undermining their own
constitutions, causing disease, suffering and premature death, and
thus impairing the integrity of our race? Has any man or woman
a moral or religious right to destroy his or her own constitution,
MISS BEECHER ON THE HEALTH OF WOMEN. 409
and cause deformity, disease and premature death by using tobacco
or whisky, neglecting proper recreations and amusements, by habits
of idleness, shunning the light and air, improper exposure of the
feet and neck, or by tight dressing? And if any one is doing this,
is it not the first act of a good and true life, to cease to do any of
these evils?
The writer of an excellent article on "Saints and their Bodies,"
in the Atlantic Monthly, says :
"Guarantee us against physical degeneracy, and we can risk
all other perils-financial crises, slavery, Romanism, Mormonism,
border ruffians, and New York assassins; domestic malice, foreign
levy, nothing can daunt us. Guarantee us health, and Mrs. Stowe
cannot frighten us with all the prophecies of Dred; but when her
sister Catherine informs us that in all the vast female acquaint-
ance of the Beecher family there are not a dozen healthy women,
we confess ourselves a little tempted to despair of the republic.”
Miss Beecher, in her letters to the people, says:
"In Mrs. Gleason's article have been indicated certain deform-
ities and internal displacements which have resulted from general
debility of constitution, brought on both mature women and
young girls by over-excited brains, by want of pure air, simple
diet, and exercise, and by the abominations of fashionable dress.
But the terrible sufferings that are sometimes thus induced, can
never be conceived of or at all appreciated from any use of lan-
guago."
Again she says:
"In regard to this, and in reference to cases that have come to
my personal knowledge, I can truly say that, if I must choose for
a friend or child, on the one hand the horrible torments inflicted
by savage Indians or cruel inquisitors on their victims; or on the
other the protracted agonies that I have seen and known to be
endured as the result of such deformities and displacements, I
should choose the former as a merciful exchange. And yet this is
the fate which is coming to meet the young as well as the mature
in every direction. And tender parents are unconsciously leading
their lovely and hapless daughters to this horrible doom. This it
is that has pressed like lead upon my heart and burned like fire in
my bones, as for more than two years of debility, anxiety and
infirmity, I have been striving to bring this subject to the atten-
tion of the American people. There is no excitement of the
imagination in what is here indicated. If the facts and details
could be presented, they would send a groan of terror and horror
410 PERNICIOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
all over the land. For it is not one class, or one section, that is
endangered. In every part of the country the evil is progressing."
When one of the most intelligent women of our land is com-
pelled to use language like the above, is it not time that the mem-
bers of the Medical Profession, to whom all the facts to which
she alludes are well known, should raise their voice of warning to
save, if possible, almost the entire female portion of our popula-
tion from self-destruction, and for our Clergymen to call them to
repentance?
TIGHT DRESSING.
First and foremost among the causes of the ill health, de-
formity and suffering among the American women, stands the
habit of tight dressing, or of compressing the chest and waist; a
habit which cannot plead even the paltry excuse of sensual gratifi-
cation; but is the offspring of the love of approbation or of fool-
ish vanity.
That this dreadful practice has done more, within the last cen-
tury, than war, pestilence and famine, toward the physical deteri-
oration of civilized man, the writer verily believes. More than
this, it is doing greater physical injury to our race to-day, than
intemperance in all its horrid forms. The drunkard may ruin his
own body and soul, and make those around him unhappy, and
finally go down to his grave prematurely; and, as a result of his
sins or habits, his children may sometimes inherit a strong taste
for alcoholic drinks, or be foolish; but such instances are com-
paratively rare. In a great measure, the evil consequences of his
drunkenness, so far as the perpetuity of the race is concerned, are
confined to the victim himself. As a general rule, the members of
his family will be found nearly as robust, in physical appearance,
as their neighbors. Not so with the victims of tight dressing: the
sins of the mother are visited upon the children until the race be-
comes extinct. This habit not only carries the mother down to a
premature grave, but it destroys the unborn. It does seem that if
the women of our land could only realize the terrible consequences
which follow this practice, not only to themselves, but also to
the children with whom they may yet be blessed, if their hearts
are not made of adamant they would repent and never permit a
tight dress to approach their persons again.
But we are sometimes told that this practice is passing out
of fashion, and that the ladies do not dress as tightly now as
formerly.
TIGHT DRESSING, AND CONSEQUENCES.
411
Would that we had some evidence of the truth of this asser-
tion. We have only to say that if it were ever more prevalent
than now, or carried to a greater extreme, it is no wonder our
race is physically where it is, and that so many children die. If
any one questions but that tight dressing is carried to a greater
extreme to-day than ever before, let him compare the present
forms of our ladies with a natural form, or the unperverted form
of a little girl. Let him view the caricatures of the female form
which are scattered over the length and breadth of our land in
the fashion-plates of our popular magazines, not one of which any
father who has daughters should ever permit to enter his doors,
if he has any regard for the health and lives of the fair ones
under his charge. These are your model forms, and is it possi-
ble for a woman to live at all with a greater perversion of the
body?
Never before, in a life extending over a period of seventy
years, has the writer ever seen tight dressing carried to such
extremes, and of so pernicious a character, as it is at the end of the
year 1886. Never has he seen so many and such fearful cases of
deformity from this cause walking our streets, as at present.
This habit grows upon the individual like the drunkard's
thirst for whisky, and it soon becomes a necessity and requires to
be steadily increased. The muscles of the body were intended to
sustain it erect, but the very moment a woman applies either
a tight dress or corsets they impede the action of the muscles ;
and in accordance with a well known law of the muscular system,
when they cease to be used they grow small and feeble. Now, if
in addition to tight dresses, whalebones or boards are used, these
only the more effectually destroy the action of the muscles. The
longer tight dressing is continued, the more feeble and delicate
these natural supports become, and the person feels the necessity
continually of increasing the tightness of the dress, to sustain the
body erect. It is for this reason that no woman ever feels that
she dresses too tightly, any more than the rum-drinker feels that
he drinks too much, unless she suddenly increases the force ap-
plied. She may even destroy life without actually feeling that her
dress is tight; in fact, feeling all the time that she dresses just
tightly enough to make her feel right; that is, to give her proper
support.
Slighter but constant compression, followed every day, is pro-
ducing such distorted forms as we have represented in the fashion-
plates of our popular periodicals, which claim to furnish the correct
412 PERNICIOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
standard of figure and dress. If we should by direct immediate force
contract a natural chest and waist into such a shape, we would
destroy life by the violence which we should do to the internal
organs. But fifty years ago, especially in country places, when
ladies wore tight dresses only upon particular occasions, it was no
uncommon occurrence for them to faint away, or have hysterical
fits in the church or ball-room, from the sudden application of
compression; but such occurrences are rare now, although our
women are doing immeasurably more harm by their tight dressing
now than they were then; for tight dresses are worn, not only at
church and at parties, but also every day of the week, as well by
the maid-servant in the kitchen as by the lady in the parlor. The
Chineso prevent the development of the feet of their daughters by
gently bandaging them, and by the use of well-fitted shoes con-
stantly worn; and never by direct force. The latter, if applied,
would cause mortification and death of the feet. The greatest
possible distortion of the human chest and waist may be caused
without ever using a particle of force, simply by pinning or hook-
ing or buttoning the garments around the body; and thousands
are thus destroying themselves without ever suspecting the cause
of their failing health. Does the reader ask how it is done? We
will tell him.
The chest above the lower ribs expands about an inch in its
circumference during inhalation. If, when the air in her lungs is
expelled, a lady simply pins, hooks, laces or buttons her garments
snugly around her chest, even without using any force, the chest
cannot expand, when she draws in her breath, as much by one
inch as it could before her dress was fastened; and she feels a
slight degree of tightness for a short time, when her breathing
becomes apparently good, except upon active exertion. The air is
not all expelled from the air-cells after exhalation, but a large
quantity remains; and when, owing to tight dresses, the walls of
the chest cannot expand-as the lungs must do the best they can
under the circumstances-a portion of the air which ordinarily
remains after exhalation is forced out, so that the air-cells con-
tinue to act, but receive less air, and so become diminished in size.
Now, when the walls of the chest and air-cells become accustomed
to their present state of contraction, by the time the lady is
ready to have another dress made, there will be little difficulty in
making it about one inch smaller, and yet fastening it when the
air is expelled from the lungs without using any force; and thus
step by step the chest may, in a short time, be brought into the
EFFECTS OF CONTRACTING THE WAIST.
413
contracted form we witness in our streets, and which is represented
in the caricatures of a true or natural human form, which appear
in our fashionable periodicals. Of course, by the aid of lacings
which are daily tightened, this mischief can be accomplished more
readily and rapidly.
You can hardly astonish a majority of our ladies more than to
tell them that they dress too tightly. They acknowledge that ladies
do sometimes thus injure their health, and will often refer to such
and such ladies as examples; and the ladies to whom they refer,
will perhaps point right back to their critics as striking examples ;
for none of them, uninstructed, realize that they dress tightly.
We have never found a lady who, upon the first accusation,
acknowledged that she compressed her figure. We have found
those who admitted that they had formerly done so, especially
when their attention has been called to their deformed waists
but generally they will, with apparent sincerity, assert that they
were born so, and that their present is only their natural form.
A young lady from the country, a few years ago, came into the
office of the writer to consult him in regard to a supposed tumor
in the region of the stomach. Upon examination he found one of
the most contracted waists which he had ever seen, caused by
tight dressing. She had followed the habit a long time until the
ribs had become fixed to their unnatural position, when, the very
moment she loosened her dress, the much abused liver, stomach
and spleen pressed out the yielding abdominal walls immediately
below the breast-bone, and between the cartilages of the ribs,
presenting the appearance of a tumor, which of course was very
tender to the touch. The character of the tumor was frankly ex-
plained to her, and she was told that it was caused by tight
dressing. In amazement she caught hold of her dress to show
how loose it was, and exclaimed: "Why! you don't think I dress
tight, do you?" From that time to this, the writer has not often
tried to make a woman acknowledge this fault in dress. But we
do say, without any hesitation, that the instances in which the
women of our country do not dress too tightly, are the rare excep-
tions to the general rule; so rare that few can be found at any
ago; and it is doubtful if ten ladies, American born, between the
ages of fourteen and twenty-five or thirty, can be found in any
city in the United States, who are not at present distorting their
forms, laying the foundation for future disease, and slowly but
surely impairing their health, and shortening their lives from
wearing tight dresses. It is all-important for the preservation of
414 PERNICIOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
health and life that there should be ample room for the full action
of the lungs, unrestrained by the clothing. How many of the
ladies of our land can draw in a full breath without heaving up
the shoulders? It is doubtful if one in a thousand, when she shall
read this, can even fairly begin to expand her chest within the
dress she is wearing.
In healthy respiration the thorax or chest expands freely in
every direction, but more freely around the central and lower por-
tions. If we examine the human skeleton we shall find that special
provision has been made for this freedom of motion around the
waist, by having the lower ribs terminate in longer cartilages, or
elastic gristly structures, instead of bone, which connect the ends
of the ribs with the breast-bone or sternum. The cartilage con-
necting the upper rib with the sternum is less than an inch long;
but as we descend from rib to rib, this structure will be found to
grow longer until those from the lower ribs, with the exception of
the floating ribs which are not thus connected with the breast-
bone, are several inches long.
Almost every lady may be made to convict herself, in two
minutes' conversation, of tight dressing; and that, too, by giving
almost involutarily, testimony which cannot be gainsaid. Say to
the next lady you meet, if you please, “Madam, do you wear tight
dresses?" She will be very sure to say, “No.” “Is the dress
you have on comfortable?" "Certainly, very comfortable," she
will reply. "You feel better in it than in a loose dress, do you?"
"Yes," she will be very sure to reply, "I feel much better in this
dress than I do in a loose dress; for I feel the want of support in
a loose dress; I feel all gone "-very much like the rum-drinker
when without his accustomed dram. Here you have the testimony.
Why does she feel better in her tight dress than she does in a loose
dress? Simply because she has dressed so tightly, and for so long
a time, that she has taken off, or destroyed the natural action of
the muscles and the elasticity of the cartilages, and substituted
therefor cotton, linen, and whalebone. Every gentleman who has
not made a fool of himself by aping the ladies, understands very
well that he is just as comfortable in a loose dress, and much
better supported than he would be in a tight dress. Then, when
a lady feels that she is not properly supported unless she is tightly
laced, and does not feel comfortable in a loose dress, she has posi-
tive evidence that she not only dresses too tightly, but that she
has to a greater or less degree destroyed the natural activity of
the muscles, and therefore rendered them incapable of supporting
TIGHT DRESSING-SYMPTOMS OF.
415
the body erect, and that deformity and disease must surely follow
soon, unless she ceases this evil practice.
Deformity is the inevitable result of tight dressing. The mus-
cles of the trunk, chest and abdomen, extending up and down the
spine, between the ribs, and from the ribs to the hips, or bones of
the pelvis, were intended to sustain the body erect. They extend
naturally in almost a straight line, with but a slight graceful
curve, from the upper part of the chest to the hips, and upon the
two sides of the body you may perceive they are nearly parallel.
Here, then, the shoulders and head are well supported; there is
plenty of breadth for the shoulder blades or scapula to rest upon
on the posterior, or back region of the chest. Now, if instead of
this noble form in God's image-a well formed woman—the ribs
are drawn in by dressing to one-half or two-thirds the natural
size of the body, not only are the muscles rendered feeble and
delicate, but instead of being parallel upon the two sides of the
body, as nature intended, they are drawn from their true direc-
tion into the form of an hour-glass. Thus distorted, they can give
the chest, shoulders and head but a feeble support; and the
result is, the shoulders bend forward, the shoulder blades begin to
stand out, and you have the peculiar rainbow form of the spine,
with more or less of that depression beneath the collar-bones, or
clavicles, which is so common among the ladies of fashion to-day.
Lateral or sideway curvatures of the spine are also common,
especially when tight dresses have been applied to girls before the
bones have obtained proper solidity. Scarcely a good and noble
formed wcman, of erect and dignified carriage, is to be found
among the fashionable ladies of our country. Deformity! de-
formity is the rule-symmetry of form, and consequent beauty,
the rare exceptions to that rule--and this deformity has been, in a
great measure, caused by tight dressing.
If deformity alone resulted from tight dressing, it would be bad
enough; but, alas! this is not the worst of the consequences which
follow this absurd practice. The Chinese females may compress
their feet, and prevent their development, and yet no serious con-
sequences to the general health follow, as the feet are not vital
organs; the rest of the body may thrive after the loss of one or
both feet. The aborigines of our country may compress their
heads at a given point, and the brain will expand in other direc-
tions, and no serious injury result to the race. We may not
admire their taste when, in their self-conceit, they imagine them-
selves wiser than their Creator, and set themselves about marring
416 PERNICIOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
the truly beautiful form of God's image; but no serious conse-
quences follow to the race. Children of such parents continue to
be born with well developed feet and heads, and no deformity nor
disease is inherited by their posterity as a consequence of the folly
of the parents; simply because these deformities do not seriously
interfere with the functions of any organ or organs which are in-
dispensable to the health and life of the organism as a whole.
Not so with the habit we are now considering; for if we judge as
to the degree of the evil when this practice is ignorantly indulged
in, or as to the sin when it is knowingly practiced, by the physical
consequences which follow to our race, it is certainly one of the
most fearful and deadly evils and sins in existence-compared to
it, intemperance sinks into insignificance. It may be thought that
simply compressing the chest is a very simple act, and no great
sin, but the swallowing of ten grains of strychnine, or the placing
two or three drops of prussic acid upon the tongue, are much more
simple acts; but when either is done with a knowledge that it will
cause disease and premature death, then, simple as the act is, it
becomes one of a fearful character-it becomes self-murder.
But let us examine why it is that such direful consequences
follow tight dressing; and also take a particular view of some of
the effects which do result from this practice. In the first place,
let us examine some of the organs which are affected, compressed,
or pressed out of place by this habit; and, first, we will notice the
organs within the chest.
We have within the chest, above the diaphragm or midriff, the
lungs and heart. The lungs are composed of air cells; bronchia,
or air tubes, leading to the air cells; and cellular tissues; together
with nerves and blood vessels.
The heart is a double organ, as it were, having two sets of
cavities (the right auricle and ventricle, and the left auricle and
ventricle), each of which performs a similar function, or office.
The blood returning towards the heart in the veins from every
portion of the body, enters the right auricle, which contracts and
forces it into the right ventricle; this contracts and forces it into
the pulmonary artery, through the branches of which it flows in
more and more minute vessels, until it enters the minute capillary
or hair like vessels, in the very walls of the air cells; and after
passing through these, it returns through the pulmonary veins to
the left auricle, through which it passes to the left ventricle, by
the contraction of which it is forced into the aorta. The blood is
prevented from returning in the opposite direction, in its passage
·
THE CIRCULATION AND RESPIRATION.
417
through the heart, by valves. The blood flows through the aorta,
or large artery which extends from the left ventricle, through its
subdivisions, to every part of the body, until it enters the capil-
lary vessels, which are so perfectly distributed at every part that
the prick of a needle will wound more or less of these minute ves-
sels; having passed through these, which unite and form the
veins, it returns again to the right side of the heart to be sent to
the lungs. During the passage of the blood through the lungs,
changes, all-important for the life and health of the whole body,
take place in it. When the blood enters the lungs through the pul-
monary artery and its branches, it is dark, purple, venous blood,
similar to that which flows from the arm when a patient is
bled. In the lungs it comes sufficiently in contact with air, to
allow oxygen to be absorbed from the atmosphere, and carbonic
acid to be given off.
The blood thus purified by the separation of this poisonous gas ;
and vivified or made alive by the reception of its precious load of
oxygen, becomes of a rich crimson color; when it is prepared to
return to the left side of the heart to be sent te every part of the
body, carrying with it the new nutritive material, which was re-
ceived into the veins from the digestive organs before the blood
was sent to the lungs, and also a supply of oxygen. The latter,
when it arrives in the minute capillary vessels, finds in every part
of the body particles of matter which are worn out, and require to
be removed. It lays hold of such particles and decomposes, or
oxidizes, or, as it were, burns them up; thereby furnishing heat
to the entire organism. New particles of matter take the place of
the old in the various structures; and the blood by the loss of its
oxygen and new material, and by the reception of the products of
combustion, and worn out particles—carbonic acid, various saline,
and other substances—becomes again of a dark color, and returns
through the veins to the right side of the heart. The various
earthy, saline, watery, and other particles which are no longer
needed in the circulation, are cast out of the system by the kid-
neys, liver, skin and bowels.
The reader will now be able to perceive the important part
which the heart and lungs play in the animal economy. So im-
portant are the changes in the blood, which are produced by res-
piration, that if the latter ceases for the short space of five min-
utes, the patient can rarely be restored.
What must be the effect of compressing the chest, of binding
down by the aid of corsets, hooks or pins in dresses, the ribs, and
418 PERNICIOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
thus preventing that freedom of motion which nature intended by
the long cartilages to which we have referred? Bear in mind that
the lungs and heart fill the entire cavity of the chest; so that,
strictly speaking, there is no cavity, even when the chest is fully
distended. Such compression, of course, lessens the capacity of
the lungs to receive air, which is so essential to health and life;
and the changes which should take place in the blood, in its pas-
sage through the lungs, are but imperfectly effected. It has been
already stated, that if the blood is not changed in the lungs, it
ceases to be circulated in the blood vessels; if it is only partially
purified in the lungs, it is imperfectly circulated, and distant parts
of the body first feel the effects of the imperfect circulation, in
the coldness of the hands and feet. Dark, impure blood, instead
of scarlet, life-giving blood, flows to the delicate structures of the
brain and spinal marrow, or cord, causing disease and derange-
ment of the functions of these organs. The obstruction to the
circulation of the blood, together with its impurity, causes con-
gestion of the brain and its spinal elongation; and the victim
begins to be troubled with headache, neuralgia, spinal-irritation,
and the protcan forms of nervous diseases, hysterics and the like.
If this evil habit is continued for any considerable length of
time, these diseases become fixed, so that it is very difficult to re-
move them, and a lifetime of suffering often results. Nor does
the mischief end here; the lower portions of the lungs become
more or less inactive from the obstruction to the flow of blood
through them; the central portions have a double duty to perform,
and become liable to irritation and inflammation; the free action
of the upper portions is prevented, and they become congested ;
and these unnatural conditions, together with the impure state of
the blood, caused by them, not unfrequently give rise to deposits
of tuberculous matter, and the individual may finally die from
consumption. Palpitation of the heart, and pain through the side
and shoulders, almost inevitably result from tight dressing.
Nor are the lungs, heart, and the organs already named alone
affected. The diaphragm or midriff plays an important part
during respiration; and when the lower portion of the ribs, to
which this organ is attached, are thus contracted, it is impossible
for it to discharge its duty. The liver, stomach and spleen lie im-
mediately beneath the ribs, in a great measure within the concavity
of the diaphragm; these organs are more or less compressed and
crowded out of place, and of course can but imperfectly perform
their functions. The liver is a very broad and solid organ, ex-
CONSEQUENCES OF TIGHT DRESSING.
419
tending fully two-thirds of the distance across the abdomen
beneath the lower ribs; the stomach and spleen extending the rest
of the way in a healthy and natural body; but, in the fashionable
forms of our young ladies to-day, the entire waist is not as broad
between the ribs, as is the liver alone in its natural transverse
diameter; and yet, in this narrow space are crowded or jammed
the liver, stomach and spleen, all necessarily more or less dis-
torted and displaced. Is it strange that so many women have
great tenderness and soreness at the pit of the stomach; or that
they have neuralgia, weakness, and other diseases of this organ,
when they thus wantonly abuse this portion of the body? The
kidneys cannot escape injury from this compression; the bowels
are crowded downwards, pressing upon the bladder and other im-
portant organs within the pelvis or hip bones, causing prolapsus,
congestion, inflammation and ulceration of the womb, and the
various other forms of female diseases which are so prevalent at
present, and which make the lives of so many of our fashionable
women almost unendurable; and to which Miss Beecher alludes
in the earnest language which we have quoted from her pen.
Nor do the internal organs alone suffer from the bad practice
under consideration; the breasts become irritated and indurated
from the pressure of dresses, stays, whalebones, and the like; and
the foundation is laid for future inflammation and abscesses,
which so frequently trouble women when nursing. And it is not
improbable that even cancer of the breast often has its origin from
the indurations caused by lacing assuming a malignant character.
We have given but a hasty sketch of the terrible consequences
which follow in the wake of this violation of nature's laws. It is
utterly impossible for a woman with her waist deformed according
to the representation of our fashion-plates, to enjoy good, or even
tolerable health, for any considerable length of time. It is true
that active, out-door exercise may do something towards counter-
acting the bad effects of tight dressing; but sooner or later, if the
practice is continued, deformity and disease are the result.
If a man desires a healthy wife, and a comfortable home, and
healthy children, he should never think of marrying a small-
waisted, pale-faced woman; for only sorrow, disappointment and
suffering can follow such a marriage.
The active, out-door habits of the English ladies save them from
the rapid and early sacrifice of health and life which we witness
here. Mary Lamb writes to Miss Wordsworth (both ladies being
over fifty years of age): "You say you can walk fifteen miles
420 PERNICIOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
with ease; that is exactly my stint, and more fatigues me." She
speaks compassionately of a certain delicate lady who could walk
only four or five miles every third or fourth day, keeping very
quiet between."
That the English women are beginning to feel the effects of this
destructive practice, is beyond doubt, for the Englishwoman's
Review says: "It is allowed by all, that the appearance of the
English peasant, in the present day, is very different to what it
was fifty years ago; the robust, healthy, hardy-looking country-
woman or girl, is as rare now as the pale, delicate, nervous female
of our times would have been a century ago." And we are in-
formed that even the children in the English schools are not as
robust as formerly. Thus, there as here, are the consequences of
this dreadful practice visited upon the rising generation, who
have, above all dispute, to suffer the physical consequences which
follow upon the sins of their parents.
It has been our aim to show that the habit of tight dressing is
almost universal, although perhaps generally unknown to the
victims themselves; and that the heaving up of the shoulders,
instead of expanding around the waist, during inspiration, and a
feeling of goneness, or want of support, or weakness, when in a
loose dress, or when without any dress, are positive signs of suf-
fering from the bad effects of tight dressing; for such symptoms
only occur when the natural action of the muscles has been
destroyed by compression, or by stays, except in rare cases of dis-
ease. We know full well that few, if any, ladies can be found, in
fashionable society, in our land, who, upon observation, will not
find that these positive signs of dressing too tightly exist with
themselves. That many of our ladies have followed this practice
ignorantly, without being aware that they dressed so tightly as to
impair health and shorten life, is beyond question; but this igno-
rance which itself is reprehensible, will not save them from suf-
fering, disease, and premature death, nor even from destroying
our race, if they persist in it.
Believing that many of those with whom we are dealing, are
conscientious and true women, and desire to know what is right
for the sake of doing it, we will take the liberty of making a few
suggestions to them. Never, as you value your health and life,
the well-being of your children, and a conscience void of offense
before God and man, depend upon hooking, pinning or fastening
your garments around the waist for their support; for you can do
neither without doing injury. Use shoulder strap waists, or
SUGGESTIONS TO WOMEN.
421
suspenders; let them be placed well upon the shoulders near the
neck, and never allow them to rest upon the external points of
the shoulders, or on the arms, as has been common. Who, in
years gone by, has not been pained by seeing little girls walking
our streets, throwing up their arms to keep on their dresses?
This method of dressing children and young girls is one of the
most sure means of inducing deformity of the chest and shoulders.
The constant compression thus caused, even though but slight,
will be very sure to produce more or less distortion of the unde-
veloped and growing form of a child; and beyond all question, it
is a fruitful cause of the uncouth round shoulders which we now
so frequently witness among young girls and women. If there is
a portion of the body which, above all others, needs to be properly
protected from the cold, and from atmospherical changes, it is the
upper portion of the chest and shoulders; and this is especially
true during the days of childhood and youth; therefore, avoid
low-necked dresses. Never fasten your garments so tightly around
the waist as to hinder you from drawing in a full breath, whether
sitting or standing, without the least restraint. Take particular
pains to frequently expand the chest by drawing in a full breath.
Such a course, together with active out-door exercise, will do
much towards preserving or restoring your natural form and
health.
If you desire a beautiful form, one which shall be worthy of
most intelligent admiration, remember that it must be as the God
of beauty created it,-natural. The least appearance of an un-
natural contraction about the waist, even in the external garments,
is a departure from symmetry of form; it substitutes stiffness and
awkwardness for ease, gracefulness, harmony and beauty; and is as
painful to behold as is a tight jacket on the body of a criminal.
If you care for the young ladies of your family, never allow a
fashion-plate to enter your house. In this year, 1887, the writer
was handed at a fashionable opera house, a play bill, and, on
looking it over, he found an advertisement of corsets to " elongate
and contract the waist." What do you think of that, kind
parent?
After reading the advertisement just mentioned, bearing so
close upon a subject in which he was much interested, the writer
saw, upon the stage, two or three young women who might have
been shown as specimens of "elongated and contracted waists,"
dressed in gentlemen's clothes; and never, until then, did he so
fully realize the horrible, unsightly deformity which exists among
422 PERNICIOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF WOMEN.
our fashionable ladies. It seems to the writer, that if some lover
of our species, who has money to spare, would erect in public
places in our cities, two statues side by side-one of a noble, natural,
graceful, human female form, and the other a representation of one
of our fashionable women, exhibiting their deformity as it is in all
its nakedness—a good use would be performed. It would enable
women to see the difference between a symmetrical and beautiful
female form and the deformed women around them; and it would
enable men to see in what direction they must look for wives, if
they are to expect any comfort, peace and happiness in wedded
life, or hope to transmit their names to posterity through their
own offspring. There can be little happiness where substance,
strength and health are absent in the wife and mother.
With the families of our native American stock decreasing from
the quota of four to twelve children, which was the rule sixty
years ago, down to none, or one, two or three, possibly four, as we
see among us to-day; with the inability of so many of our women
to bear children, and their unwillingness to have children when
they are able; and with the impossibility of nearly one-half of our
native American women to successfully nurse their children, owing
to the damage done to their breasts and nipples and general health
by tight dressing and other bad habits, is it not time that the
attention of the American people, especially the gentlemen, was
called to these pernicious habits of our women?
The writer has astonished many a woman by telling her the
truth, viz., that so far as the physical health, strength, develop-
ment, and the perpetuity of our race are concerned, the habits of
our women and girls are immeasurably worse than those of the
men, with all of their drinking, smoking, licentiousness, etc.; and
as positive proof of the truth of this statement he has called their
attention to the fact that the native American men are far better
developed, are stronger, and enjoy better health than our women ;
and that in no other country on earth is there so great a difference
in these respects between the men and women as there is here.
Our women complain, and justly, too, that so many of our
men leave their own firesides, and the society of their wife and
children, and seek the company of others, and spend their money
and leisure hours in saloons and club-rooms, and in worse places,
instead of being with their families as they should be. But with
no desire to excuse or justify the men for this conduct, it may be
well to intimate to women that a majority of the men do not marry
a woman with the expectation of having an irritable, discontented,
SUGGESTIONS TO WOMEN AND MEN.
423
unhappy wife, as is almost inevitable where a woman laces, has not
been accustomed to active work, and does not engage in household
duties after marriage; nor does he anticipate devoting his evenings
and nights to nursing a delicate, sickly wife, and half-developed and
sick children; or, if he has money to hire others to do the nursing,
does he expect to be constantly pained by witnessing scenes of
suffering, as he must often do if he marries one of our pale-faced,
deformed women. And if a man is not restrained by religious
motives or conscience, there is great danger of his seeking other
society than that of his own home, however much it may be his
duty to remain at home and care for wife and children. It is use-
less to attempt to ignore the fact that the bad habits of the women,
and the unavoidable results which follow such habits, have much
to do with the bad habits of the men.
Let every woman who is a lover of her sex and our race join in
a crusade against the vain, foolish and destructive habits and ideas
existing among American women, and wage an unceasing warfare
against the prevailing fashionable habits of dress and tone of
thought, until our women become more sensible in their ideas as
to light, labor and dress, and become worthy of the name of
woman. It is well for our women to join in a crusade against the
bad habits of the men, and we rejoice that they have done so, for
they are doing a good work; but is it not the duty of men to re-
turn the compliment, by assailing the destructive habits of women ?
If a man has been so unfortunate as to have married a pale-faced,
small-waisted and indolent woman, he has no right to neglect her
and the puny children which she may bear; for it is his duty to take
care of them. If men would avoid such care and anxiety, they
should stop before they marry, and remember that the well-devel-
oped workers are the healthy, contented and happy; and that they
are to inherit and people the land. Deformity and indolence tend
toward disease, death, and the destruction of the race.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE ABUSE OF CHILDREN, AND CRUELTY TO GIRLS AND
YOUNG WOMEN.
A CHILD cannot be more seriously abused than to be deprived
of conditions and instrumentalities which are absolutely necessary
for its orderly development, health and happiness; and in conse-
quence of such treatment to be doomed to a life of suffering, dis-
appointed hopes and premature death. First, we will consider the
most important conditions which are required for the development
and health of the human body.
SUNLIGHT.
How few realize the fact that the sunlight is the medium
through which life is constantly received by all vegetables, ani-
mals and men; and that no living organization can be deprived of
the solar rays and preserve its beauty, symmetry of form, native
vigor and health. The seed may germinate in the dark, from the
life stored up in its structure; but the infant plant, if secluded
from light, grows pale and delicate, and finally dies; if but partially
deprived of light, it may grow, but it is slender, imperfectly
organized, and comparatively colorless. Bring it forth into the
unclouded sunshine, and it receives new life and vigor; it changes
its color, its stem and branches become denser and stronger, and
its whole appearance is more robust-it is in direct and orderly
communication with the great fountain of life, and life flows in
freely as a consequence. If water, containing organic substances,
be kept in the dark, no germs of life make their appearance; but
expose it to light and animalcula are soon organized, and the solu-
tion teems with living creatures. Deprived of light, the tadpole
never puts out his legs nor doffs his tail, and his race perishes
with him.
But it is especially to the influence of light upon the human
body and spirit, that the writer wishes to call the attention of the
reader; and also to point out the fearful consequences which result
CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR DEVELOPMENT.
425
from a deprivation of it. There is, perhaps, no subject upon
which a greater degree of ignorance prevails, or in relation to
which the laws of creation are more frequently and willfully vio-
lated. Spiritually, the ignorant violation of these laws may be
winked at as comparatively harmless; but ignorance does not
shield the transgressor from physical deformity, disease, suffering
and death; and when we allow fashion, a perverted taste, or any
selfish motive to govern us, and disregard our knowledge and the
reason which God has given us, the consequences affect both body
and soul. There is no escape, no hope, but in shunning such evils
as sins against God. Here is a field where the Christian should
let his light shine before the world; for he must live according to
his doctrines, or perish-and his doctrines must be true to save
him from physical destruction from the direful evils which exist
at this day.
The human germ commences its existence dependent on another
organization, and receives its life and nourishment through its
parents; and its development, vigor and health depend on them.
At birth the child enters upon a new stage of existence, and it
requires food, air and light, all tempered to its condition; not
the strong light of midday, but the mild dawning light of the
rising sun. Gradually more and more light should be admitted,
until, at the end of a few weeks, the infant should live in the open
air and sunshine much of the time; seeking the shade of a tree,
or of a sunny room, only during the excessive heat of the middle
of very hot days. Why should the young, above all others, live in
the sunlight? Simply because this is the period of life when
organization and development must be perfected, if ever. Deprive
the young of sunlight, and either adult age will never be reached,
or delicacy, deformity, discase, and a lifetime of suffering, will
result; and, all other things being equal, the consequences may
be measured with great certainty by the extent of the deprivation.
Matter in itself is dead; and even when organized into living
structures, if such organizations are left to themselves, they
speedily tend to decomposition. All natural life in this world, to
all appearance, flows in from the Lord through the light and heat
of the natural sun. Therefore to the extent you deprive the young
of sunlight, to the same extent you deprive them of life, and the
power requisite for development; and you render their organiza-
tions susceptible to the causes of disease and death. The seed of
the plant will germinate and grow in the dark, if supplied with
heat and moisture, to the extent of the organized material stored
426
CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE YOUNG.
up in it; but there it stops. Men and animals will develop to a
certain extent, and may retain an imperfect organization for à
time in the dark, owing to their living on food which has been
already organized in the vegetable and animal kingdoms; but
what little life they have is mostly derived through other organi-
zations. They are not in direct communication with the great
fountain of life. The spiritual influx requisite for organizing
substantial structures is wanting, the bones and muscles remain
soft and delicate, the blood is watery and thin, and the red glob-
ules are few, the skin is pale and lifeless, the brain is imperfectly
developed, and there is either sluggishness or great irritability of
the nerves, with peevishness of disposition. The Esquimaux, who
live far to the north and have but little sunlight, are torpid in
mind and body. The fashionable lady who has descended from
cultivated and healthy ancestors, but shuts herself up in parlors
darkened by the aid of blinds and curtains, and goes veiled when
she ventures into the sunlight, is nervous, irritable, peevish, and
discontented. In order to gratify vanity, she is depriving herself
of a large share of that life which is her due, and which the sun-
light alone can give her, and she suffers the natural consequences.
What folly, what a perverted taste is shown in the idea that a
pale, slender, bloodless, half-developed organization is more
beautiful than the robust and hardy one, filled with joyous life
and vigor, which is developed by the sunshine that cheers both
soul and body.
((
But the children! O, the children, the daughters especially !
How cruel that they should be deprived of that which is essential
to healthy life to gratify the vanity of parents! or how sad that
"Look at my
such deprivation should result from ignorance !
little child," exclaims the fond parent, see how beautiful, how
clear, how almost transparent the complexion, how delicate the
organization !" Alas, alas, how sad! Do you expect to raise
that child, and that he will live to be a stay to you in your declin-
ing years? It is almost impossible that you should succeed, unless
you change his manner of living. With his impoverished blood
and irritable brain and nervous system, he is ill prepared to resist
the causes of the diseases of childhood. You have good reason to
expect that, sooner or later, one of the eruptive fevers, bowel com-
plaints, or inflammatory affections to which children are liable,
will stretch him upon his suffering and dying bed, and that you
will follow his lifeless remains to a premature grave; or if he is so
fortunate as to survive the dangers of childhood, he can become
IMPORTANCE OF SUNLIGHT.
427
but a miserable effigy of a man, with a lifetime of wretchedness
and suffering before him. If you would save your child from all
this, there is but one course for you to pursue. You must care
less for your carpets and his complexion and delicacy, than you do
for his health and life; you must manifest your love for him by
turning him out doors into the sunshine, and by never, when the
sun is shining, allowing him to stay in a room where the atmos-
phere is not constantly purified and made alive by the solar rays.
SUNLIGHT AND HEALTH.
In the preceding section the attention of the reader has been
called to the influence of the solar rays on the development of
vegetables, animals, and men; in the present it remains to con-
sider more fully the results which follow when men and animals
are deprived of a due supply of light after organization has been
perfected.
Man, spiritually and physically, is but a recipient of life; his
organization is for use, and is adapted to use. To receive and to
use freely, is to live according to true order, and it leads to health.
Reject and refuse to use or to exercise the organization, and we
soon have, as a result, feeble and deranged action; and there is
developed a susceptibility of being acted upon by the mental and
physical causes of disease. Nor are the above the worst conse-
quences which follow rejecting or neglecting to use God's pro-
vision for our needs in an orderly manner; for the capacity of
receiving gradually fails, and even the receptive organization
wastes away until there is little or no real life remaining. These
principles are true in regard to man, both spiritually and natu-
rally; and not only in regard to him as a whole, but also as to
every individual faculty of his spirit, and organ or part of his
body. This is most wonderfully illustrated in the case of the eyes
and light. The eyes are special organs of sense, and are exactly
adapted to the reception of light-the full light of day. Such
light acts as a healthy natural stimulant to the eyes; and to freely
permit it to flow in and to exercise them in viewing the beautiful
things in creation, and in guiding the body in the performance of
acts of usefulness, gives development, vigor and strength to
these organs; and tends, above everything else, to prevent dis-
ease; whereas, if we deprive them of light, or reject it, and neg-
lect to use them, even to a limited extent, as is done by many of
our women and children, who confine themselves so much of the
428
CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE YOUNG.
1
time in darkened parlors and rooms, the function of these organs
is gradually impaired; spots of various colors, mists and floating
specks appear before the sight; vision becomes painful, and often
there are pains and sensibility through the eyes and temples; and
the former are red and watery. In the case of children, the lids
frequently become red and swollen, and pimples and pustules
appear upon their external surface, and even upon the eyeballs
themselves, giving rise to great intolerance of light and suffering.
To behold the results which follow to the eyes from a total depri-
vation of light, we have but to turn and examine the fish which
swim in the dark waters of the Mammoth Cave. With all of them
sight is either lost or more or less impaired; with many the eyes
are imperfect, and in some cases there is scarcely a vestige of
these organs remaining; the difference, doubtless, depending on
the length of time during which the fish, or their ancestors, have
inhabited those dark waters.
But the eyes are not the only organs which suffer when light is
withheld; for it has been shown in a former section, that in the
development of the whole body light is all-important, and it is
equally so for its preservation and health.
The writer is satisfied,
from extensive reading, observation and reflection, that depriva-
tion of sunlight is one of the most fruitful causes of disease of
both mind and body. There are many individuals who are men-
tally depressed, simply by a cloudy day; and who has not felt the
exhilarating effects of a return of fair weather? In the deep val-
leys of Switzerland, where the direct rays of the sun are but little
felt, deformity, disease, and idiocy are unusually frequent. Among
the American ladies brought up in our darkened parlors and
rooms, crooked spines, decaying teeth, a pale, sickly color of the
skin, flabby muscles, weak digestion, tender spines, and irritable
nerves are the rule; and diseases peculiar to the sex are, to say
the least, exceedingly common. Now, we do not suppose that
darkness is the only cause of such deformities and diseases, but
beyond all question it is one of the chief causes. Called in con-
sultation to see a patient who was bed-ridden from general debility
and spinal irritation, and some other of the diseases named, find-
ing her in a dark parlor, the writer's first suggestion was, that all
blinds and curtains should be removed, and that sunlight should
be freely admitted. "But I cannot stand that, Doctor,” exclaimed
the patient; "my eyes are weak, and the flies will kill me.
eyes are to be made strong by the light," we replied; "and as for
the flies, why, they will give you almost involuntarily a por-
""
"Your
EXERCISE AND DEVELOPMENT.
429
tion of the exercise which is indispensable for your restoration to
health, and therefore will be of great service; " and between the
sunlight and the flies this woman lived to thank the writer for the
advice, which led, in her opinion, to recovery. Animals which
are kept in dark places become subject to scrofulous and consump-
tive diseases; and the writer has noticed that families who live in
houses much shaded by trees, are more subject to scrofula,
consumption, dropsy, and asthma, than others. Aside from the
absence of light, though in consequence of it, such buildings are
damp, mouldy and unwholesome, and sunlight alone can purify
the atmosphere and render it fit for respiration. Observation has
shown, during the prevalence of the cholera, and other epidemic
diseases, that those who live on the sunny side of streets and build-
ings are less liable to be attacked with the disease than those on
the shaded side. In hospitals it has been discovered that more
patients recover when the rooms are properly lighted, than in dark
and shaded rooms; and one medical writer found that four times
as many recovered in light as did in dark rooms.
In conclusion, the writer, after having devoted many years to
diligent inquiry into the causes of disease, their treatment, and
the conditions requisite for recovery from them, desires to say,
that in cases of consumption, scrofula, dyspepsia, spinal irritation,
general debility, and nervous irritability, and in fact many other
chronic diseases, working, riding, walking, playing, and sitting in
the sunlight, and, when practicable, a daily exposure of the whole
body, naked, in a suitable temperature, to the direct rays of the
sun, rubbing it freely at the same time with the dry hands or a
coarse towel, will do more toward a restoration to health than any
other measure-yes, we had almost said, than all other measures
and remedies combined; and in not a few cases-perhaps a ma-
jority-will be sufficient to cure the patient; certainly more will
be cured than can be by the best medical treatment if the above
measures are neglected; for natural life and health flow into this
world through the light and heat of the sun.
EXERCISE AND DEVELOPMENT.
In the last section, we called the attention of the reader,
incidentally, to the great truth that all organization is adapted to
use, and was created for use; and especially that when we cease
to use the whole organization, or any part of it, in a legitimate
or orderly manner, debility and irregular, deranged and diseased
430
CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE YOUNG.
action result; and that even the organic structures themselves
gradually waste away, when not used. These truths should be
constantly borne in mind, and they cannot be repeated too often
in this selfish and sensual age, for we need "line upon line, and
precept upon precept." Every faculty of the soul is strengthened
and built up by exercise, and fades from neglect. This is most
remarkably exemplified in the regeneration of man; for after the
new will or determination to obey the Divine commands is
formed, it is thus that the new man is put on, and the old man
put off. Thus the capacity of receiving and understanding good
and truth depends upon our seeking and using them, and exer-
cising the mind upon them; as much as the power of digesting
natural food and drink, and appropriating them to the building
up of a healthy natural organization, depends on our eating and
drinking, and then using such an organization. If we have been
neglecting to use our mental faculties or bodily organs, of course
we are weak and debilitated; and our very structures are wasted,
and very likely-almost certainly-diseased, until perhaps every
motion requires an effort, and may be painful. All this is true
both mentally and physically, and should not be forgotten; for
there is the most marvelous correspondence between the functions
of the body and mind in every particular. If we neglect reading
God's holy Word, or if we allow our children to do so; if we
neglect family worship, or attending church regularly, or attending
the ordinances of the church; if we neglect visiting our brethren,
or engaging in works of charity; or if we even neglect to engage
in active, useful labor, our mental and physical ability to perform
such acts will gradually grow less; and the love of performing
them will slowly but surely diminish, and the physical organiza-
tion (unless infernal loves flow in and sustain it by useless and
evil activity) will gradually waste, or grow delicate and feeble,
and become incapable of vigorous action.
There is but one way in which the disinclination, torpor and
inability which have resulted from inactivity, can be shaken off;
and either the mind or body be restored to substantial vigor and
health. We must compel ourselves to do that which is right, and
attend to all our religious duties, and engage in some active,
useful employment. It may not be pleasant at first; it certainly
will not be; and our attempts for a long time will be attended by
mental repugnance and physical fatigue. We must not, however,
be deterred by such trifles, but remember that perseverance leads
to health and life, joy and happiness; while continued inactivity
IMPORTANCE OF GOOD BREAD.
431
leads to increasing inability and wasting, disease and death.
Useless, discontented and unhappy here, with an endless eternity
of torpidity before us; what a prospect is this for an immortal
being ! "Awake thou that sleepest," and "whatsoever thy hands
find to do, that do with thy might."
We commenced this section with the intention of speaking of
the importance of exercise for the young, in the development of
the human soul and body; and especially of the different kinds
of exercise. The little infant comes into this world simply a
receptacle; the innocence of the angels flows down into its spirit
and fills it with joyful activity. If its natural body is sustained
with appropriate nourishment, and there is no serious hereditary
debility, or tendency to disease, it soon begins to exercise its little
limbs, which gradually gain strength, until at length the child is
able to walk, run, and play. The Lord has implanted in his
spirit "mirthfulness," and His angels, loving the little one not less
than he is loved by his parents, stir him up to engage in innumer-
able little sports and plays; and thus keep his natural organization
in almost unceasing motion, and give it the exercise which is so
essential for its development and health. Did you ever think of
this, kind parent, when you have, perhaps, harshly, and certainly
cruelly, been striving to restrain the joyous outburst of this
inflowing life, and to compel your little one to sit down and be
still, or perhaps worse, to sit with folded arms without employ-
ment for mind or body?
FLOUR AND BREAD.
In a previous work on the wine question the writer called the
attention of the reader to the importance of using for food
unbolted flour instead of white or superfine flour. A writer in
a religious periodical noticed this and represented that by a new
process, now being used, all the nutritious contents of the kernel
of wheat is made into white flour. That this is not correct is
evident; for if it were true the flour would not be white, unless it
were made so by chemical treatment, which would neither be safe
nor satisfactory. There is very little color in the hull, although
there is some; and there is a process in use of removing the hull
mechanically before grinding the grain, and yet the flour is dark.
The dark portion of the kernel is mostly upon its surface in close
contact with the hull; it is tough and hard, and not easily
pulverized. It contains an excess over what the white portion
432
CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE YOUNG.
$
contains, of the gluten and the phosphates which are so essential
to nourish the muscles, bones and brain. The central or white
portion of the kernel is composed largely of starch, and is readily
pulverized and makes white flour. Experiments have shown that
such flour alone will not sustain animal life; and we see the sad
results which flow from its use all around us, in the crooked spines
and legs, half-developed jaws, crowded and decaying teeth, flabby
muscles and irritable brains, which result largely from the use of
such flour. Were it not that our children use other food, they
would actually starve to death. The Lord, when He created wheat,
evidently knew better what man requires to duly nourish his body
than do our millers.
The writer will not deny that the new process of preparing
flour is an improvement, and that it gives us better flour than the
old; but he will say that any flour which is white does not con-
tain in due proportion the most nourishing portion of the grain,
and that consequently it should be discarded from use.
This reprehensible custom of separating what God has joined
together for human sustenance and food, is one which is well
worthy of our most serious consideration. We allow the miller to
take wheat-that noblest of all grains for human food, which
contains all of the materials required to nourish the human body,
perhaps more perfectly than any other substance-and bolt it with
the utmost care, and to cast away in the form of shorts and bran
most of the gluten, phosphates, etc., required to give substance
and strength to the body; reserving simply the superfine flour,
composed principally of starch, which is analogous to sugar and
easily converted into sugar, and is, like the latter, useful to warm
the body, and indirectly to produce fat when used as food. Now,
this superfine flour is not a poison, and causes no specific disease
peculiar to itself when used; although dyspepsia frequently results
from its use, but that is owing to excess and not to quality; for
starch, like sugar, must be converted, or rather perverted, by
leaven into alcohol before it becomes a poison, or is capable of
causing drunkenness. But if the stomach is filled with starch
when it should have a due proportion of other food, we can readily
understand why, from such excess, indigestion results.
The most fearful consequences follow the use of superfine
flour, but not directly in the line of disease, for starch, as we have
said, is not a poison; but bread enters so largely into the food,
especially of the young, that when children use exclusively bread
from white flour, and fill their stomachs with such bread, the most
IMPORTANCE OF GOOD BREAD.
433
and
important structures of their bodies actually suffer for food;
they would perish with hunger were it not for the milk, potatoes,
etc., which they eat in addition to such bread; and, as it is, they
are often half-starved. The bones, with children thus fed, do not
obtain the nourishment they need; therefore such children are
often troubled with bowing and other deformities of the legs;
their spines are not unfrequently crooked; their jaws imperfectly
developed, consequently their teeth are crowded; and the teeth
with many children are so imperfectly developed that they decay
and are often lost during childhood and youth, instead of lasting
during life as they manifestly should, and would if men were
living an orderly life. The muscles are thin and flabby, and
therefore lack strength; the brain is not duly nourished; conse-
quently, instead of mental strength, the mind is irritable, peevish
and dissatisfied. The child may be fat, for starch, as has been
intimated, may contribute to that end, when other structures are
insufficiently supplied.
Nor
'The
A writer in The Nineteenth Century says, in regard to white
or brown bread: "The earliest agitator in the matter observed
two years ago, when traveling in Sicily, that the laboring classes
there live healthily and work well upon a vegetable diet, the staple
article of which is bread made of well ground wheat-meal.
are the Sicilians by any means the only people so supported.
Hindus of the Northwestern Province can walk fifty or sixty miles
a day with no other food than chapatties, made of the whole meal,
with a little ghee or Galam butter.' Turkish and Arab porters,
capable of carrying burdens of from four hundred to six hundred
pounds, live on bread only, with the occasional addition of fruit
and vegetables. The Spartans and Romans of old time lived their
vigorous lives on bread made of wheaten meal. In Northern as
well as Southern climates, we find the same thing. In Russia,
Sweden, Scotland, and elsewhere, the poor live chiefly on bread,
always made from some whole meal-wheat, oats or rye—and the
peasantry, of whatever climate, so fed, always compare favorably
with our South English poor, who, in conditions of indigence pre-
cluding them from obtaining sufficient meat food, starve, if not to
death, at least into sickliness, on the white bread it is our modern
English habit to prefer. White bread alone will not support
animal life. Bread made of the whole grain will. The experiment
has been tried in France by Magendie. Dogs were the subjects of
the trial, and every care was taken to equalize all the other condi-
tions-to proportion the quantity of food given in each case to the
434
CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE YOUNG.
weight of the animal experimented upon, and so forth. The result
was sufficiently marked. At the end of forty days the dogs fed
solely on white bread diet died. The dogs fed on bread made of
the whole grain remained vigorous, healthy, and well nourished."
While the writer and his wife were at Thebes, in Egypt, in
December, 1884, our Arab dragoman invited us to his house to see
some "antiques" from the tombs, which he desired to sell. There
we saw two women grinding wheat. The mill was composed of
two flat, circular stones about twenty inches in diameter, one
upon the top of the other; through the center of the upper stone
there was a hole into which the wheat was put; at one side on the
top was a wooden handle, by which the women turned the stone
around and around, and the meal, which looked very nice, and
was evenly ground, came out from between the two stones around
the edges. We told our dragoman, or guide and interpreter, that
we were very glad to see the mill, and that we had had no good
bread while in Egypt; and we asked him to bring us a loaf to our
hotel, which he did; and we found it excellent bread. At hotels,
even in Egypt, but especially in Europe, it is very difficult to get
the ordinary bread of the country where one is; for the landlords
think that they must furnish to English and American travelers,
bread made from superfine flour. At Thebes our water carrier,
who accompanied us to the Tombs of the Kings and some of the
old temples, running and walking as we rode or walked over the
sand, rocks and hills, was a young, bright-eyed Arab girl, about
fourteen years old, with splendid teeth and symmetrical form ;
and, with her water-jug upon her head, she looked the picture of
health and of substantial physical development; very different
from what we see among the half-starved, indolent, pale-faced,
small-waisted girls so common around us, with their round
shoulders, crooked spines and decaying teeth. It certainly is very
cruel for parents to allow young girls and boys to eat superfine
flour-bread, cakes, pies, candies, thus withholding from them
bone, teeth, brain and muscle-building materials, and starving
these structures, until a life-time of suffering and deformity must
follow, when it would not cost as much to feed them properly as it
does to surfeit them with starch, sugar and useless condiments.
Graham-flour costs not much, if any, more than superfine flour,
and it is immeasurably more valuable as food; for the former will
abundantly sustain life, but upon the latter, as we have seen, even
a dog will starve to death.
A few pages back, in speaking of the different parts of wheat-
SUPERFINE FLOUR UNFIT FOR FOOD.
435
grains, mention was made of the dark covering of the kernel,
immediately under the husk, and which incloses the white inner
part of the kernel. This dark portion is composed largely of
gluten and phosphates, while the central white portion is starch.
In the manufacture of fine flour the dark portion is separated
almost entirely and rejected, and yet the gluten in which it is so
rich is the nutritious portion of the grain; it is that which in a
great measure nourishes the muscles, and gives strength to the
system; whereas starch is of but little use, except as a heat-pro-
ducing agent; and in this respect it is far inferior to oil, or fat;
and most of the oil in wheat is contained in the dark or external
portion of the kernel. The reader will bear in mind that the
white central portion of the kernel, although chiefly starch, con-
tains some gluten.
Dr. Bennett, in an article published in the Ohio Cultivator,
says:
"Now, if there is a well established fact emanating from
experimental analysis, it is this: That superfine or very finely
bolted wheat-flour will not alone sustain animal life. This fact
has been repeatedly demonstrated by Magendi, the greatest physi-
ologist that ever lived. Having ascertained that the muscular and
nervous tissues, including the whole brain or cerebral mass, was
composed of nitrogenous matter, he readily concluded that starch
or the fecula of wheat would not alone sustain animal life, for the
reason that it contains very little nitrogenous matter. Consequent-
ly, he found by experiment that animals fed exclusively on very
finely dressed flour, died in a few weeks; whereas, those fed on the
unbolted, thrived.
((
Then, again, by the repeated analysis of both American and
European chemists, it is abundantly demonstrated that the portion
immediately beneath the external covering, contains a very large
per cent. of nitrogenous matter which should be mixed with the
internal or non-nitrogenous, in order that the muscular and
nervous systems be properly nourished. Add to this well known
fact, that the inhabitants of Scotland, Germany, Russia, as well as
families and individuals in all parts of the world, who use almost
exclusively unbolted flour, are seldom troubled with dyspepsia or
indigestion, enjoy better health generally, and are possessed of
much greater powers of endurance; and we have an array of
facts which, if universally heeded, would consign the use of
superfine flour unmixed with this most nutritious or nitrogenous
part, to oblivion."
436
CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE YOUNG.
The worst case of scurvy the writer has ever had to treat,
occurred in a little girl five or six years old who lived entirely on
toast, made of bread from superfine flour. She would eat no
fruits or vegetables, nor any animal food; nor could she be
persuaded to change her diet in the least; and it was only by
using potatoes freely with the flour in making her bread, that she
obtained relief; but at the end of about a year this expedient
failed, and symptoms of scurvy returned, till, at length, by
starving and urging she was induced to eat fresh meat, potatoes,
and other vegetables, when she rapidly recovered again. There
was nothing exceptional in this instance except the disinclination
of the child to eat healthy food; for, in this class of cases, a like
recovery almost always follows a change of diet. The writer has
scen the most happy results produced in the case of children who
were being imperfectly developed, by stopping the use of fine flour
and white bread, and requiring, and if necessary compelling, them
to use Graham-bread.
It will be seen that we actually feed to our swine, horses and
cattle, the most nutritious and important part of the grain,
and also the oil; and retain for our own use an inferior heat-
producing material, with a smaller amount of nutritious matter
than was intended for our benefit. We also lose the sweetest
portion of the grain; and all this is sacrificed to simple whiteness
and fineness, notwithstanding our teeth are perishing for the want
of use.
Surely there is more show than substance in this, and if
the useful ever comes to take the place of the superficial, we may
expect a change for the better. But in the meanwhile, it is a
fearful abuse of our children to compel or even allow them to eat
bread or cakes, or any other food made from superfine flour.
The troubles in after life which may have their origin from
thus feeding our children upon food so imperfectly adapted to the
needs of their growing bodies, can hardly be overestimated.
Toothache, headache, nervous irritability, the necessity of gum-
ming their food half their lives, instead of chewing it with sub-
stantial teeth, impaired speech and deformity, are among the
many evils which result from this cruel abuse of children.
Another serious abuse of children in which many thoughtless
parents indulge, is the giving to them tea and coffee. The child
sees its parents drinking tea and coffee, and of course teases them
for these objectionable drinks; and the parents, without stopping
to consider how much more injurious such articles are to the
growing organization of the child than to the fully developed
IDLENESS AMONG YOUNG WOMEN.
437
organization of the adult, commences giving these fluids, very
weak, of course, at first, and consequently an appetite for them is
developed, and the child most seriously injured. But as the
writer has already noticed in the preceding pages the effects of
these deleterious drinks, he will say no more here than to protest
against tea or coffee, however weak, ever being given to children
under any circumstances.
CRUEL TREATMENT OF GIRLS AND YOUNG LADIES.
Almost the entire training of even young girls as well as of
young ladies, is in open violation of nature's laws; and their edu-
cation is not much behind, for while every effort is made to educate
the intellect, the affections—the essential part of woman—are left
comparatively uncultivated, to remain barren, or to grow up to
rank weeds, stimulated by the false ideas of life such as are found
in novels, or the light literature of the day; and bitter fruits in
after life are the consequences. All this is wrong. The life of
heaven is a life of active usefulness, and all true life on earth is a
life of usefulness to our fellow-creatures, and all genuine happi-
ness must flow from such a life.
As our young girls grow up to ten or fifteen years of age, instead
of being required to work or induced to engage in active out-door
sports, they are required to spend six hours a day in the school-room,
and to thrum the piano one or two hours more, and to walk genteelly
in the streets. No chance for active play; and as for work—do pa-
rents require their daughters to work? O, no! Work is not fash-
ionable; cooking, washing, attending fires, and the like, are vulgar
employments in the eyes of this generation; and young ladies-
even those expecting or perhaps hoping to become wives and
mothers-are to know nothing about active work, or such employ-
ments. They may think they are very industrious, as they spend
their time over a little embroidery; but no active employment is
permitted—their hands would not look delicate. And so, even if
they desire it, no opportunity is afforded them to develop, by act-
ive work, their physical organism.
IDLENESS, AMONG GIRLS AND YOUNG LADIES, AND ITS RESULTS.
Few causes more speedily destroy races or individuals, both
physically and spiritually, than habits of indolence. Where this
vice reigns, however great the capabilities of body or mind may
438
CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE YOUNG.
be, they remain practically useless to the possessor, or to the com-
munity of which he forms a part. It tends to prevent develop-
ment in the young, causes imperfect manhood in the adult, pre-
disposes to suffering and disease, and ends in "childishness" and
premature old age, when the physical life is not cut short by dis-
case. Such are the inevitable results and the very best which
follow an inactive, indolent life. And whenever active, useful
labor comes to be regarded as vulgar and degrading among the
inhabitants of any country, that nation is in its decline; for
effeminacy and corruption follow as necessary consequences.
Boys, in the country especially, are generally allowed to be
boys, and to run and play in the open air and sun, regardless of
fashion, figure, or complexion; and by the time they are ten or
twelve years old, they are generally put to active work during a
reasonable (sometimes an unreasonable) share of the time. Thus
habits of industry are cultivated early, and if they are allowed
suitable "play spells," and are not too much confined in the
school-room, they are very well situated for physical and mental
development; and they grow up and form really "the bone and
sinew of our country." In our cities their advantages are not as
good; and are very far from being what they should be, and
what they might be with either a very little concert of action
and expense on the part of parents, or of variation in our
schools; so as to give more attention to physical education than at
present.
But our girls! O, our girls! The heart is made sad and sinks
within one, to behold the unrelenting, cruel and unnatural treat-
ment to which so many of them are subjected. Knowing as wo
do but too well the terrible consequences which will certainly fol-
low them in after-life, and adhere not only to them, but also to
their future husbands, if they live to marry, and to their children
and race, we must plead earnestly for them. Deprived, as they
are, most of the time of the great necessaries of life-sunlight,
out-door air, play, and work, and even active in-door employments ;
compelled to walk genteelly in the streets and to "sit up and be
little ladies" in the house, instead of substantial girls full of
activity, life and energy, as they should be; all bound around the
waist, instead of in free and graceful attire; confined in schools
when they should be in the sunlight and open air, running and
jumping and playing; required to thump on the piano, or ply the
needle, when they should be planting flowers, setting out cabbages,
or hoeing and weeding vegetables in the garden; sitting lazily
EFFECTS OF IDLENESS AMONG GIRLS.
439
around and reading novels, when they should be scrubbing the
floors, cooking, washing, sweeping, and bringing in wood or coal ;
what chance have they for physical or even mental development,
health, life and happiness? What chance have they of becoming
noble, dignified, substantial women, and the mothers of future
generations? Alas, alas, very little! Our American parents must
change their course in bringing up their girls, or the children of
the Irish, Swedes and Dutch will govern this country, simply
because they will people it; for God's laws have no respect for the
foolish and fantastic notions of fashionable society. When active
useful labor comes to be held in disrepute as something to be
ashamed of, and industrious habits are not enjoined upon the
young, extermination of the race, from imperfect development,
vice and disease, is only a question of time. Active amusements
and gymnastic exercises, and the inculcation of the idea that such
exercises are for the purpose of developing the body and pre-
paring for an industrious, useful life hereafter, can alone answer
as a substitute for labor during youthful days; and these are
at best only as an imperfect substitute; for much of the ability
to perform useful labor in after-life, depends on the practical
knowledge obtained, and manual dexterity and skill acquired,
during advanced childhood and early youth. Many a woman
has been mortified and humiliated, and has had a hard road to
travel all her days, for the want of such knowledge and skill.
Do you, parents, mothers especially, ever think that your little
daughters will have to live in a real world which is not over and
above romantic; that they may yet become wives and mothers;
and have you no regard for their future welfare when you
employ servant-girls, and give them substance and strength at
the expense of your own daughters; or when you make drudges
of yourselves, to prevent your girls having that active exercise
about the house which can only be had in attending to general
housework, and the most laborious parts of such work, a
reasonable share of which can alone give them the muscle, bone
and experience which will be so requisite in after-life? What
will your pale-faced, delicate, flabby, small-waisted daughter,
with her irritable brain and nervous system, her habits of idle-
ness, and without manual skill or physical strength, be worth as a
wife and mother? or what chance will she have for happiness?
or what chance will her children have to live even? These are
questions which you cannot consider too soon, for the immediate
future of our race depends, to an untold extent, upon your
440
CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE YOUNG.
decision and future action. The Lord grant that you may act
wisely and promptly, that your daughters may live to grow up,
strong, well-developed, healthy, and capable of acting well their
parts during adult life; and that they may have just cause to
thank you for a life of joyous health and happiness, because
through your efforts and discretion they have escaped untold
nervous irritability, suffering, disappointed hopes and premature
death.
As you value the future happiness of your little daughter, do
not forget that she can never be able to discharge the duties of a
wife and mother in after-life, if you neglect to develop her body
and strength by active exercise during childhood and early youth,
for she will not have the requisite muscular, nervous and bony
development; and if such burdens are cast upon her unprepared
shoulders, she will fade and wilt; and either spend a wretched
lifetime of disease, suffering and unhappiness, or she will go down
to a premature grave. It is worse than madness and folly to
overlook this danger; for how often do we see young mothers cut
off, owing to this lack of vitality, at the very time when their
tender care is most needed by their little ones; and what a
multitude of suffering, sickly wives and mothers and disappointed
husbands have to blame the wife's parents for her "bad bringing
up." Simply nursing a child is a serious drain on the vitality of
a woman who has not been accustomed to active exercise; and
when you add to this the care of a delicate, and perhaps sickly
child—and the children of such mothers are apt to be both—and
the mental anxiety and disturbance of rest which necessarily
result, and which cannot be cast upon the shoulders of her
husband, nurse or servants, is it strange that such mothers die,
or become "broken down" in health; especially when there are
added to the above, the care of older children and the superin-
tendence of a house? The burden is too great for organizations
which have not been prepared, by either regular systematic
exercise or active work, during youthful days. This very labor
or active exercise while young, will render a young woman capable
of becoming the mother of healthy children, by giving her sub-
stance and strength; and thus, because better prepared, her
burden will be comparatively light, for there is no labor or
care so wearing to a mother as the charge of feeble and sickly
children.
Could a more insane-we might, perhaps, more correctly say,
infernal-idea ever have gained dominion over the minds of the
THE TIGHT DRESSING OF GIRLS.
441
inhabitants of any land, than that active, useful labor, such as is
necessary to develop strength of body and mind, is unbecoming
for the young women who are to be the mothers of the next gen-
eration? It destroys the body by preventing that activity which
is necessary to give muscle, bone and nerve; and subjects the
individual to an increased liability to innumerable diseases. It
prevents a healthy development of, and tends to destroy, the soul.
One of the noblest and highest affections of the human spirit is a
desire to serve, and a love of thus doing good to others; for this
is the very delight of heaven; and how important it is, not only
for this life but also for the next, that every child should be taught,
both by precept and example, this great truth. It would almost
seem that the present sentiments in regard to labor, which prevail
among our young women, constitute one of the strong delusions
which we are told that men are, for certain reasons, sometimes
permitted to believe.
Dr. Cushman, Principal of the Mount Vernon Ladies' School at
Boston, says:
"In the family, the knowledge of domestic affairs is coming to
be regarded as vulgar. Habits of indolence and extravagance in
the one sex are at once deterring the other from entering into the
married state, and aggravating the evils of licentiousness and
prodigality among them."
Another pernicious habit for which mothers are in a great
measure responsible, which forever ruins the prospects, for health
and life, of multitudes of young girls just blooming into woman-
hood, is tight lacing. Girls, until they are eight or ten years of
age, generally have as good forms as boys, but by the time they
reach twelve or fifteen years of age, it is very rarely that we see a
single noble, erect female form. The waist is most horridly con-
tracted and deformed; the shoulders are tub-shaped and round,
instead of being natural; the vital organs are compressed; respi-
ration and the circulation of the blood are impeded; and the
bowels are crowded down on to the organs of generation, causing
displacement, and a tendency to, if not actual, disease, and all
from tight dressing. "I don't dress tight," exclaims the young
lady. "That's so," chimes in the mother; "my daughter does
not dress tight; it's her natural form." Her natural form, indeed!
Such a representation is a libel on her Creator. Fifty years ago,
in country places, girls used to lace themselves up so tight, when
going to church and to parties, that they would become faint, or
perhaps have hysteric fits; but this did but little permanent harm,
442
CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE YOUNG.
and caused but little if any deformity. The small, deformed
waists, which are so common to-day, are produced by gradual,
every-day compression. It need be but slight, if it is only steady
and persistent. Every girl may know that she dresses too tightly
if she feels "all gone," for the want of support when in a loose
dress; for such symptoms can only result after she has destroyed
the natural strength, and, in a measure, the substance of the
muscles of the body by tight dressing. It is almost impossible to
have a straight spine with a small waist, for the head and shoulders
rest upon no adequate base. The garments should never touch the
waist of a growing child or young lady, to produce the slightest
compression; and no constriction should result on drawing in a
full breath. Every husband and father should enter his protest,
and use his authority if need be, against the circulation among
his daughters of the fashion-plates of our Ladies' Magazines, etc.,
with their miserable caricatures of the female form. Let us call
on our legislative bodies to enact laws to suppress such fashion-
plates, and even such periodicals, if they do not mend their ways.
It is safe to say that such periodicals are doing more harm to the
vitality and health of our race as a whole, than rum-selling.
Away with small, deformed waists; for there is nothing in nature
more beautiful than a noble, graceful, natural female form; free
from all contraction, and the stiffness and awkwardness which
result from tight lacing.
In conclusion, wo are happy to say that we have a few worthy
Christian parents who are striving to bring up their children-not
only their sons, but also their daughters-properly; but in our
cities and villages those who are not swayed by the vain, foolish
and cruel ideas and fashions of the day, are the exception-rare
exception-and not the rule. It is time that all true men and
women unite and form societies for the protection of the children,
especially of the girls and the young ladies of our land, from the
cruel treatment to which they are subjected by fashion and
thoughtless parents, to which we have hastily called the reader's
attention in the preceding pages. If the young of our horses and
cattle, and even dogs, were subjected to the cruel treatment to
which our growing girls and young women are unhesitatingly sub-
jected, think you that our daily papers and the officers of the society
for preventing cruelty to animals would not be on the track of
those who had permitted them to be thus abused?
But the cruel method of bringing up girls in fashionable society,
and the ideas which are allowed to be instilled into their minds
THE BAD HABITS OF WOMEN.
443
from foolish mothers and vain women, are destroying the love of
offspring in their souls. May God protect our girls and young
women from the false notions and evils we have been considering.
Fortunate indeed are the girls and young women of our land who
are so circumstanced as to be required-yes, even compelled, if
need be to work at active housework, and who know nothing of
the evils we have been considering, save what they may gather
from those others who follow or suffer from them.
Christianity, humanity, mercy and justice require that neither
through the ignorance of parents nor to gratify the vanity of
mothers or the waywardness of daughters, should our girls and
young ladies longer, as at present, be deprived of the great neces-
saries of life; viz., sunlight, open air, suitable food, active exercise
and work which are necessary to develop substantial, healthy
bodies; and the strong arm of the law should be invoked without
delay to prohibit the manufacture, sale, giving away, or exhibition
of the present fashion-plates to be seen in our Ladies' Magazines
and shop-windows. The sale of corsets should be prohibited also.
So far as the writer can judge, the greatest obstacles which stand
in the way of the conversion of the inhabitants of Christian nations.
to the principles of a true Christianity which shall reform their
lives, are to be found in the perverted ideas and consequent bad
habits of our women. Judging from the signs of the times, he has
strong hopes and expectations for the radical reform of the false
ideas and bad habits of men, but for the reform of the women he
sees few indications of any serious effort. Is not a perversion of
the love of approbation or vanity more interior and dangerous
than a perversion of the sensual appetites and passions? Let the
results in the form of imperfect development, disease and deform-
ity answer. And may it not have been of the Divine Providence,
for the very preservation of our race, that, in the past, women
have been in a comparatively subordinate state of life? But
freedom and new light have come, requiring a life of obe-
dience to the Divine Commands. In Revelation xii. 5, we read:
"The woman brought forth a male child;" which, Swedenborg
tells us, "signifies the doctrine of the New Church "-not a new
church organization, but a new Christianity—" who was to rule all
nations with a rod of iron," "signifies, which, by truths from the
literal sense of the Word, and, at the same time, by rational argu-
ments drawn from the light of nature, will convince all who are
in dead worship through being principled in faith separated from
charity that are willing to be convinced.”—A. R., 543, 544.
CHAPTER XIX.
RELIGIOUS PERIODICALS-THE CLERGY-AND REFORMS.
A RELIGIOUS periodical enters a home, and is entitled to and
receives more respectful attention than a secular paper; and the
young are more likely to heed the instruction therein contained
than what they find in a secular paper. When so many of the
religious periodicals of the various religious organizations, and
even secular papers, are crying out against the use of intoxicating
drinks, tobacco and opium, and warning the young against their
use; and when we see the fearful results which follow from the
use of these poisons all around us, even in our Churches, how can
any of our Church periodicals keep silence? And, above all,
how can they admit articles which justify and encourage the use
of intoxicating drinks, which contain assumptions that are ground-
less, and statements that are not true, as some of them have done?
Their editors know that there is a difference of opinion on these
questions among Christians, and they recognize the fact that the
advocates for total abstinence, and for the use of unfermented
wine as a communion wine, are increasing rapidly; and these
editors ought to be able to see that they are as much entitled to a
hearing in the columns of a religious paper, as are the advocates for
intoxicants. Yet the editors of some of these periodicals have freely
admitted the assumptions of the latter and persistently excluded
the replies of the former. Is this course either just or expedient ?
We are certain that it is not just, and time will tell whether it is
expedient or not. What are the advocates for the use of intoxi-
cants afraid of, that they dare not admit the views of those who
differ from them? Old evils and false doctrines can only be re-
moved by being exposed, and brought into the light of this new
day; and new errors can only be stayed in their progress by a fair
discussion. The temperance reform has now reached a position in
the Church where it cannot be ignored by any religious periodical
which reasonably hopes either to prosper as a journal, or to guide
for good the thought of its readers; and, above all, our periodicals
cannot stand upon the wrong side of the great practical questions
OLERGYMEN AND FALSES AND EVILS.
445
of life by which the world is being so moved at this day by the in-
flowing of new truth and life from the Lord, and be supported
much longer by a majority of the members of the Christian
Church. False doctrines are bad, but falses which spring from
and uphold evils of life are immeasurably worse; in other words,
it is better to be a good, honest, faithful member of any Church
where a life according to the commandments is taught and fol-
lowed, even though in some respects the doctrines be faulty; than
it is to belong to a denomination of Christians whose doctrines are
absolutely correct, and be at the same time a slave to the use of
intoxicants, tobacco or opium, or to the vain and destructive habits
so prevalent among women.
Our religious organizations and periodicals should stand fore-
most-yes, at the very front-in all the great and so much needed
reforms of this new age. Our Church walls should protect its
members, and especially the young, as far as possible, from those
fearful evils which prevent the orderly development of the bodies,
and shorten the lives of those who indulge in them, as the drinking
of intoxicating drinks and deforming the figure by tight dressing.
It is of vital importance that our religious periodicals should
enter our homes, if they are allowed to enter at all, absolutely free
from everything which will countenance or encourage in any way,
directly or indirectly, such dreadful evils as the drinking of intoxi-
cants, and others named above-evils which are not only destroying
the germs of heavenly life, implanted in the soul by the Lord, but are
destroying even the physical bodies of vast multitudes of our race,
and causing untold wretchedness and misery to all. And this is not
all; they should enter those homes where dwell the ignorant, the
innocent and the young, laden with the most useful and necessary
instruction in regard to these dire evils, and with words of warn-
ing and admonition. Much useful and needed instruction may be
given, and quietly and profitably read at home, by both young
and old, which clergymen cannot proclaim in their pulpits, and
which parents are not always, or even generally, qualified to teach
to their children; and thus a good religious paper may become a
mighty engine for correcting the evils which exist at this day, and
the false doctrines from which they originate.
CLERGYMEN AND FALSES AND EVILS.
It is the province and duty of the clergy to preach and teach
the truth, and to lead men by both example and precept to live
446 RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORMS.
according to the doctrines taught. A clergyman is expected to
teach the doctrines held by the organization to which he belongs,
be they true or false, and to live in accordance with them. We all
know that teaching tends to confirm men in the doctrines taught;
and strong confirmation in falses renders it very difficult for men
to see the truth, and this is especially true when they are living a
life in harmony with those falses. The reason why it is so diffi-
cult for men who are in evils to see the truth which condemns
their evils, is because evils develop a perverted passion or appe-
tite, as we have seen; and renewed gratification not only delights
such perverted passion or appetite, but it also palliates the suffer-
ings which the unlawful indulgence has caused. Take poisonous
substances, for instance: when used habitually they create an un-
natural appetite which causes suffering if not satisfied; the poi-
sons satisfy the craving and palliate the suffering of which they
are the sole cause. When the victim of the habit recognizes the
poison, not as the cause of his suffering but only as the reliever of
it, how can he see that it injures him? The same is true of tight
dressing. The stays and tight dresses destroy the natural power
and activity of the muscles; and when this is done, the artificial
support palliates the debility and sufferings which have been
caused by tight dressing. Cathartic remedies, by over stimula-
tion, cause constipation; and yet such substances palliate the con-
stipation which they cause, and thus the individual often experi-
ences great present relief from their use. The writer, during a
practice of medicine extending over a period of thirty years, has
rarely seen a troublesome case of constipation which was not the
result of using cathartic remedies. Such cases can never be cured
until these remedies are abandoned.
A clergyman is peculiarly situated; for his daily bread, and
that of his family, often depends upon his teaching and preaching
acceptably the doctrines held by the organization or society with
which he is connected; and when he is able to clearly perceive
false doctrines and evils of life, hitherto unrecognized by his con-
gregation, if he boldly and openly attempts to condemn that which
he clearly sees to be false and evil, and to uphold that which is
true and good, he finds himself immediately confronted by a dis-
contented opposition; and if he has not a strong personal hold on
his congregation, he is very sure to lose his position as a preacher ;
and thus his field of usefulness may be destroyed, and even his
own support and that of those dependent upon him may be taken
away. As a physician, the writer knows very well that men and
CLERGYMEN, PHYSICIANS AND REFORMS.
447
women do not like to have their false views and evils of life, or bad
habits and customs which they love and strive to justify, con-
demned; and if a physician deals frankly and honestly with his
patients, and tells them the truth, that they can never be cured
until they give up the evil habit or practice which has caused their
disease, many, very many, will seek the counsel of other physicians
who will encourage them in the idea that they can be cured with-
out putting away or shunning the causes of their sufferings; and
they will follow the palliative treatment which such physicians
recommend, year after year, and finally die rather than make any
serious attempt to restrain the unlawful gratification of vanity,
passion, or appetite, which caused and continues their disease.
As the physician depends for his support upon the patronage
of individuals, he may, if a skillful physician, have many patients
forsake him, and yet not lack for all the patronage which he
desires. But it is very different with a clergyman, for he depends
upon a society; and if only a few members become really dissatis-
fied with either his preaching or habits of life, he must generally
leave; and, as a rule, the sooner he leaves the better it will be for
both him and his society.
It is the duty of a clergyman to preach the truth, and to lead
men, by means of truth, to live good lives; but he is required to
be a wise and harmless leader, and to be such a leader he must
lead men step by step and little by little. When we ask more than
this of our clergy, we ask too much; for it is of no advantage to a
flock that the shepherd should be so much in advance as to be out
of sight.
We know that, as a rule, when the Lord has desired to reveal
to the world the truths of a New Dispensation, He has generally
chosen a layman as the medium; and when the Church and the
world have sunk into evils of life, and have adopted falses by
which such evils are justified, generally those falses and evils have
first been seen by laymen, and the call to repentance raised by
laymen.
Moses, the chosen leader of the children of Israel, and the
"Lawgiver," was not chosen from the clergy of the preceding
Church, but he was a layman; while Aaron, whom Moses with-
stood and whose idolatrous calf he ground to pieces, was already
chosen the High Priest of the Church; yet it is well for laymen to
remember that it was only as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of
Moses, that Israel was able to overcome Amalek (Ex. xvii. 12), and
that the Priests bearing the ark entered first of all into the Prom-
448 RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORMS.
ised Land. (Josh. iii. 13.) As it was with Moses, so it will be
with laymen in our day in their fight against the fearful evils and
falses into which our race has fallen; if their hands are not upheld
by the clergy they will fight in vain, and the prevailing suffering
and wretchedness will remain, and the evil and the false will
triumph.
((
John the Baptist, who came crying in the wilderness of Judea,
saying, Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," was
a layman. The disciples who followed our Lord when on earth
were not chosen from the clergy of the Jewish Church, but were
all laymen. Emanuel Swedenborg, the man through whom the
Lord has revealed to the men of this age the truths of the New
Jerusalem, was a layman; and Swedenborg intimates that he was
called to this office because he was not confirmed in the false doc-
trines which prevailed in the churches around him at the time
when he wrote.
Wilberforce and Garrison were not clergymen ; and yet they,
with other laymen, wero able to perceive that African slavery was
an evil, and they led the armies of freedom on to a glorious
victory; and yet a victory which could never have been won, had
it not been for the co-operation of the clergy.
Dr. Benjamin Rush was not a clergyman; yet he was able to
see that alcohol is a poison, and that men should cease to use it as
a beverage; and he labored earnestly and faithfully with the clergy
in his day, and satisfied many of them and many laymen that dis-
tilled liquors should never be used during health; and thus le
was instrumental in starting one of the most needed and grandest
reformations of modern times-the great Temperance reformation.
The discoveries which are being made in our day in physiology,
chemistry, the action of poisons on the human body, the causes of
disease and suffering, and the measures necessary for their re-
moval, are not generally made, we well know, by clergymen.
We are living to-day in the midst of the most terrible evils of
life, which have come down to us from the evils and falses of the
fallen Churches of the past-evils and falses so destructive in their
nature, that they cause the death of multitudes of innocent chil-
dren, boys and girls, young men and maidens, and of the middle
aged, until very few die of old age. Our homes and hospitals are
filled with the imperfectly developed, the deformed, the sick and
the insane. Multitudes who live to manhood, endure suffering
almost from the cradle to the grave; and the greater part of all
this is the result of evils and falses. The love of rule from selfish
f...
CLERGYMEN AND LAYMEN.
449
motives, vanity or perverted love of approbation, and the love of
sensual gratification without any regard to use, have led to the
violation of the most sacred relations of life, to the most destruc-
tive customs in dress, and also to the use of poisonous substances
as food and drink, simply for the sake of the selfish and sensual
gratification which results therefrom; and these indulgences,
together with the falses by which such evils are justified and en-
couraged, have filled our world with sorrow, wretchedness and
premature death.
Shall we who profess to be Christians borrow these vessels of
the past filled with the old wines of consummated churches, and
strive to introduce them into the New Jerusalem-the glorious
Church of the future which the Lord is to-day establishing on the
earth? No! no! my brethren, we must search out and expose
these evils, and we must resist them in our external lives. And
this is the duty of laymen as well as of clergymen; for they are,
as we have seen, quite as likely to perceive the prevailing evils and
falses in which men are dwelling, as are clergymen. All that lay-
men have a right to ask or expect of clergymen, is that they strive
to preserve themselves in a sufficient state of freedom and good of
life, to be able to see evils and falses when they are clearly brought
before them; and then that they strive to lead their people into
the way of life.
Let no layman for a moment suppose that the world can be
reformed, or that these direful evils can be put away without the
aid of the clergy; for this is impossible. The active co-operation
of both is required; and in this great work the one is not to
despise or unduly exalt the other, for each has his peculiar duty
to do.
The layman reaching or striving to rescue the man sunken
in evils, has necessarily to appeal largely to natural and selfish
considerations; and while he should not disregard spiritual
motives, yet he is not recognized as a spiritual leader; but it is
especially for the clergy to appeal to spiritual motives, and to lead
men to shun evils as sins against God-and to shun them because
to continue in them will tell on their eternal destiny. Natural and
selfish worldly influences may be appealed to at the commence-
ment; but if the man cannot be led to act from higher motives no
genuine reformation will follow; so that the clergy are the real
preachers and leaders; but before they can preach the truth and
lead men into that which is good, they must first know the truth
and heed it themselves.
It is a great mistake for laymen to look up to clergyman as
!
450 RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORms.
final authority, and to think that nothing of superior worth or
merit can, under any circumstances, come from laymen; and it is
an equally great mistake for any clergyman to desire that those
under his charge should so look up to him; for it is not good for
either party. During a conversation with two laymen in regard
to the use of intoxicating wine, they remarked, in reply to the
writer's arguments, that the Rev.
had examined the
subject, and that he had come to a totally different conclusion
from that reached by the writer and other advocates of total
abstinence, as to the propriety of using such wine, and they
intimated that that was sufficient for them; as though the views
held by their minister were the end of the matter, and that there
was no occasion for them to investigate the subject further.
While laymen should pay due respect to the utterances of clergy-
men, "they should be men for all that;" and when so important
a question as the drunkenness by which they are surrounded on
every hand, with its causes and cure, is under consideration, they
should patiently hear all sides of the question, and use the reason
with which God has endowed them, before they come to a con-
clusion; and not blindly "pin their faith upon some other man's
sleeve."
RELIGIOUS PERIODICALS AND THE TEMPERANCE REFORM.
In speaking of the influence that prejudice has in blinding
men's judgment as to the clearness and weight of evidence, a
recent writer says: "The truth is that when a man brings to the
study of the Bible a certain notion which he is determined to find
in it, he will not admit the obvious meaning of the clearest state-
ments that may be at variance with this preconceived opinion."
And he will, under similar influence, likewise ignore the truths of
science and well known facts when they conflict with his pet
theory. Thus a writer in a Christian paper, speaking of the wine
of Scripture, says: "Every one is aware that expressed grape-
juice naturally and necessarily turns into wine unless nature is in-
terfered with. Hence when the next mention of wine is introduced
by the sacred historian without any indication of a distinction, we
are compelled to understand by it that natural product of the
vineyard which he had before described. When Moses next refers
to wine he mentions it as a lawful refreshment which Melchizedek,
King of Salem, furnished to Abraham when returning from the
battle.
'And Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread
GROUNDLESS ASSUMPTIONS.
451
and wine.' This is all that the sacred writer thought it necessary
to say, though he had given us to understand in the only place in
which he had previously made mention of wine that it could
intoxicate. This wine was for the refreshment of weary men.
For this purpose the fermented juice of the grape would certainly
be more suitable than the unfermented."
All these groundless assumptions are made in the interest of
intoxicating wine in a religious paper. It is well known to every
one who has ever taken the pains of investigating the question,
that fermented wine is never the natural product of the vineyard,
any more than putrid meat is the product of the ox, or beer the
product of the barley-field, or rancid oil the product of the olive-
tree. And it is also well known that if the expressed grape-juice
is exposed to the germs of ferment at a suitable temperature, and
no pains be taken to prevent their action, fermentation will com-
mence, and that when it has once set in, if not interfered with, it
will never cease until the wine turns into vinegar. Nature has to
be interfered with to prevent the fermented wine becoming vinegar,
just as much as it does to prevent the grape-juice, or unfermented
wine, becoming fermented, or the meat becoming putrid, and no
more; and the Lord has so ordered the course of nature that man
must take care of the good things which He has provided for his
use, and not allow them to be eaten up by vermin or insects, or
that unclean substance called leaven or ferment. The fact that in
the case of Noah, the wine caused drunkenness, and in the other
case it was a refreshing drink, is no evidence to the above writer
that the two wines were of a different quality; but even such a
self-evident confutation is made to confirm his "one wine theory."
It is well known to intelligent men to-day, that while unfermented
wine is an exceedingly nutritious and refreshing drink for weary
men, fermented wine, on the other hand, contains almost no nourish-
ment, and to the extent used it impairs men's ability to endure
continuous labor; it gives little or no substance and strength to
the body, it simply excites but to exhaust; and consequently men
can do more hard work without it than with it.
Again, the above writer says: "But we maintain that the
Bible in our English version is a sufficient guide of faith and
practice, and that by the diligent study of its teachings any
sincere inquirer can learn the duty which God requireth of man'
in respect to temperance and every other Christian virtue."
And again: "When the plain, unlettered man finds in his
Bible such a statement as this: In the holy place shalt thou
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RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORMS.
cause the strong wine to be poured unto the Lord for a drink
offering' (Num. xxviii. 7), he would conclude that this passage
showed that the wine approved by God could not be unfermented
grape-juice. Who would call it strong wine? Yet strong wine, as
that passage declares, could be offered to God every morning and
evening. This statement would be to the teachable student of the
Bible, content with the English Version, a sufficient proof that the
theory, that only the use of unfermented wine was sanctioned by
God could have no foundation in Scripture. He might think it
needless to inquire further on the subject."
No wonder that the above writer is so anxious to confine the
inquiry in regard to wine to the English Bible and to one or two
special passages. If the reader familiar with the Hebrew language
will turn to the above passage in Numbers in his Hebrew Bible,
he will find that the word which is here rendered strong wine is
shakar-sweet drink. This is the only instance in which, in the
Authorized English Version in common use, the word shakar is
translated strong wine. And even if we were to admit that the
English rendering is correct, would the assumption of the above
writer have the slightest foundation in truth? Good, fresh, un-
fermented, sweet wine, or wine preserved from formentation,
either new or old, is strong in nourishing, life and strength giving
qualities, and to cheer and make glad the heart of man; whereas
fermented wine has none of these qualities; but, as we all know,
it is strong to cause disease, and to make drunk, mad and insane,
and to destroy life. With this knowledge in his mind, which of
these two kinds of wine would "the plain, unlettered man
" be
likely to conclude is the kind of wine "approved by God "— His
own product of the vine or the product of leaven-which? The
"plain, unlettered man often has a fair share of common sense
which has not been befogged by false doctrines which have origi-
nated from perverted habits.
But if the reader will remember that the Bible was translated
into English during the Dark Ages, before the dawning light of this
New Day, when the love of fermented wine and other intoxicating
fluids and the drinking of them were almost universal among men,
and men justified their use, he will see the absolute necessity, if we
would understand what the Bible actually teaches upon this sub-
ject, of going back to the original languages in which it was writ-
ten. The lover of his fellow-man, although "plain and unlet-
tered," can see the necessity of doing this; and if the reader will
turn to the chapters in this work on "Two Kinds of Wine," and
RELIGIOUS PAPERS AND REFORMS.
453
"Wine in the Hebrew, Greek and English Languages," he will
get some idea of the absolute necessity and importance of doing
so, if the Bible is to retain its position with intelligent and “plain,
unlettered men as containing the Word of God, and our race is
to be redeemed from its present fallen state.
Of what consequence in our religious periodicals are sectarian
doctrines and views, which often tend to separate and even
alienate those who should be united as brethren, when compared
with the monstrous evils which exist all around us, such as the
drinking of intoxicating drinks, the chewing and smoking of to-
bacco and opium, and the vain and destructive habits of our women,
such as tight dressing, fashionable indolence, and the disposition
to shirk the responsibilities of motherhood. These fearful evils
are not only destroying the health and physical bodies of multi-
tudes of our men and women, and impairing the stamina or con-
stitutions of their children; but they are slowly but surely destroy-
ing all chances for healthy spiritual life in the soul, or the life of
the love of the Lord and the neighbor which is heavenly life; and
substituting the life of hell, which is the life of love of self and of
the world, or the supreme love of selfish and sensual gratifica-
tions, without regard to use or to the command clearly written in
their physical and spiritual organizations and in the Word of God
-Thou shalt not kill. O, clergymen of the Christian Church !
How can you encourage the circulation of religious periodicals
among your people which are silent in regard to such evils, and
the sophistical arguments and falses by which they are justified ?
And, above all, how can you approvingly or silently see periodicals
circulated among the unperverted young men and maidens under
your charge, who look to you for guidance, which by baseless as-
sumptions and groundless arguments and false representations,
strive to justify the use of intoxicating drinks as beverages, and
even in the sacred ordinances of the Church?
The editors of another religious periodical say that a Christian
of this New Age "Cannot, as a rational man, term intoxicants a
curse and profess belief in the Divine revelation, which commands
the use of an intoxicant in the most Holy Sacrament."
A strange assertion, indeed. If the idea, so baldly and boldly
promulgated above in a religious journal, that Divine revelation
commands the use of an intoxicant in the most Holy Sacrament,
does not shock every "rational man" and earnest Christian, we
do not know what would do so. There is not a single sentence in
the Word of the Lord, nor a single passage in the Writings, nor a
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RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORMS.
fact in science, which will justify the above statement. The Word,
the Writings, and science proclaim a totally different doctrine.
Let us look at this subject for a few moments, simply in the
light of the Sacred Scriptures and the science of correspond-
ences.
We know that fermented wine and other drinks or substances
which contain alcohol, are intoxicants; and that unfermented
wine never causes intoxication. There is no question but that fer-
mented or intoxicating wine is the natural correspondent of the
wine, which we are told in Deut. xxxii. 33, "is the poison of
dragons, and the cruel venom of asps; "-the wine of which we
are told in Jeremiah li. 7, "the nations have drunken,
""there-
fore the nations are mad," or the wine which we are told in Prov.
xx. 1, that it "is a mocker, and that it biteth like a serpent and
stingeth like an adder.”
use.
The wine which causes drunkenness Swedenborg, as we have
seen, compares, as to its inherent life or ability to affect man
when he drinks it, to falses from evil, in the following clear and
distinct language, without any reference to its abuse, or excessive
It is of the quality of the wine itself of which he speaks.
Falses not from evil may be compared to waters not pure, which
being drunk do not induce drunkenness; but falses from evil may
be compared to wine [Mark the language, gentle reader.-E.] and
strong drink that induce drunkenness; wherefore also that insan-
ity, in the Word, is said to be effected by wine, which is called the
wine of whoredom, and the wine of Babel in Jeremiah li. 7: 'A
cup of gold is Babel in the hand of Jehovah, inebriating the uni-
versal earth, the nations have drank of her wine, therefore the
nations are insane.'"--A. E. 1035.
•
It would have been impossible for Swedenborg, as an intelligent
man, to have used the language above if he had not been aware of
the fact that there is wine which will not cause drunkenness; and
the same is true of strong drinks.
Look at the following clear and distinct statement as to the
correspondence of fermented wine: "To be made drunken is
to be led into errors by false reasonings and by wrong interpreta-
tions of the Word; wine denotes the false grounded in evil."
A. C. 8904.
Again Swedenborg says : "The reason why the false which
gives birth to evil is signified, is because, as wine intoxicates and
makes insane, so does the false; spiritual intoxication being nothing
but insanity induced by reasonings concerning what is to be believed,
RELIGIOUS PAPERS AND REFORMS.
455
when nothing is believed which is not comprehended; hence comes
falses, and from falses evil" (A. C. 5120). Again we are told that
"To be intoxicated from the cup, is to be insane from falses."
A. C. 5120, 9960.
An intoxicating or fermented wine is always the product of
leaven. Not a single drop of it is ever found in the healthy,
sound fruit of the vine. Swedenborg says that leaven signifies
"the falsity of evil" (D. P. 284). And again he says it signifies
"The evil and the false whereby things celestial and spiritual are
rendered impure and profane.”—A. C. 2342.
And in regard to things leavened we are told that, "What is
leavened denotes what is falsified" (A. C. 8051).
"The thing
falsified which is signified by what is leavened, and the false which
is signified by leaven, differ in this, that the thing falsified is truth
applied to confirm evil, and the false is everything. contrary that
is contrary to the truth" (A. C. 8062). Leaven is so frequently
commanded not to be eaten, because in all things it is necessary
to guard against the false, for the false destroys good (A. C. 7909).
Leavened bread after being baked is, to a great extent, purified by
heat, the life of the leaven cells being destroyed, and the poisonous
and unclean products of leaven driven off while baking; and, as
unbaked leavened dough is rarely if ever eaten, it is manifest that
the commands against eating that which was leavened were prin-
cipally directed against leavened wine and other fermented fluids,
and food mixed with such fluids. The orthodox Jews to-day and
their race have always understood that the prohibition included
fermented wine and all fermented drinks. Leavened substances
cause natural drunkenness, as what is falsified causes spiritual
drunkenness. Unleavened wine and other unleavened natural
substances never cause natural drunkenness; and even our oppo-
nents admit that unperverted spiritual truths never cause spiritual
drunkenness. Can we for a moment question but that the causes
of natural drunkenness correspond to the causes of spiritual
drunkenness ?
Now, can any intelligent Christian man believe that a wine
thus produced, and which clearly corresponds to the worst kind of
falses to falses from evil-as can be seen above, is a suitable wine
to be used at the most Holy Sacrament? If any one does so
believe, let him read the following from the last great work written
by Swedenborg.
In speaking of the effects of the doctrine of "Justification by
faith alone" on such of the clergy as are strongly confirmed in
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RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORMS.
this false doctrine, Swedenborg says : "And since they are intoxi-
cated in all their thoughts by that doctrine, just as if they had
drunk of the vinous spirit called alcohol, therefore, in such a state
of inebriation they cannot discern this most essential tenet of the
Church, viz., that Jehovah God descended, and assumed the
humanity.”—T. C. R. 98.
We are told by Swedenborg that "the wine which Noah drank,
and with which he was made drunken, denotes the false principle
with which that Church in the beginning was imbued." And
again he tells us that: "The wine with which Noah was made
drunken signifies what is false.”—Arcana Cœlestia, 9960.
That fermented wine always has a bad signification is beyond
question, for it always contains the vinous spirit called alcohol, and
vinegar; neither of which has a good correspondence.
"The reason why," says Swedenborg, "no leaven and honey
were to be in the meat offering was because leaven in the spiritual
sense denotes the false derived from evil, and honey denotes
external delight thus commixed with the delight of love of the
world, by which also celestial good and truths ferment, and are
thereby dissipated" (A. C. 10137). Thus we are told that celestial
goods and truths are dissipated by fermentation, precisely as we
know that the good and nourishing parts of the juice of the grape,
which correspond to goods and truths, and which nourish the
natural body as the latter do the spiritual body, are dissipated by
natural fermentation. In neither case are the good and useful
things annihilated; but spiritually the good and true are perverted
into the evil and false; and naturally the corresponding substances
in the juice of the grape are changed into alcohol and other
poisonous substances, which correspond to evils and falses. There
is the most wonderful correspondence not only between all natural
and spiritual things, but also between all natural and spiritual pro-
cesses, changes and products; the natural answering to the spiritual
in every particular.
It is only by ignoring the science of correspondences, the ex-
press teachings of the Word, the Writings of the Church, and of
science, that the advocates for the use of fermented wine as a com-
munion wine and as a beverage, are able to make even a show
toward sustaining their views.
An intelligent lay Christian brother writes: "As far as the
mere name WINE goes, I think it has been shown that the name
wine is applied to both fermented and unfermented. The only
question is to determine which kind of wine is the proper corre-
UNFERMENTED GRAPE-JUICE IS WINE.
457
spondent. One little point comes to my mind just now which I do
not recollect that you have used. In it is an argument by inference.
You can find the verse. I do not recollect it exactly, but it is
where the Lord says, 'No one having drank old wine straightway
desireth new, for he says the old is better.' That is, those con-
firmed in old or false doctrines will not listen to the new doctrines.
The inference or supposition may now be drawn from these words
that in the Last Supper our Lord would not use old wine, but new
wine, corresponding to the new doctrine. Why may not, then,
the new wine-or must-an unfermented wine, have been the wine
used?"
It is beyond question to every one who has examined both
sides of this wine question carefully and without bias, that the
only wine suitable for use as a communion wine and as a beverage
is unfermented wine, new or old. The reader should remember
what our opponents strive to ignore, that the word wine when
used in the Sacred Scriptures and in the Writings of the Church,
may signify either the unfermented or fermented wine, as shown
in the preceding pages; and that the word must (Latin, mustum),
or new wine, generally means the unfermented juice of the grape,
when named in the Word and in the Writings. Only in one or
two instances in the Word have we any reason to suppose that it
refers to the formenting juice of the grape. Wine is a generic
name. The fresh unfermented juice of the grape is called wine,
both in the Word and in the Writings, as in the following instances,
as we have shown.
"And I took the grapes and squeezed them into Pharaoh's
cup, and I gave the cup into Pharoah's hand" (Gen. xl. 11).
"This (the last statement) signifies the appropriation by the in-
terior natural, as appears from the signification of to give the
cup, thus wine (vinum) to drink, as denoting to appropriate ”
(A. C. 5119-20). Here Swedenborg calls the juice of the grape,
just squeezed from the grapes, vinum. Again: "As grapes
represent charity, so does wine (vinum) the faith thence derived,
because it is obtained from grapes" (A. C. 1071).—Not from the
destructive action of leaven upon the juice for days after it has
left the grapes.
It is difficult to estimate the amount of harm which has been
and is now being done to the Church by those religious periodicals
which advocate the use of intoxicants as in accordance with the
Word of God; because they are supposed by many to represent the
views of the Church. First; they have given to those who have
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RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORMS.
""
little knowledge of genuine Christian doctrines, but who are in
the good of life, and in the sincere effort to shun the most direful
evils of the age as sins, the impression that the Church teaches
that intoxicating drinks are good and useful, and that total absti-
nence and prohibition are wrong; and thus they have placed
stumbling blocks in the way of such people, who are in the effort
to shun evils, and are causing many to fall. Second; by justifying
and thus encouraging those who are either habitual or occasional
drinkers to continue on in habits which are sure to injure and en-
danger all, they lead not a few to the "enormous sin of drunken-
ness. We shall never in this world know the number of men and
even women who have consequently been destroyed, nor the
wretchedness which their families and friends have endured.
Third; by representing to the young that intoxicating wine is not
only suitable, but desirable, for use if moderately used, they en-
courage them to enter without hesitation upon the road which
leads so many to ruin. We shall never know the harm which has
been and will be done by this advocacy of alcoholic drinks. As
has been said of a certain Doctor of Divinity by a distinguished
writer, the writers who justify the use of intoxicating wine take
no account of that mighty, mastering appetite for 'intoxicating
drinks' which is produced by their moderate use. This is the
key which unlocks the mystery of drunkenness. The use of alco-
hol deteriorates all the vital functions; hence the craving for this
poisonous, irritant stimulant. No barrier can resist its gratifica-
tion. Self-respect, home and family, all the interests of earth
and heaven, are buried in one common ruin by the desolating
scourge of drunkenness which follows."
Who can estimate the injury to the Church when such periodi-
cals, under the sanction of the general body of any Church, are
sent into families to be read by parents and children? Is it
strange that careful and conscientious parents should commit to
the flames, as they sometimes have done, those numbers which
contain such sermons and articles as have been commented upon
in this work? An intelligent, earnest Christian lady wrote some
years ago: "I dare not allow my son to read the (naming a relig
ious paper), or to lend it to my neighbors until I have examined
it, and am sure that it contains nothing which will justify or
encourage the use of intoxicating drinks."
An intelligent physician wrote to a clergyman as follows: "I
must now beg your indulgence while I introduce a matter which
is, to my mind and that of my wife, of grave interest.
EDITORIAL IN A RELIGIOUS PAPER.
"We formerly took the
* * *
459
and also the
and
9
(naming three
have frequently had a number of the
religious papers) sent to us.
Now, you can scarcely
imagine our surprise and chagrin on receiving numbers containing
articles that we did not think proper to distribute among our
neighbors, or fit to be seen by our son and daughter-in-law; so we
committed them to the flames. One man asked me what was the
reason he did not receive such and such a number? And when I
informed him he was much surprised.
* * I allude to those
flippant articles against the efforts of so many good people who are
trying to suppress the greatest evil that afflicts the Christian
nations to-day. The writers in
may be men of
erudition, but it is sad to think that such men should base a
sophistical argument upon a false basis to sustain an evil.
*
"In the last number of the
is an editorial of this kind,
but so finely worded as, no doubt, to elude the notice of the casual
reader. I allude to the argument that evils can only be suppressed
from within, or, rather, be eradicated from within. This argu-
ment is a plausible one; but cannot the writer comprehend the
fact, that suppressed evils do not become potent, so to speak?———
that the ultimated act of evil is what gives the cause its potency?
"If the views of these critics are sound and logical, why not
abolish all civil laws, and work upon the lawless element of society
from within? If the upas tree be kept from flourishing by sup-
pression, the surrounding valley will not be covered with the
whitened bones of hapless animals that otherwise would have
covered it. Or, in other words, if the evil cause is not ultimated,
society at least will be protected. While I would not be unchari-
table, it does appear to me as if such false reasoning must have
evils of life as a basis to rest upon. The evils of such individuals
may not be eradicated by prohibitory laws, but if held in abeyance
the evils would be more accessible from within than while in full
potency by ultimation.
Although the three Church
**
*
periodicals use just such arguments as
and
used, which were printed by the hundred thousand for cam-
paign documents in favor of the whisky party, surely these men
might say with the Greek philosopher of old: 'What great evil
have we done, that such men should praise us
999
Now, brethren and sisters of the Christian Church, we are
responsible for this great evil in the Church, in so far as we en-
courage and patronize these papers.
If there is any effort for the lessening of an evil that should
460
RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORMS.
receive the sympathy and co-operation of all Christian' men, we
think the endeavors that are being made to lessen the use of in-
toxicating drinks and to reform those who are victims to their use,
should receive it. To this benevolent end, men have devoted
their time and substance; and through their efforts many a man
—aye, and woman, too--who was a slave to the passion for drink,
has been enabled to overcome his evils of living, and now "clothed
and in his right mind," is "sitting at the feet of Jesus." But the men
engaged in this work know that the devil of drink must be cast out
before any heavenly spiritual influence can flow into the heart and
life. What can be thought, then, of a religious paper that writes
as follows concerning these efforts of which we are speaking :
Organizations are formed throughout the land, the business of which
is to grapple with the manifestations of the evils of society. This class of
regenerators of mankind have outer rules and regulations for the cure of
every evil. They prescribe the taking of vows, and lay down the laws of
behavior that will lead to all righteousness. Thus they are ever wrestling
with the outer effects of evil without effecting a cure. They do not attack
the disease at its fountain head."
Yes, all the Churches in the world are ostensibly established
for this express purpose; and for this purpose were the Divine
Commandments given; and the latter are laws of life, and "outer
laws of behavior," obedience to which can alone "lead to all
righteousness." The murderer, thief and adulterer must repent
and stop murdering, stealing and committing adultery, before
they can by any possibility become "spiritual men."
If to voluntarily stop doing evil acts, because it is wrong to do
them, and because the effects of such acts are harmful to us and
others, is to do nothing toward "effecting a cure," then we greatly
mistake the true doctrines of the Christian religion. We are first
taught to look to the Lord, and repent and shun evils; then we
may, with the help of the Lord, be able to stop thinking of them,
after which we may be able to stop desiring to do them, and
finally to hold them in aversion. This is the order of regenera-
tion, as we understand it. Let us take a single illustration of
this doctrine, where we can clearly see its truth.
A man imbibes falsities in regard to the use of intoxicating
drinks, and knows by observation that their use is attended with
danger to his health, reason and life, and to the happiness of his
friends; if, then, knowing this, he commences drinking such
drinks, he is liable soon to become so infatuated as to believe that
RELIGIOUS PERIODICALS AND REFORMS.
461
he can continue to do so with impunity; notwithstanding the fact
that multitudes around him are suffering untold agonies of body
and mind, and not a few are dying from delirium tremens, drunk-
enness and other diseases which are caused by such drinks. "To
be intoxicated by the cup is to be insane from falses” (A. C. 5120,
9960), not from truths. Spiritual drunkenness consists in men
“believing nothing but what they can sensually understand" (A. C.
1072), and thence "becoming insane in spiritual things" (Ib.) “in
consequence of imbibing falsities" (9960). If the drinker persists in
the use of such drinks, and follows the full bent of his appetite
which demands a steady increase of the quantity used, as multi-
tudes do, he is quite sure to become a "bond-servant" to his per-
verted appetite; and to become insane from the falses which he
has imbibed in regard to the use of intoxicants; and thus he be-
comes pre-eminently a spiritual drunkard as well as a natural
drunkard, "believing nothing but what he can sensually under-
stand." (A. C. 1072.) Sensually, every glass which the drunkard
or hard drinker takes, delights and gratifies his debased appe-
tite; it relieves the craving, the aches, pains, and despondency
which previous drinking has caused, and makes him feel good.
How can he believe to the contrary from what he can thus “ sen-
sually understand"? Now, we ask the intelligent reader if it is
possible for a man to be cured of spiritual drunkenness before he
has taken the first step toward the putting away of natural drunk-
enness, as represented by the above writer? Can a man cease to
love evil and apply himself to good, while he continues to think
and do evil? Must not the work of reform commence in abstain-
ing from evils? Must not John the Baptist precede the coming of
the Lord?
The first step which a man who loves intoxicating drinks can
take, and must take if he is to be saved from his evil life, is to
hearken to the truth, look to the Lord for strength, and stop
drinking intoxicating drinks.
Swedenborg says: "Man is able of himself to abstain from
evils, but he cannot of himself receive good; the reason why man
of himself abstains from evils is, because the Lord continually
flows in into the will of man with that endeavor, and thereby puts
in him freedom to desist from evils, also to apply himself to good;
the Lord likewise gives him the faculty of understanding truth,
but the reason why he does not understand is, because he is not
willing to understand, and this on account of evil which is of the
462 RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORMS.
life; for the false defends evil, and truth condemns it.”—A. C.
8307.
Is there no advantage in a man's shunning a life which is sure
to endanger and may destroy "his intellectual faculty, whereby
he is a man; which hastens his death, damages his body, and
wastes in extravagance what might be of use to many "?-S. D.
2422.
The outer effects of the evil of drinking intoxicants are unnat-
ural excitement, drunkenness, disease, poverty, crime, insanity,
and premature death; which certainly are worthy of and should
and do receive some attention. But does the editor of the above
periodical not know that the chief cfforts of our temperance organ-
izations are directed to the prevention of drinking, and not, as he
represents, simply to the outer effects of drinking, and conse-
quently that his accusation that "They do not attack the disease
at its fountain head," is unjust? When Church temperance soci-
eties teach and lead the young, as they do, to shun the drunkard's
cup, its use being injurious, dangerous and consequently sinful;
and persuade the drinker to stop drinking, and thus to co-operate
with the Lord who has given him, as we have seen above, the
ability to do this, how can an editor of a religious paper make
such representations and statements against the efforts of his
brethren to benefit their fellow-men?
It is unquestionably true that the publication of such articles
as the one we are noticing, and as have appeared in other religious
papers, has been one of the chief causes why so few attempts have
been made to organize temperance societies and "Bands of Hope"
among our religious societies in this country, while our English
brethren are so active in this great work. We can never estimate
the injury which has been done thereby to the Church in this
country by such articles as these we have quoted. And yet, per-
haps, in the Providence of the Lord, it has thus far been overruled
for good; for, unquestionably, the false and pernicious teachings
of these periodicals upon the questions of intoxicants, total absti-
nence, etc., so often reiterated, has led to a more careful and
critical examination of such questions than would have been made
for many years, had it not been for these journals. And the
course of some of their editors in excluding the replies of their
opponents from their columns, has led to the truth being much
more extensively circulated than it could have been through these
journals alone.
Do the editors of religious papers and the teachers in theolog-
CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS AND REFORMS.
463
ical schools think that their periodicals and institutions will be
sustained by men and women who care for the welfare of their
children, and wish them to lead orderly and Christian lives, so
long as they continue to directly uphold the use of intoxicating
drinks as beverages? or that they will care to have those children
look up to and reverence as religious guides young men who are
violating (and likely to teach and lead others to violate) the prohi-
bition that was given to Aaron: "Do not drink wine, nor drink
that maketh drunken, thou nor thy sons with thee, when ye go
into the Tabernacle of the Congregation, lest ye die—that ye may
put a difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean
and clean"?-Levit. x. 8-9 (A. C. 1072). Do our editors think
that there is no difference between holy and unholy and between
unclean and clean; and that they can teach the people, by their
sermons and periodicals, that it is right to drink "wine and drink
that maketh drunken," and yet be sustained by the laity of the
Church? This can only occur in a Church which is either ap-
proaching its consummation or is consummated.
Christian organizations can never prosper as they should until
this fearful evil of drinking intoxicating wine and whisky is put
away from their social life, and fermented wine is discarded from
their communion tables. The religious sentiments of the people
are against the use of intoxicating drinks; and the spirit and
science of this new age are speaking against their use in tones
which cannot be withstood by any religious organization, which
would continue to command the respect of the intelligent and
conscientious portion of the community. These are earnest but
not unkind words.
But the Church as an organization must not only not dis-
courage, but it must countenance and aid this work of leading
those who are bound in evils of life, into such a state of freedom
as will enable them to receive the life which flows in from the
Lord; for this work, in order to be made fully successful, must be
a work of the Church. Nor will its benefits be confined to those
only who are saved by it. It will help our young people to remain
in the Church, by giving them something to do, not only for those
in the Church but also for those around them outside of the
Church; and thus, by showing them that are without that the
Church of Christ is a living, working organization, and that it is
doing its mission of mercy to men, it will lead them to feel that the
Church is really an ark of safety.
We need, above almost everything else, that many of our re-
464
RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORMS.
ligious periodicals should be renovated, so that they can enter our
homes laden with the truths of our Lord's Church, without coun-
tenancing, or excusing or encouraging the use of intoxicating
drinks; and so that they will assail, without fear or favor, the
various dreadful evils which are both physically and spiritually so
destructive to the human race, instead of being either silent or
directly opposing needed reforms. Such periodicals would com-
mand the respect of the multitude of men and women, who, be-
longing to no Church organization, are striving to shun evils, and
would favorably impress them toward the heavenly doctrines.
Such periodicals would enter the drunkard's home, conveying
wholesome words of warning to the evil-doer, and of hope to the
worse than widowed wife and fatherless children, encouraging
them to bear their great sorrow-unsurpassed by any on earth—
with Christian patience and fortitude, and to look to the Lord for
help and strength. But send a paper or periodical which either
advocates, or excuses and justifies, and thereby encourages the
use of fermented wines and other drinks of an intoxicating nature,
how different the result. Only the tippler and confirmed drunkard
in the family will be attracted to such a paper, and to the Church
whose doctrines it advocates. To the poor, broken-hearted, crushed
mother, who is suffering mentally and physically as only the wife
of a drunkard can suffer; and who is struggling for life, and to
feed and clothe her half-starved and ragged children; what con-
solation or encouragement does it give to such a needy one, as she
reads and perceives that the periodical encourages her children to
follow in the footsteps of their drunken father, by countenancing
the drinking of fermented wines and liquors-temperately, of
course? That which may encourage her children to enter on a
course so fraught with danger, may encourage yours and ours,
dear reader. Do you feel like taking such a fearful responsibility?
We do not.
We need also that our periodicals should, first of all, teach
men, women and children what are the individual evils which are
so destructive and injurious to our race, both physically and
spiritually, and then teach them to shun such evils as sins against
God; and that to shun evils as sins against God is to do good.
To shun the use of the drunkard's cup, tobacco, opium, the habit
of tight dressing, idleness, and the like manifold evils, does good
by preserving ourselves free from the physical and mental suf-
fering, and from diseases which such indulgences and habits aro
capable of causing; and thereby prolonging our lives and our
RELIGIOUS PERIODICALS AND REFORMS.
465
sphere of usefulness while we are in this world, and increasing our
capacity and opportunity for good works. To shun such evils does
even more good by the excellent example it sets before others,
especially children, young men and maidens.
Outside of the churches of to-day is a vast multitude in a com-
paratively Gentile state, among whom is a field for missionary
labor, "white and ready for the harvest." The printed page,
especially in the form of a periodical, is an efficient, cheap and
quiet missionary; and it excites little combat and jealousy. If
religious periodicals were made interesting by items of news, dis-
covery, and the arts; and especially if they were to lead their
readers, as they should, to take an active interest in all the great
reforms of the New Age, by presenting spiritual motives as well
as natural, they would command the respect and support of num-
bers who do not now belong to the Church, and would quickly
lead many of these into the light of the New Christianity, and into
Christian Church organizations.
Has the Church any more important aims than these: both to
promulgate her doctrines, and to protect her own members and
the young people from the direful evils which constantly surround
them? What better plan can be adopted, or one more likely to at-
tract the attention of those around us, who are striving to shun
evils, and who inwardly desire to live a pure and good life, and are
therefore good ground for the seedsman?
These periodicals should be worthy of our glorious cause, and
a credit to the Church which they seek to build up, by leading in
every good work. A true faith is important; but a good, useful
and orderly life is surely not less necessary. The two must be
united, and such principles should be upheld strongly and uncom-
promisingly by these periodicals; for their existence on any other
foundation will surely bring them to a fall, sooner or later; and
deservedly so, for religion is of the life. Religious teachers and
writers, and especially periodicals, in order that they may com-
mand the respect of the men of the incoming age, must point out
the individual evils which are so injurious and destructive to our
race, openly proclaim that they are evils, and strive to lead men to
shun them as sins. A Church periodical which fails to do this at
this day, has no legitimate excuse for a continued existence; and
especially should these periodicals cease to lend aid and comfort to
the manufacturers, sellers and drinkers of intoxicating liquors, or
they need not expect to receive the patronage of the earnest men
and women of the Christian Church much longer.
466
RELIGIOUS PAPERS, CLERGYMEN AND REFORMS.
The Rev. Newman Hall, D.D., of London, gives statistics which
show that, from the use of intoxicating drinks, ten thousand mem-
bers are lost to the Christian Churches every year.
“In the territory covered by the United States, there have been
killed in war during 150 years 600,000 persons. It is estimated
that rum has killed 7,500,000 persons. The great wars of the
world for twenty-five years, from 1852 to 1877, including the
Franco-German war and our own civil war, cost a fraction over
$12,000,000,000. The cost of intoxicants for the same period in
the United States was more than $15,000,000,000, or more than
$3,000,000,000 more than all the wars in the world, and for every
thousand killed in battle rum kills twelve thousand."—New Re-
public.
We do not expect to overcome such a fearful evil as wine-
drinking in a community without a contest; for in the individual
man who has acquired a taste for this seductive fluid, abstinence
is a life-and-death struggle; and if he escapes a drunkard's grave,
it is by a long and arduous warfare that he succeeds.
The same
is true in regard to tobacco.
Then, again, we have to remember, as the Rev. Dr. Samson
says, that, "when any change in popular customs is proposed,
the suggestion for reform implies, first, that the common opinion
is erroneous; second, that interests involved are imperiled; and,
third, that conduct before unchallenged is censured. This three-
fold difficulty is to be met and overcome; pride of intellectual
oversight; sacrifice of personal interest; and admission of faults
in practice. It is easy to make, in general, the admission that
no mind can have taken in the whole field of truth; that no man
is wholly free from the promptings of self-interest; and that no
human being was ever perfect in life. It is hard, however, to
bring one's self up to the point where without prejudice, selfish-
ness or preference, the rule of newly discovered truth, duty and
Christian humility can be made dominant. If this be hard to
attain in minds specially thoughtful and conscientious, it is yet
harder to bring a community, or an age, up to the full spirit
of reform. There has never been a great reform in social habits,
in politics, in morals, or in religion, that has not required many
generations to make the new view and new life thorough and per-
vasive."
And yet it is well for us to remember that this is a day of
rapid changes-men and races must either shun evils or perish
from them soon.
CHAPTER XX.
PHYSICIANS AND THE PREVAILING BAD HABITS—A DOC-
TOR OF DIVINITY-HIGH LICENSE-REITERATED
SUMPTIONS, ETC.
AS-
It is unquestionably true that physicians are responsible and
to blame for most of the opium eating, much of the drunkenness,
and some of the tobacco smoking and chewing which are so preva-
lent among our people at this day.
If a physician has been taught by his instructors and by the
medical works which he has read, that it is well to give large doses
of stimulants, narcotics and anodynes, he is quite sure to be
strongly confirmed in favor of their use; even though he may
know that large doses of such remedies are only palliative at best.
Again, if a physician is an habitual user of any one of these reme-
dies, he knows that its use makes him feel good, for it palliates
the unpleasant symptoms which it causes, even until he may die
from its poisonous effects; and as each dose satisfies temporarily
the craving caused by its use, and thus for a time affords relief,
he naturally takes it for granted that it will benefit his patients;
consequently, he prescribes it in season and out of season; and his
patients too frequently follow his example in using it until an ap-
petite is acquired for it, and its use becomes a habit.
Every intelligent, reflecting physician understands that large
doses of stimulants, narcotics and anodynes act only as palliatives
in the treatment of diseases; for the reaction which follows their
use is not in the direction of health; and this is the reason why
they should not be given in cases of chronic and lingering dis-
eases; for if the life of the patient is not destroyed by their action,
he is sooner or later sure to suffer more from the effects of the
remedy, than he would be likely to do without it from the disease;
and the necessity of taking increased doses will steadily increase;
and all chances of a cure by other remedies will be either greatly
diminished or entirely destroyed.
A curative remedy is one that acts in the direction of the dis-
eased action, and which produces in a healthy person symptoms
468
DOCTORS OF MEDICINE AND OF DIVINITY.
similar to those that exist in the disease for which it is used; then
if the dose is so small as not to seriously aggravate the symptoms
of the disease, the living forces react, and this reaction is in the
direction of health. Even in the use of such remedies it is worse
than useless to continue the remedy after the symptoms are re-
lieved or the disease is cured. Physicians who are as well ac-
quainted with this method of treating diseases, and with the
action of the remedies which can be used in accordance with this
law of cure as some are, and every physician should be, will very
rarely have occasion to give palliative remedies like intoxicants,
opium, etc., in large doses; for they have other remedies far more
reliable and safe in almost if not all cases, and more especially of
chronic diseases.
In acute diseases such remedies, we know, will sometimes pal-
liate the symptoms and suffering; but they do not cure; the cure,
when it occurs, is effected by the reaction of the living forces
against the disease in spite of the remedy taken. When an intelli-
gent physician gives such remedies, he directs that when the
symptoms for which they are given begin to abate, the dose is
either to be lessened or given at longer intervals; and that when
they cease, the remedy is to be entirely discontinued. The con-
scientious physician is especially careful to see that his patient
does not continue the remedy longer than he thinks it is really
necessary; for he understands fully the great danger of his acquir-
ing an appetite for any one of this class of remedies which may
control his will and make him a slave.
The writer has been led to a consideration of this subject,
among the closing chapters of this work, from having recently
seen circulating in our secular papers, a notice of public state-
ments made by two men, one of whom is a distinguished prelate
of a Christian Church, that after having been abstainers from
intoxicating drinks for years, they had broken down from over-
work; and under the advice of physicians they had commenced
the use of stimulating or intoxicating drinks; and the reader
was led to understand that, as a result of using such drinks, they
were enabled to go on with their work; and to infer that conse-
quently it was desirable to use such drinks.
Even if we were to admit that intoxicants palliated their dis-
eased symptoms for a time, which we are under no necessity of
doing, their physicians are deserving of the severest condemnation
for their utter stupidity in prescribing such remedies and allowing
their patients to drift along into their habitual use, without care-
PHYSICIANS PRESCRIBING STIMULANTS.
469
fully directing them to discontinue the remedy after the severity
of their symptoms were relieved, and warning them against the
danger of continuing the remedies longer. But if the directions
were given, and the warning voices of the physicians were un-
heeded by these men, then are they deserving of censure; and
especially are they deserving of the severest condemnation when
they stand forth and proclaim to the world what they have done.
Better, immeasurably better, would it have been for humanity and
the Christian Church, if, instead of seeking relief by the use of
intoxicants, and then publicly proclaiming the fact to the world ;
they had quietly, if need be, stepped down from and out of their
vocations, and left their work to others. But there is scarcely
a probability that they would have had to do this; nor have we
any good reason to suppose that the use of their fermented or
alcoholic drinks has anything to do with their present ability
to go on with their work, except perhaps to lessen their ability to
work.
Any physician who was not absolutely stupid, and unworthy of
confidence, would have been sure to direct other changes vastly
more important in such cases than large doses of intoxicants or of
other poisonous remedies. An intelligent physician would be
sure to say something like the following: "You must change your
habits; use your brain (or muscles, as the case may be) less for a
few days. Sunlight is the source through which vegetables, ani-
mals and men receive the ability to live healthily. You have lived
too much in the shade; you must seek the light of the sun; fresh
air is invigorating; you must have more of it. Exercise, is all-im-
portant to equalize the circulation and give strength to all the
structures of the body, and thus relieve your brain and digestion;
you must have more of it. Your brain and nervous system require
phosphorus; and your stomach requires the food which is de-
manded by different structures of the body; and such as is easily
digested and appropriated. You must give up the use of superfine
flour in every form, and use Graham-bread and flour; and milk
and water instead of tea and coffee; eat moderately of fish instead
of so much meat; use good unfermented wine temperately if you
can obtain it."
Now, with such changes as are intimated above, in nine cases
out of ten of breaking down from overwork, it is certain that no
other remedies would be required; and it is safe to say that any
patient who would recover under the use of intoxicants, would be
sure to recover without them when the patient's habits of living
470
DOCTORS OF MEDICINE AND OF DIVINITY.
received proper attention; so that we have no good reason to
suppose that their fermented or distilled liquors have anything to
do with their restoration to an ability to work.
But, unfortunately, so credulous are many as to the effects of
any prescribed remedy which they take, that they are apt to
attribute a cure to the remedy taken, even when it has seriously
interfered with the vital efforts of the organism to restore healthy
action. Fifty years ago patients, and even physicians, talked of
the wonderful effects of blood-letting in cases of sickness, in which
no intelligent physician to-day would think for moment of bleed-
ing his patients; for he well knows that it would not only interfere
with their speedy restoration to health, but also seriously endanger
life. An individual receives a cut with a sharp instrument; if
the edges of the wound are simply brought together with adhesive
straps, or stitches if required, in four days the wound will be
healed without any discharge, leaving simply a line for a scar,
Yet almost every man and woman you meet have their remedies
for cuts-their ointments, their salves, their washes and liniments.
Apply any of these; and if it chance to get between the edges of
the wound, it will often take as many weeks for the wound to
heal as it would days if it had been let alone; and there will be a
profuse discharge; and an ugly scar remaining after the wound is
healed; and yet because the wound in the end heals, the remedy
applied gets the credit of healing it.
To-day, fermented and distilled liquors are not unfrequently
prescribed by physicians for patients suffering from fevers, or
recovering from acute diseases, or who are weak and debilitated
from other causes, where they are positively harmful; and any of
our more intelligent physicians never think of giving them. But
we are convinced that at no far distant day the prescribing of in-
toxicants will be as comparatively rare as the practice of bleeding
and blistering is to-day, when compared with the practice of fifty
years ago. It is already passing out of the pharmacopoeia of hos-
pitals, where the greatest opportunity of testing remedies is
enjoyed by the best physicians, as the reader may see from the
extracts which we present:
"In hospitals where the largest amount of alcohol is used,
there is the greatest percentage cf deaths."-Dr. King, of the
Philosophical Society of Hull, England.
"I have amply tried both ways. I gave alcohol in my practice
for twenty years, and have now practised without it these last thirty
years or more. My experience is that acute discase is more readily
A DOCTOR OF DIVINITY AND INTOXICANTS.
cured without it, and chronic disease much more manageable.'
John Higginbottom, F.R.S.
471
"As to the general use of alcohol in disease, every form of
disease would be better treated without alcohol than with it."-Dr.
Benj. W. Richardson, F.R.S.
"Alcohol may be wholly dispensed with without injury to the
sick, every intelligent physician being able to supply its place with
other remedies of equal, if not of greater, value.”—Dr. N. S. Davis,
Chicago; Dr. Stephen Smith, New York; Dr. James Edmunds,
London, and many others eminent in the profession.
A DOCTOR OF DIVINITY, AND HIS UNREASONABLE TALK IN 1887.
The venerable Doctor
is reported to have said before a
large audience, and his sayings are floating around in our period-
icals, that: "No method of fighting intemperance can stand for a
moment which condemns the use of wine." And by wine he means
fermented wine. The "two wine theory," we are told, the Doctor
characterized as the greatest piece of stupidity which the human
mind had harbored in these later days. "There is no such thing,"
he declared, as unfermented wine. I defy any one to find men-
tion of anything of the kind either in the Scriptures or in the
classics."
Here we have a strong assertion, unsustained by any proof,
which has been shown to be erroneous both in the light of the
Scriptures and of ancient authors, by a large number of our most
distinguished scholars over and over again, as the reader has seen
in the preceding chapters of this book; but if a man closes his
eyes and will not examine the testimony, what can be done with
him? It is an old adage that "you may lead a horse to the water,
but you cannot make him drink."
The Doctor totally ignores the fact that unfermented wine, in
the very state where he was lecturing, is preserved by at least two
of the processes carefully described by ancient authors; and is sold
for sacramental and medicinal purposes quite extensively. He also
ignores the fact, which we have abundantly made manifest in the
preceding pages, that the unfermented juice of grapes, as it is
pressed from grapes and as it flows from the press, is repeatedly
called wine in the Hebrew Scriptures; and in their translation by
distinguished scholars into the Greck and English languages.
But we know that a man cannot see that which he is not willing to
sce, especially when the truth condemns that which he loves.
472
DOCTORS OF MEDICINE AND OF DIVINITY,
Again our Doctor of Divinity is reported to have said :
"I don't believe in treating, but I'll say this: If you want a
glass of claret with your beef-steak to-morrow morning, and can
afford to have it, and don't have it, you are a fool."
Alas, alas, poor man! ready to ignore the testimony of the
Sacred Scriptures and the sages of all ages, that fermented wine is
a poison, likened to the venom of poisonous serpents, a deceiver
and a mocker; ready to ignore the poverty, sickness, crime, in-
sanity and deaths which he witnesses around him on every hand
and ready to commend this unclean and vile product of leaven to
the children, young men and maidens, as well as adults who look
to him for instruction.
In contrast with the above language of this Doctor of Divinity,
we will make a few extracts from the truly Christian and philan-
thropic words of a scholar certainly not less distinguished than
the one whose words we are considering.
Extracts from Canon Farrar's address at a reception given him
by the National Temperance Society, and the Church Temperance
Society, in Chickering Hall, New York, on Thursday evening,
Oct. 29, 1895:
"About ten years ago or more I became a total abstainer,
because I was easily convinced that the use of alcohol was not a
necessity, and a great deal turns upon that. I saw, for instance,
that whole nations had not only lived without it, but had flour-
ished without it. I saw the remarkable fact that there were some
twenty thousand persons in England, and that though many of
them had made themselves mere funnels for drink; though they
had been accustomed to drink from their childhood; though most
of them had been brought to prison, either directly or indirectly,
through drink, yet the very day that they entered the gates of a
prison all drink was entirely taken from them, and yet there was
not a single instance on record in which any one of them had suf-
fered in consequence. On the contrary, men who have entered
prisons sickly and blighted, have been made compulsorily sober
by act of Parliament, after a few months left prison hale and
strong and hearty; and women who had been put in prison per-
fectly horrible and hideous in their loathsomeness and degrada-
tion, after a short period of deprivation from the source of their
ruin, left prison with the bloom of health and almost of beauty."
Already allusion has been made to your great philanthropist
and politically wise Benjamin Franklin. I dare say you know
how he used the words: 'Temperance puts wood on the fire, meal
1
CANON FARRAR'S ADDRESS.
473
in the barrel, flour in the tub, money in the purse, contentment in
the house, and clothes on the bairns.' Shall I go back three hun-
dred and fifty years and quote once more what Shakespeare said?
‘O thou invisible spirit of wine, if we have no other name by
which to call thee, let us call thee Devil !'”
"Alas! of every curse I have ever heard of, this is a curse in
which the entail might be cut off in a single generation. And yet
the race of man, bewildered by epigrams, baffled by sophistries,
blinded by conceit, seduced by pleasure, and rendered callous by
greed, goes on enjoying and even rewarding the production of this
fatal cause of evil among themselves, until one is forced to
cry, 'Let the heavens burst and drown with deluge of rain the
feeble vassals of lust and wine.' Must we not feel pity for the
ravages which are caused by this deadliest of all human curses?
Do we not feel pity for the men whom we have probably seen and
known, who because of drink are living in its pollution and going
to deaths of blasphemy, and are giving back to the God who made
them nothing but the dust of their mortal bodies and the ship-
wreck of their immortal souls? Have we no pity for the thousands
who are pouring poison into the ranks of youth until its root be-
comes as bitterness and its blasphemy comes up as fruit? Have
we no pity for the families, the husbands, and wives on whose
hearthstones are burning, because of drink, the very fires of hell?"
"Have we no pity for mothers whose hearts are wrung with
anguish at the fate of their offspring?'
"Here is a vice perfectly preventable stalking among us, which
produces evils more deadly because more continuous than war,
famine, and pestilence combined; and yet we are so cold, so neu-
tral, selfish, immoral, and quiescent as to make no serious or
united effort to grapple with that intolerable curse. If in times
of war, blessed are the peacemakers; if in days of famine it is a
noble thing to feed the hungry; and if in time of plague it is
divine to heal the sick, then surely we must be at the last gasp of
national honor; we must be in the final paralysis of national self-
ishness if we can tolerate the fact that this vice, producing evils so
deadly and so preventable, is to stalk among us.
""
The same eminent divine, presiding at the British and Colonial
Temperance Congress held in London, in his address said :
"I might even say that at Nazareth at this moment, when a
man is drunk, the Mohammedans point the finger of scorn at him
and say, 'That man is a Christian.' We have girdled the world
with a zone of drink. Our footsteps, wherever they have trav-
474
DOCTORS OF MEDICINE AND OF DIVINITY.
ersed the world on their career of conquest-there is no blinking
the terrible fact-have been footsteps dyed in blood. We have
decimated the aboriginal populations-I am speaking well within
the facts-by drink, and often mainly by the drink that we have
introduced. They have melted before us in many cases like a line
of snow before the sun. We sometimes talk of our missions to the
heathen as if they were acts of splendid generosity; I look upon
them as tardy acts of the most necessary reparation. We have
carried with us from country to country the blight and the curse
without the blessings of our civilization and our Christianity. The
results of our mixing with these races, in common with other Euro-
pean peoples, have been horrible, and it is high time that we should
now make clear that the object and mission of Christian peoples
is not to destroy their bodies, but to save their souls. It is high
time that beautiful upon the mountains should be the feet of those
that bring good tidings, and that publish peace. I look upon that
as the great crusade of this generation. Our fathers went as
crusaders to Palestine to rescue a material sepulchre, and we have
to rescue the living temples of, in some respects, human beings for
their Saviour and their Lord. I am sometimes perfectly appalled
at the callousness of conscience which we still show in England on
this subject. At one and the same time we are deliberately sacri-
ficing hundreds and thousands of our sons and other races in
every quarter of the globe to the hideous two-headed Moloch, of
which one head is the head of spurious individual liberty, and the
other head is the head of vested interests in human ruin. I do
trust that, long as the struggle has been, the victory may come at
last. I am quite sure that when the conscience of the English-
speaking races is once thoroughly touched and roused, as two
generations ago it was roused and realized for the first time--what
a guilt it was that we should use the arm of freedom to rivet the
fetters of the slave-so they will in time realize that it is a still
deadlier and still more ruinous form of guilt to use the name and
the power of Christian people to destroy the bodies and the souls
of men."
To-day, in this free country, our cities are being ruled by the
saloons; their keepers and the manufacturers of intoxicating
drinks are combining and striving to control our legislatures and
even our country. The children of Christian people as well as
others are tempted by our saloons, and, guided by the example of
those older than themselves, are constantly beginning the life
which leads to the "enormous sin of drunkenness," by drinking
STRANGE ASSERTIONS AS TO WINE AND BEER.
475
fermented wine and beer; and smoking and chewing tobacco-a
most deadly poison-the use of which is a most fearful and grow-
ing evil, and paves the way in a multitude of instances for the
drinking of intoxicating drinks; and yet, while some of our
Church organizations are aroused and earnestly engaged in com-
bating these evils, other Church organizations in this country are
as silent as the grave; and as to our Church periodicals, alas! we
have seen in other pages of this work how and where some of them
stand.
We appeal to you once more, brethren and sisters of the Chris-
tian Church, to awake from this most fearful slumber, and to
organize temperance societies, and especially "Bands of Hope "
among the young, and thus engage the rising generation early in
a most useful work for each other, the Church and the world. No
more needed, useful or noble work lies before us to-day than this.
We take from the New York Star's report of a conversation
had with the Doctor of Divinity whose sayings we have been
noticing in this section, the following:
"You do not believe, then, that the drinking of wine and beer incul-
cates a desire for stronger liquors?"
"No, I do not. I believe that a country which drinks wine or beer
does not drink whisky. I believe that pure wine and good beer will spoil
the sale of distilled spirits and drive them out. That is my solution of
the temperance problem. I have used both wine and beer for many years,
and have not experienced a desire for anything stronger; and I do not
believe that I am different in this respect from other men. I think it
will be a good thing for the country when our wine product is greatly
increased, and a pure, healthy wine is within the reach of all at a small
cost."
“But does not the Scripture say that wine is a mocker and strong
drink is raging?"
'Yes, and it says many other things of similar purport, but in every
one of them the command is not against the use of wine, but the abuse of
it. It is the excess that is sinful."
By consulting the chapter in this work on drunkenness in wine
and beer-drinking countries, the reader can see how far from the
truth Doctor
is in his belief and representations as to the
effect of wine and beer drinking. In fact, the reader has only to
look around him in New York, and in every other city and village
in our land, to see that the representations of the Doctor have not
the slightest foundation in truth. With perhaps the exception of
476
DOCTORS OF MEDICINE AND OF DIVINITY.
i
some of the sons of drinking parents, young men do not commence
by drinking distilled liquors, but they commence by drinking wine
and beer in fashionable saloons; and while many may restrain
their appetites and never crave stronger drinks, we know that mul-
titudes do not do this. Then, again, we have no worse drunkards
than wine and beer drunkards; and all the drunkenness con-
demned in the Bible, was from drinking wine and fermented
drinks, for they had no distilled liquors in those days.
Can any intelligent free man for a moment believe that when
we are told in the Bible that wine is a mocker, and that at last it
"biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder," and when it is
compared to the poison of serpents and cruel venom of asps, no
reference is had to the quality or character of the wine, but simply
to its excessive use? What nonsense to think thus. It is surpris-
ing to what an extent a strong confirmation in a false doctrine as
to wine, and the drinking of fermented wine, will blind entirely
to a correct view of these subjects, the eyes of otherwise clear-
sighted men.
As bearing upon this question, we take from a recent number
of a monthly periodical, the following communication :
"To the Editor:
"DEAR SIR,-A writer in your Journal represents truly that
it is a misfortune in the discussion of a question like that of the
use of wine, when writers are controlled more by sentiment and
prejudice than by rational and philosophical truths, and seek for
that which will confirm their own ideas, while ignoring everything
which does not accord with their views. Take, for instance, the
example given by the above writer as an illustration, where the
command of the Almighty to Aaron is cited :—‘Do not drink wine
nor strong drink when ye go up to the tabernacle of the congrega-
tion,' etc.; and he stops there and omits what follows, which is
absolutely essential for correct understanding of the passage
quoted, as the reader will see; for the remainder is as follows:
'Lest ye die; that ye may put a difference between holy and un-
holy, and between clean and unclean' (Levit. x. 8-9). Leaven and
all things leavened are represented as unclean in the Word of the
Lord, and it is evident that this command had reference simply to
fermented or leavened wine and strong drink (they had no dis-
tilled liquors then), and had no reference to unfermented wine or
unfermented strong drink. In fact, a distinguished scholar of the
last century, long before the Temperance reformation had com-
HIGH LICENSE.
477
menced, translated the first part of the passage as follows: 'Do
not drink wine nor drink that maketh drunken,' etc. It is evident
that the writer in your Journal has an idea that there is but one
kind of wine, and that a fermented wine; for if he had recognized
the fact that 'the best of the wine' was unfermented wine, and
'the best of the oil' was unrancid oil, he could not have made the
representations of there being a conflict with other portions of the
Scripture which he has made. As to the recognized existence of
two kinds of wine, I would present to your readers the views of
Canon Hopkins, in his work, Holy Scripture and Temperance':
"It must always be insisted upon, and it ought always to be
remembered, that "wine," in Holy Scripture, is a general and an
inclusive term. It is manifest that some wine mentioned in Holy
Scripture was intoxicating; but it is certain the word wine is also
used for the fresh unfermented juice of the grape, and for the must
or sweet wine or new wine which was not intoxicating. The fruit
of the vine and the juice of the grape are symbols of heavenly
blessings; the fiery cup which results from fermentation is the
type of the fierce wrath of God!
"When we compare the two assertions, "Wine is a mocker,"
and "Wine maketh glad the heart of man," it is scarcely possible
to believe that the word "wine" means the same identical thing
in both sentences. Yet it seems to be generally supposed that it
does. Why should such an assumption be made without any
attempt at proof? Is it usual for any accurate writer to employ a
word in this way, unless he is aware and his readers are aware
that the word is in fact used to describe two different things?
Much less is it to be thought that holy men of God, who spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost, could speak otherwise than
accurately. Now, the juice of the grape in its natural state is
wholesome and nutritive; it is a cordial and a tonic. But after
fermentation it loses most, if not all, its nutritious qualities, and
is indeed a (( mocker.' ""
It is pleasant to the taste, refreshing at
first to the spirits, but very soon "it bites like a serpent and
stings like an adder." The real question is very simple. It is a
question of fact. Is the word "wine," used in Holy Scripture as
the name of both these liquids? That it is so used, no impartial
inquirer can justly deny.'
JOHN ELLIS."
HIGH LICENSE.
Recently much has been said in favor of this system as a re-
striction on the evils that flow from liquor selling. It has been
478
HIGH LICENSE.
claimed by its advocates that it would lessen the number of saloons,
improve their respectability, and diminish the amount of intoxicat-
ing drinks used; and that the money received would do something
toward reimbursing the community for the cost of the pauperism,
misdemeanors and crimes that are directly chargeable to the liquor
traffic. Where the experiment has been tried it is very doubtful if
any good has resulted from high license. In the city of Chicago,
for instance, Rev. Herrick Johnson, D.D., tells us that the change
from $103 in 1883-4 to $500 in 1884-5 lessened the number of
saloons less than one-twelfth, or only from 3,682 to 3,336, which is
scarcely worth speaking about. Concerning the character of those
closed, he says :
* ** *
This
"The saloons thus closed were the most orderly, the least
patronized, and the least objectionable in the city.
is no mere guess. The writer has himself personally interviewed
the policemen on their beats, the police headquarters, the Mayor's
office, and the License office, and from all four quarters he has
received just one testimony-to wit: the gilded saloons are all
running as usual, every low dive has been kept in full blast,
Chicago's 'Black Hole' is as black as ever, and along all the main
arteries and thronged ways of the city not a saloon has been
closed.
"Better saloons' is the third item claimed for the High
License side. Here we demur. This was the promise. But it has
been an apple of Sodom, turning to ashes. For proof, we cite the
testimony of Chicago's officials above referred to. We cite, also,
this terrible arraignment by the last grand jury of Cook County :
'Dives of the lowest order defy the city ordinance by keeping open
from dawn until midnight, and from midnight till dawn, wherein
congregate disreputable women, thieves and criminals, well known
to the police. ** * ** What is known as the 'dago shop nuisance'
-the toleration of dens of iniquity, on prominent thoroughfares,
under the guise of oyster and ice-cream saloons, but which are
licensed to do a dram-shop business by the city of Chicago—is
becoming entirely too prominent. To such places may be traced
the ultimate ruin of thousands of young girls and unsuspecting
females.
เ
"We cite, further, the testimony from Nebraska, where the
license fee is $1,000. The man who drafted the bill, and urged it
through the Legislature, says: The effect has been a bitter disap-
pointment, increasing the worst evils of the traffic.' The Christian
Hour, of Omaha, says: 'It has sent the saloons more than ever
HIGH LICENSE.
479
* * *
into politics.
The whole system of license has corrupted
our police force and lower courts, until it is a mockery to call them
courts of justice; they are dens of thieves. Gambling hells are
open at $25 a month, generally in connection with the "tony "
saloons.'
"All this is in exact accord with the nature of the case. You
cannot improve an iniquity by washing it. 'Better saloons' is
better badness, improved vice, a moral contradiction. Vice gilded
is simply a smoother road down-hill. The better you make a
saloon, the worse you make it for unwary feet. Ask the mothers
whose boys are first learning to be out after night-fall. The swirl
of the pool at the outer and alluring edge is no 'better' than the
swirl near the center, where the man goes down. By what possi-
ble trick of moral legerdemain can the saloon that makes candidates
for perdition, be made an 'improvement' on the saloon that sends
men on into perdition? Those 'thousands of young, unsuspecting
girls' that the Chicago police testify of before grand juries-can
they be gotten into the vilest doggeries? Not at the first! The
bait must be gilded. Will you call that gilded bait 'better'?
Your candid judgment on this point, good reader! Is not the
saloon we license, that sells drinks by the glass, under whatever
guise, a moral abomination? And now, with the scales in our
judicial hands, must we not refuse to let this item, 'better saloons,'
go to the High License side?
“'Less drinking' is a fourth item claimed for High License.
Again we demur. As against any perceptible diminution, we
appeal to the testimony. W. H. Harper is the author of the
Illinois High License law. The next year after the law went into
operation, a bill was reported to the Legislature reducing the
license. Mr. Harper said, in opposition to the reduction: There
will always be enough dram-sellers to fully supply the public
appetite; and there is no danger of any citizen suffering thirst
under the existing law while he possesses a nickel to pay for its
alleviation.'
Again sixty-four men, whose political antecedents were un-
known, living in different parts of Illinois, and selected at random,
were recently asked by The Voice: 'Is there any evidence of less
drinking under the High License law? Four answered, "Yes,"
and sixty, "No.""
"As to Chicago, look at these official figures for the city, copied
from the annual police reports, and judge whether they point to
'less drinking' under the reign of High License :
480
HIGH LICENSE.
Year.
1881...
1882..
Total
Arrests.
…..31,713……..
.32,800..
Arrests for
Drunkenness
and Disorder.
.16,146
18,045
1883.
1884.
•
1885...
.37,189.
.39,434..
40,998...
..21,416
23,080
..25,047
"And now, in the light of these figures, read again that fear-
ful arraignment by the grand jury: The toleration of dens of
iniquity on prominent thoroughfares, licensed to do a dram-shop
business, is becoming entirely too prominent.' And this, after
two years of the Harper High License law! Clearly, if we hold
the scales with judicial fairness, and let this item, 'less drinking,'
go to the side of High License, it must be as the infinitesimal dust
of the balance.
"A step toward Prohibition' is a fifth item urged in behalf of
this new device. This was the theory of many good men when the
Illinois High License law was pressed for adoption. But the facts
have exploded the theory. They proved High License a bar to pro-
hibition, not a help. Millions of dollars from the saloons for
revenue, make the saloon a power in politics and legislation that it
never was before. A vote for Prohibition in Illinois now means
a vote to throw away five millions of dollars of license revenue!
That kind of thing is not likely to make prohibition sentiment.
Even when, after a year's operation of the law, a bill was introduced
into the Legislature to reduce the license to $250, it was strenuously
and vehemently said: 'No; gentlemen! To reduce the license
will derange and throw into confusion the finances of a thousand
cities, towns, villages, townships, and other municipalities in the
State.' That appeal was potent against reduction. How doubly
potent it would be against wiping out the income altogether.”
Many tax-paying voters will not stop to think that, for every
dollar received for licenses to sell intoxicating drinks, be they
high or low, the tax-payers will have to pay many dollars for the
support of police officers, courts, prisons and paupers; to say
nothing of the poverty, crime and wretchedness which result from
the sale of such drinks.
When the Rev. Mr. Johnson tells us, as he does, that : Towns
in Illinois having voted 'no license,' for years, are now, through
the temptation of this large revenue, voting in favor of license,
""
REITERATED ASSUMPTIONS.
481
we may well hesitate before we either encourage the idea of or
vote for "High License."
The reiterated assumption and erroneous statements of the
advocates for intoxicants, upon which to found their arguments
to justify their use, are something marvelous. Below, the reader
will find samples which have appeared from the pen of a corre-
spondent in a religious periodical while the writer was preparing
the last part of this volume for the printer. Although similar to
others which have already been noticed in the preceding pages,
still, as there is a little variation, and they are the last which have
come to hand, we will insert them with most of the writer's reply
to the same, which was inserted in the same periodical. We will
do this even at the risk of repeating some things which have been
said in the preceding pages.
""
MR. EDITOR-Dear Sir,-I notice a few statements on page 105
of your journal, which, in my opinion, should ro be allowed to
go unnoticed. 1. "Neither fermented nor unfermented grape-
juice can be 'literally' called 'the fruit of the vine,' according to
common usage.
The Lord called one of these fluids the fruit
of the vine;" the question is, which? The unfermented juice of
grapes is certainly all the product of the vine, and has a most
wonderful resemblance to blood, as it contains almost all—if not
all-of the constituents which are required to nourish and sustain
the material body. It has albumen for the brain, nerves, and
muscular system, the alkaline salts and acids for the harder struc-
tures, and the sugar for supplying heat, all in an organized form
exactly adapted for use. It is strictly a healthy, nourishing, life-
giving fluid and it is safe to say that there is no other liquid
product of the vegetable kingdom which equals it in these respects.
On the other hand, not a single drop of fermented wine was ever
found in sound, healthy grapes; not a drop of the fluid-alcohol –
for which men seek fermented wine, was ever produced in healthy
or sound grapes. The essential products of fermented wine are
all the products of leaven-an unclean substance, consequently
fermented wine makes men sick, insane and drunken-and almost
all of the nourishing ingredients which were created in the grape
have been decomposed, precipitated, or cast out by the leaven.
Now, can any intelligent man have any doubt which of these fluids
the Lord would be likely to call the fruit of the vine, when He
was so careful not to use the word "Oinos," which included fer-
mented as well as unfermented wine?
482
REITERATED ASSUMPTIONS.
i
2. Again, says your correspondent: "Few, I fancy, will deny
that fermented grape-juice is enjoyed more than unfermented."
Place the two to the lips of a child or to the lips of a man who
is not accustomed to fermented wine, and see which will be pre-
ferred; it will not be the product of leaven.
((
3. No one denies it is the 'nature' of grape-juice to ferment,
or that it will ferment if the art of man do not prevent that process,
says your correspondent. Every intelligent man who has care-
fully examined this question denies that grape-juice ever ferments
of itself—it is fermented; and when this process has once com-
menced it never stops until the wine becomes vinegar, unless "the
art of man" interferes with the process of fermentation; and man
has to interfere with it to prevent its becoming vinegar, as he
has to do to prevent it from fermenting at all when fresh. It is
no more the nature of grape-juice to ferment, than it is for fresh
meat to putrefy, or woolen cloth to be eaten by moths, or wheat
to be eaten by rats or mice. The Lord has given to man reason,
skill, and the ability to work, to preserve his food and raiment
from being devoured and decomposed by such unclean agencies.
The germs of leaven or ferment from the atmosphere, and from
the surface and stems of grapes, fall into the juice when the
grapes are crushed, precisely as the germs of the putrefactive
ferment do from the atmosphere and from the skin of an ani-
mal when the skin is removed; and, if the temperature is favor-
able and no measures are taken to prevent it, in a day or two
these germs will be developed and commence their work of de-
struction upon the nourishing substances in the grape-juice and
in the meat, precisely as rats and mice will upon the wheat when
threshed and left exposed where they abound; and the nourishing
substances stored up in the juice of grapes are devoured and de-
composed by the leaven cells, as are those in the wheat by the rats.
The misfortune in the case of the wine is that the leaven lives in
the wine, and the products of the decomposition remain in it; and
thus it becomes pre-eminently a leavened, and consequently an
unclean fluid, capable, as we well know, of causing disease, insan-
ity and death when used as a beverage.
Two years ago, while in Cairo, Egypt, the writer asked the
missionaries what kind of wine they used as communion wine in
the societies which they have organized. They replied that their
Church officials prepared the wine when they required it, by soaking
raisins in water and pressing them. One of the missionaries said
that when he told the Copts, or native Christians, that the Western
A LETTER TO A CHURCH COMMITTEE.
483
Church used fermented or "shop wine," as they called it, as a
communion wine, "they were horrified at the idea.' The day is
not far distant when Western Christians will be as much horrified
at the idea of using fermented wine as are their Eastern brethren,
the Copts. We have only to examine carefully and discuss this
question freely and fearlessly, and every one who is neither strongly
confirmed in favor of fermented wine, nor unwilling to see the
truth, will readily see that fermented wine has no place as a com-
munion wine in the Lord's Church.
Very respectfully,
JOHN ELLIS.
Dec. 16th, 1886.
A LETTER TO A CHURCH COMMITTEE IN REGARD TO THE USE OF UN-
FERMENTED WINE AS A COMMUNION WINE, BY A LAY MEMBER OF
THE CHURCH.
“Dear Brother,-As you are the oldest member of the Church
Committee, I take the liberty of addressing you, and of asking,you
if you will be so kind as to call the attention of the Committee to
the consideration of the question of using unfermented wine at the
most Holy Supper. It is a question to which, as you are aware,
I have devoted a great deal of time in its investigation; and as a
result I have become satisfied that it is not right for me to use fer-
mented wine on such occasions.
"1st. Because the Lord in the administration of The Last
Supper' most carefully avoided the use of the word, which has in
all ages been known to include fermented wine as well as unfer-
mented wine, and instead of calling the contents of the cup wine
He specially designates it 'The Fruit of the Vine.' This fact, to
say the least, is very significant.
"2d. Leaven and all things leavened were regarded as unclean
in the Jewish Church, and the orthodox Jews even at this day, as
a rule, do not use fermented wine at the Passover, but use unfer-
mented wine; and I cannot regard it as possible that, if ever
fermented wine was regarded by them as suitable, they would
be found carefully using unfermented wine, when the fermented
wine is in such general use as at present, and as it has been for
many centuries. Now it is generally admitted by commentators, I
find, and even by our brethren of the
that it was
probably the Passover wine which the Lord took when He adminis-
tered the Holy Supper. This it seems to me is very conclusive
proof that He used unfermented grape-juice or wine.
>
484
LETTER TO A CHURCH COMMITTEE.
"3d. We have conclusive evidence that unfermented grape-
juice has in all past ages been included under the generic name of
wine in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and English, both in the Sacred
Scriptures and in secular writings; so that it is certain that even
when the word wine is used, it is no evidence that it is fermented
wine to which reference is made. This, together with the fact
that the Ancients were at such care and pains to preserve unfer-
mented grape-juice or wine (the very processes as described by
Columella and other writers during the Apostolic days, I myself
and a large number of others have found entirely successful
methods at this day), are to my mind very conclusive facts; for if,
when the Lord was on the earth, there were actually in use two kinds
of wine, one of which was unleavened, a harmless, useful and
nutritious drink, which is strictly the product of the vine; the
other a leavened fluid which is never produced by the vine, and
contains little or no nourishment, and which, when freely used as
we can safely use unfermented wine, will cause drunkenness, in-
sanity, disease and death, and I witness its effects or victims all
around me; how can I for a moment conclude that our Lord pre-
sented such a fluid to the lips of His disciples ?
"If we turn to the writings of the New Church, we find that
there is given to leaven and things leavened a bad signification—
especially when the latter have not been purified by heat-uniformly
bad. Swedenborg in the T. C. R., No. 98, compares the effects of
the doctrine of Faith alone upon the clergy to the effects of the
vinous spirit called alcohol' on man, the one causing spiritual in-
toxication as the other does natural intoxication. Swedenborg
gives us to understand that natural drunkenness corresponds to
spiritual drunkenness; and if this is true it would seem to be self-
evident that the causes of natural drunkenness must correspond to
the causes of spiritual drunkenness.
"Then again, if we turn to No. 376 A. E. we find that Sweden-
borg, while treating especially of the Holy Supper, gives the full
signification of wine to must; and that it is to unfermenting must
is beyond question, for it is to must as it drops down from the
mountains, must as it is gathered in with corn, must as it is trodden
out of the grapes, and must as it exists in the press.
In the same
number of the A. E. we are told that by mustum-English, must--
'is understood every genuine truth derived from the good of love
to the Lord.'
"Can we, as Christians, need anything more to satisfy us, that
THE FOUNDATIONS OF DEATH.
485
it is always proper to use in this ordinance the unfermented juice
of the grape (or must), new or old ?
((
"I know not of a single passage in the Bible where, when it is
clear from the context that reference is had to fermented wine, it
is ever spoken of favorably; nor do I know of a single passage
in Swedenborg's writings where a good signification is ever given
to wine, when it is clear that a reference is had to fermented wine.
My investigations have satisfied me that the good wine of the
Word and of the Writings is always unfermented wine; conse-
quently, how can I partake of fermented wine, which in its effects
on man (Levit. x. 9, 10), we are told is unholy and unclean.
"If you will be so kind as to present this letter to the Church
Committee you will much oblige me. With kindest regards,
"I am truly yours,
Extracts from a review published in the South Australian
Register, on "The Foundations of Death," by Axel Gustafson.
"As there are many springs and fountains of life," he says in
his preface, "so there are, doubtless, many foundations of death
-deaths national, individual, intellectual, moral, and spiritual,
as well as physical—but among them alcohol, if the true story of
it is told by those who bear witness in this work, is pre-eminently
a destroyer in every department of life, and therefore is truly the
foundation of death.”
Chapter I., then, contains an historical account of drinking
among the ancients. Here are to be found references to the evil
results of drinking amongst the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes,
Persians, Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The Talmudic
legend about Noah and the planting of the vine is old and well
known enough, but it bears repetition and carries its moral :
"Bowed under his toil, dripping with perspiration, stood the
Fatriarch Noah, laboring to break the hard clods. All at once
Satan appeared to him and said, 'What new undertaking have
you in hand, what new fruit do you expect to extract from these
clods?'
"I plant the grape,' answered the patriarch.
"The grape! Proud plant! Most precious fruit! Joy and
delight to men! Your labor is great; will you allow me to assist
you? Let us share the labor of producing the vine.'
"The patriarch, in a fit of exhaustion, consented. Satan
hastened and got a lamb, slaughtered it, and poured its blood over
the clods of earth. Thence,' said Satan, 'shall it come that those
486
FOUNDATIONS OF DEATH.
who taste of the grape shall be soft-spirited and gentle as this
lamb,'
"But Noah sighed. Satan continued his work; he caught a
lion, slew it, and poured the blood upon the soil prepared for the
plant. 'Thence shall it come,' said he, 'that those who taste the
juice of the grape shall be courageous as the lion.' Noah shud-
lered.
"Satan continuing his work, seized and slew a pig, and
drenched the soil with its blood. 'Thence shall it come,' said he,
'that those who drink of the juice of the grape in excess shall be
filthy, degraded, and bestial as swine.'
"This story reminds us of the modern fable, also somewhere
in Mr. Gustafson's book, of the sober pig and the drunken man.
They were lying on either side of a ditch, and both had rings-one
on his finger, and the other in his nose. Somebody passed by and
said aloud-‘One is known by his company.' Instantly the pig
got up and left.
The lesson to be learned from the history of ancient nations
with regard to drinking is that from the time of their giving them-
selves over to the practice their downfall began. All kinds of
pains and penalties were ordered for drunkards, from the pouring
of melted lead down their throats to heavy fines. The custom of
kissing is said to have owed its origin to the desire of Roman hus-
bands to ascertain whether their female relations had been drink-
ing, an offense which was punished in Romulus's time by death,
and subsequently by deprivation of the benefit of dowry. Not-
withstanding the severe enactments which the wisest of the ancient
legislators passed, the practice grew and, growing, uprooted the
power of the States."
CHAPTER XXI.
FINAL APPEAL TO OUR BRETHREN AND SISTERS OF THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
"Behold
IN regard to His Second Coming the Lord declares:
I make all things new." In this New Age, the dawning of which
we now behold all around us, men and women who are willing are
to be renewed by receiving new light and new life from the Lord.
The causes of the prevailing suffering, disease, deformity, insanity
and premature death, or the bad habits, customs and all evils of
life and the falses by which they are justified and upheld, are to
be sought out, exposed and shunned as sins; and, as a consequence,
health, beauty, sanity and longevity are to take the place of the
suffering, disease, deformity, insanity and premature death which
surround us on every hand at this day. Love of obedience to the
Divine Commandments, love of the neighbor and love to the Lord
are to take the place of the prevailing love of sensual gratification,
money, vain show, and of rule without regard to use; and thus
humanity is to be rejuvenated and renewed.
The Church of the Future is to be strictly a reform Church, not
simply as to doctrines, but especially as to life. And wherever,
and in whatever organization, men and women are faithfully and
conscientiously striving to shun evils as sins, in them is this New
Christianity being manifested.
The great Methodist organization, commencing its existence
soon after the Last Judgment, which took place in the spiritual
world in 1757, sought earnestly to overcome the most prominent
prevailing evils by teaching and leading its members to shun in-
temperance, extravagance and vain display; and it has been a
power for good in the world, and has prospered as to numbers as
no other Church organization has prospered; and to-day it stands
at the very front of the grand reforms of this New Age; and
thus, without the full and clear light of the New Dispensation,
warmed by the inflowing love or life from the New Heavens, it is
nobly striving to teach and lead its members and the world to
shun the use of intoxicating drinks, tobacco, and the vain and in-
488
FINAL APPEAL.
jurious habits of women, and to protect the young from these
evils; and it is also foremost in discarding the drunkard's cup
from the Holy Supper, and in efforts to prevent the manufacture
and sale of intoxicants as beverages. The Baptist, Presbyterian,
Congregationalist and other church organizations, so far as intem-
perance is concerned, are following in the wake of the Methodist
Church; while those old conservative organizations, the Episco-
palian and the Catholic, are rapidly bringing up the rear-in our
country and England at least.
We are told by Swedenborg that the angels rejoiced greatly
that it had pleased the Lord to reveal a knowledge of corre-
spondences so deeply concealed during some thousands of years.
"And they said it was done in order that the Christian Church
which is founded on the Word, and is now at its end, may again
revive and draw breath through heaven from the Lord."—C. L.
532.
"Doctrinals alone," says Emanuel Swedenborg, "do not con-
stitute the external, much less the internal, of the Church, as was
shown above; nor do they serve to distinguish Churches before
the Lord; but this is affected by a life according to doctrinals, all
of which, if true, regard charity as fundamental. For what is
the end and purpose of doctrines, but to teach how a man should
live? The several Churches in the Christian world are distin-
guished by their doctrines, and the members of these Churches
have therefore taken the names of Roman Catholics, Lutherans,
Calvinists, or Reformed and Evangelical Protestants, with many
others. This distinction of names arises solely from doctrines, and
would never have existed if the members of the Church had made
love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor the principal
points of faith. Doctrines would then have been varieties of
opinion concerning the mysteries of faith, which true Christians
would leave to every one to receive according to his conscience,
while the language of their hearts would be, he is a true Christian
who lives as a Christian, that is, as the Lord teaches. Then one
Church would be formed out of all these diverse ones, and all dis-
agreements arising from mere doctrines would vanish; yea, all the
animosities of one against the other would be speedily dissipated,
and the Lord's kingdom would be established on earth.”—A. C.
1799.
While the Christian Church in this country, to a large extent,
in many of its external organizations, is silent in regard to the
evils of intemperance, and so many of its periodicals and clergy
FINAL APPEAL.
489
are striving to justify the use of fermented wine as a communion
wine, and even as a beverage, and some of them of whisky, our
brethren in Great Britain are awakening to the importance of
this question. Church Temperance organizations, with auxiliary
societies, have been formed; and "Bands of Hope," in various
localities, are energetically laboring in this great reform movement.
Shall we, of the Christian Church in this country, set our faces
against this fearful evil of indulging in intoxicating drinks, and
consequently put away drunkenness from our midst; or shall we,
knowing and remembering that such drinks are the product of
human manipulation and skill, or science aided by leaven, continue
to cling to and lug along these flesh-pots from Egypt in our journey
toward the Holy City? We pray for the peace of the New Jeru-
salem, and that the promises of increase made to her may find a
speedy fulfillment on the earth. May not the day which we thus
desire and hope for be hastened or delayed, as we ourselves shall
prepare the way for it, by shunning evils as sins against God. We
are told in the Writings of the Church that the "falsities of the
former Church fight against the truths of the New" (A. R. 548),
and "that the Church should at first be among a few, and should
increase gradually among many, because the falsities of the former
Church must first be removed, as truths cannot before be received ;
for the truths which are received and implanted before falsities are
removed do not remain." With these words before us, can we bo-
lieve it possible that the Lord in His Providence will permit Church
organizations to prosper, as we all feel that our Churches should
prosper, and cover the earth, while such organizations and their
periodicals and clergy, so frequently either keep silent in regard
to such evils or are direct advocates of the drinking of intoxi-
cating liquors, of smoking and chewing tobacco-a terribly pois-
onous substance-and of the pernicious fashionable habits so
destructive to our race; thus either tolerating or directly striving
to perpetuate during the endless ages to come, drunkenness ; filthy
habits; a polluted atmosphere for men, women and children to
breathe; deformity; disease, and the destruction of a large por-
tion of the children before they are five years old, and permitting
few to reach advanced age. These evils, as we have heretofore
intimated, have come down to us from a perverted age of the
world and a fallen state of the Church, and we must put them
away as sins against God. What a dreadful thing it is to strive to
justify them from a religious standpoint, and thus to perpetuate
them from generation to generation !
490
FINAL APPEAL.
What a fearful thing for humanity, if the Christian Church of
this New Age, the Crown of all the Churches, were to prevail
rapidly and spread over the earth, hugging to her bosom the
monstrous evils we have named above; or, at least, allowing
them to prevail without one word of rebuke, and thus perpetuating
them.
We can stand aloof, my brethren, from the great reforms
of this New Age; indeed, we may oppose them if we will; but let
us not forget that by so doing we shall be hindering, as far as
within us lies, the Lord's work on earth, by cherishing and defend-
ing the falsities of the former Church within the New; and oppos-
ing and discrediting the New Jerusalem now descending from God
out of Heaven, which is making all things new. Light has come
into the world, showing us many evils that were before esteemed
good; and that light will condemn us if we walk not according to
it. These great reform movements did not exist and could not
have existed before the Last Judgment in 1757. They are clearly
of the New Jerusalem; we may not be, for it requires life as well
as faith to make a man a genuine Christian. We must shun evils
as sins-shun them in our external lives, and discountenance them
in others by our example, if we would enter the Holy City. It is
not well for us to deceive ourselves or others.
The State Board of Public Charities in the State of Massachu-
setts make this significant statement: that in the careful breed-
ing of cattle ninety-six per cent. come to maturity, and that of
horses ninety-five per cent. come to maturity even in this northern
climate; but in the breeding of children less than sixty-five per
cent. come to maturity.
Only think of it, dear reader. Seven times as many of the
human race, whom the Lord has endowed with freedom and rea-
son, die before reaching maturity, as die among cattle and horses ;
and this is not the worst feature of the comparison which can be
made; for of those which reach a mature age among the above ani-
mals, if their lives are not taken, and they are not abused by man,
almost all will be healthy, strong and well-developed, and finally
die of old age; while among the human species, almost all inherit
a tendency to some one or more of the various diseases which
afflict humanity, and a majority cannot be regarded as healthy;
nearly all are subject to serious periods of suffering, if they do not
stiffer more or less almost constantly from the time of birth to the
grave. Insanity is also fearfully prevalent, and deformity is not
common among the men. Among the women it is very diffi-
cult to find a single beautiful, symmetrical, graceful human
FINAL APPEAL.
491
form; for deformity is the rule; alas! too frequently voluntarily
induced; as in the case of the deformed waists which are almost
universal.
We judge of the age of a horse by his teeth. What success
would we have in judging of the age of middle-aged men and
women by their teeth? Why, it often happens that by the age of
forty or fifty years, when they should be in their prime, they have
no teeth; but if they are more fortunate, it very frequently happens
that the teeth are so crowded and decayed, or so many of them
gone, that we should find them a very poor criterion by which to
judge of the age of the individual.
Now, dear brethren, this direful state of things-this deformity,
insanity, suffering and premature death, is the result of causes
both spiritual and physical—is the result of the violation of the
laws of spiritual and physical life and health, in consequence of
the abuse of the freedom and reason with which the Lord has
endowed us. We cannot attribute it all to ignorance, for the
animals are ignorant, but comparatively healthy. A large portion
is due to the evils of a long line of ancestors; but, insomuch as
we violate the laws of spiritual and physical life we individually
are responsible, and we are responsible for the example which we
set to others. How important for us, how important for the
world around us, and for our children and our children's children
for ages to come, that we realize our responsibility and shape our
lives accordingly. Can you, dear parents, see your own child
suffering and dying, while the offspring of the animals around
you are so generally healthy and grow to maturity, without feeling
that some little responsibility rests upon you, and without being
moved by sympathy for the children, whom the Lord has entrusted
to your care, to inquire earnestly into the causes which have pro-
duced the suffering and death of your little ones? You will not
have to inquire long, to find that to gratify perverted love of
approbation or vanity, and perverted appetites and passions, habits
are voluntarily followed which are fearfully destructive to our
race.
We think we can say, without any danger of having our opinion
called in question by any one who has patiently and carefully ex-
amined into the causes of the physical suffering, deformity and
premature deaths around us, that tight lacing among our women
impairs the physical development and stamina of our race more
than any other evil; for it saps the very foundations of life, by.
preventing the development of the young, before they are born;-
i
492
FINAL APPEAL.
and by too frequently depriving them of proper nourishment after
birth. The women of the Christian Church have here a work to
do which they should not neglect. This fearful evil, which is so
destructive, should be put away and shunned as a sin. Idleness
among the young women is also a great evil with many, and prevents
the development of the body.
But beyond all question, the use of intoxicating drinks which
have their origin, as we have seen, from hell, demoralizes and
depraves men, and causes more insanity, mental suffering and
wretchedness than any other evil. While so many of the Church
organizations and their pulpits and periodicals are either shunning
this subject, or directly justifying and thus encouraging the use of
intoxicating drinks; and so many of our clergymen are vindicating
the use of fermented wine as a communion wine, and some even
as a beverage; other religious organizations around us are alive
to the importance and duty of shunning this evil. We ask our
brethren to consider seriously the following paragraph which we
take from the New York Tribune:
"The Methodist Conference which closed its sessions in Port-
land, Me., last week, adopted a striking report on the evils of
intemperance. The charge was made that more than two-thirds
of the murders committed can be laid at rum's door. Fifty per
cent. of all the insanity comes from strong drink. Seventy-five
per cent. of all criminals become such while crazed by drink, and
ninety-six per cent. of all the tramps and worthless youth of the
land swarm from drunken homes. It costs for the support of
63,000 churches, 80,000 ministers, all public schools and colleges,
all missions, all benevolent work in the United States, and the
support of the National Government, not over $500,000,000 a
year. It costs for 250,000 dram-shops, 400,000 liquor-sellers,
over 300,000 criminals, 800,000 paupers, 30,000 idiots, nearly
70,000 drunkards' funerals, and to maintain the orphan asylums,
reformatories, etc., more than a billion a year. Who is responsible
for all this waste of money, and health and life? The Church of
Christ is largely responsible; for the Master has said to His
Church, 'Ye are the light of the world, ye are the salt of the
earth.'"
There are millions of people in the United States, who belong
to no Church, who do not regularly attend Church, and who-be-
lieve the doctrines of no religious body. They have discarded
many false doctrines, but have no accurate knowledge of true
doctrines, excepting a general acquaintance with the Command-
FINAL APPEAL.
493
ments of the Decalogue, and the precepts enunciated by the Lord
when He was on earth, and for these they entertain more or less
respect. They are not hypocrites, and many of them are intelligent
inen and women, and live orderly lives. They generally respect
people who live good lives, and will listen attentively and ap-
provingly to earnest practical preaching which inculcates a good
life. Here, then, in our own country, living in our very midst, are
people enough in this Gentile state, to form a nation, which,
standing by itself, would command the respect of the world.
The New Christianity has true doctrines, and the most valuable
precepts of life which can be rationally seen to be true-true in
the light of truth itself; and the clergy of all denominations
around us, are steadily and surely becoming acquainted with these
Heavenly Doctrines.
Why is it, then, that Church organizations do not make more
rapid progress among this multitude, to all appearance so ad-
mirably prepared for reception of clear and rational doctrines?
Have we, who have received more or less fully these beautiful
revelations, cast any stumbling-blocks in their way? Have clergy-
men and writers done so? These are questions well worthy of our
consideration. If the reader will pardon him, the writer will
give a little of his own history. Although the son of a deacon of
a Church, he never united with that Church, but early began to
doubt many of its doctrines; and at thirty years of age, he be-
longed to the great class of Gentiles, if you please to call them so,
to which he has alluded. While practising medicine in a Western
city, two of his patrons, one a lady and the other a gentleman,
lent him Professor George Bush's "Reasons," and Swedenborg's
"Heaven and Hell," both of which he read. About that time
some lectures which he attended were being given by a clergyman,
and in this way he soon became deeply interested in the Writings
of Emanuel Swedenborg. His business partner, similarly situated,
also commenced reading about the same time. It was soon known
by the members there, that we were reading the writings with
some interest; and soon afterward we were invited to a Church
"sociable," which we attended. During the evening, fermented
wine was passed around to the company present, and offered to
We were shocked beyond measure, and quietly spoke to the
clergyman in regard to it, there and then; when, to our surprise,
he justified its use, quoting for that purpose some passages from
Swedenborg, and then drank of it himself along with others of the
company.
us.
494
FINAL APPEAL.
When the writer was about eighteen years old, his father gave
up the use of intoxicating drinks, and signed a pledge never to
use them again, and his son followed his example. In looking
back over the years which have since passed, at his own life and
the lives of his acquaintances, if there is one thing standing out
boldly above all others for which he to-day specially feels thank-
ful to his father, it is for the example which he then set him. We
know that it is not every child who follows the example of his
parents; but many do, both in good and evil. That pledge the
writer conscientiously kept. When a young man, away from kindred
and home, and traveling for months among strangers, he was often
asked to drink, even by ladies; but that pledge was-what the
Church should be to all its members-a protection against the de-
basing evil of drinking and drunkenness.
There are millions of men and women in our country, who be-
long to no Church, but who have taken a pledge to abstain from
the use of intoxicating drinks, honestly feeling that it is wrong to
use them; and who, we have every reason to suppose, are con-
scientiously keeping it, and are thereby shielded and protected,
not only from drunkenness, but from many other evils; for Sweden-
borg teaches us that when a man conscientiously shuns one evil as
a sin, the Lord strives to and does keep him in the effort to shun
all evils. Here, then, is good ground for the reception of the
rational doctrines of the New Christianity, which are gradually
permeating all Church organizations, and a vast field ready for
the seedsman. But we ask you, intelligent reader, if a minister,
missionary, writer, layman, or periodical-with, as it were, the
most clear and beautiful revelations of Divine Truth in one hand,
and a glass of intoxicating wine, beer, or perhaps whisky in the
other hand-is likely to command the respect, or even seriously
attract the attention of many of this great army of total abstinence
men and women dwelling among us? Is this not a dreadful evil,
a hindrance to the Church's progress, and a stumbling-block to
many conscientious men, which we, as Christians, should remove
out of the path of others, by putting it away from our lives and
from our communion tables?
Again, there is scarcely a man or woman in this great multitude,
who does not recognize the fact that the use of tobacco is a filthy
and injurious habit, totally unbecoming a Christian man; a large
number of total abstainers from intoxicating drinks abstain also
from the use of tobacco, because they feel that it is injurious to
health, and consequently wrong to use it. There are very few in
FINAL APPEAL.
495
the community who, whether they use it or not, do not recognize
and will not acknowledge that its use is injurious, and that it is
really an evil which should be put away. Now, with the glorious
doctrines in our keeping, that "all religion has relation to life,
and that the life of religion is to do good," and that to shun evils
as sins is to do good; what is the example so frequently set by
even venerable and deservedly esteemed members of our Church
organizations? Is it such as will command the respect of this
large class of our citizens who totally shun the evils we are con-
sidering? If these men to whom we may best appeal, judge the
doctrines offered for their acceptance by the teaching and example
of those who hold and advocate them, will they not be repelled by
the consciousness that, instead of advancing to a higher plane of
life in the Church, they will be abandoning good for evil, and
descending to a lower plane? The teaching of men who justify,
and thus encourage the use of intoxicating drinks and tobacco,
cap never command the respect of total abstinence men and women.
The Church will not grow as she should till she is purged from the
old leaven.
Doubtless, many remember the anecdote which was told of a
prominent member of a Church, who met his pastor as he was
about entering the pulpit, and, whispering in his ear, said: "Be
very careful and not say anything in your sermon about the
manufacturing, sale, and use of intoxicating drinks, for Mr. ——,
the distiller, who contributes largely to the support of our Church,
I see is present." "Well," replied the clergyman, "what shall I
preach about, if I may not speak of such an evil?” Why," re-
plied the member, "preach about anything-anything else—preach
about the Mormons; there is not a single Mormon in our con-
gregation."
((
But preaching which purposely shuns the habitual evils of life,
such as the selling and using of intoxicating drinks and tobacco,
and of tight lacing-evils which are so fearful in their consequences
as to lessen the vitality of our race, and to impair the health, and
even to destroy the lives of men, women and innocent children—
does not to-day command the respect of the vast multitude of in-
telligent men and women, who, belonging to no external Church
organization, are shunning these evils. Evils in our day are
brought to light and made more clearly manifest than they have
been in past ages, and intelligent men who would be likely to
receive the doctrines of the New Christianity, see them when
properly presented by preaching, and respect those who shun them
496
FINAL APPEAL.
in their lives. Here then is good ground for the seedsman who
shuns evils, and thus sets an example to others.
sum of
Herein, it seems to the writer, lies the power of the Methodist
Church among those outside of Church organizations, and the
reason why it has made such progress in the world. It has been
foremost in denouncing evils, and active in every great reform
movement. It gave forth no uncertain sound as to that "
all villainies," human slavery, and it was a power in the land for
good in the contest that resulted in its final overthrow. In regard
to the terrible evil of intemperance, the Methodist Conference
fearlessly declares, as on a preceding page, that "The Church of
Christ is largely responsible" for all of the resulting waste of
money, and health, and life; "for the Master has said to His
Church, 'Ye are the light of the world, ye are the salt of the
earth.'"
As to the use of tobacco, the testimony of the Methodist Church
is almost unanimously against it; and it has not feared to grapple
to some extent with the injurious and destructive habits of women,
to point them out, and to call upon its members to shun them.
And yet we should remember that most of its members are living
only in the dawning light of the New Jerusalem, and do not even
recognize the source from which the light of this New Age is
coming; but we know that those who strive to live in accordance
with the truths which they already sec, are, as a rule, the first to
recognize other truths when they are presented; consequently, as
might be expected, we have good evidence that the light of this
new day is permeating this Church rapidly. There are several
other Churches not far behind the Methodist Episcopal Church in
their condemnation of the drinking of intoxicating wine; and,
nsequently, they are becoming arks of safety against the flood
of drunkenness, and a host of other evils intimately connected
with wine and whisky-drinking. Is it strange that fathers and
mothers who love their children, and care for their future happi-
ness and welfare, feel safe in a Church where they are taught by
the pulpit and press, and by the precepts and example of its mem-
bers, to shun the use of intoxicating wine-to say nothing of
whisky-and have no desire to join a Church which, by its pulpit
and its press, is generally either silent or justifying the use of
this fearfully poisonous and destructive drink; and whose mem、
bers, even to its clergy, not unfrequently set an example to the
young by openly using it? Should not clergymen who love intox-
icating drinks, tobacco or opium, and are not willing to give up
FINAL APPEAL.
497
their use, stop and consider whether it is not their duty to step
down and out of the pulpit and cease to be a hindrance to the
inflowing of new light and life from the Lord. If the blind lead
the blind, both will fall into the evils or the ditch, for the truth
as to such evils as using intoxicants and tobacco can only be
clearly seen as men shun evils as sins. Will intelligent fathers
and mothers who are careful about the influences to which they
subject their children, long endure clergymen who ir ulge in
the evil habits of using tobacco and intoxicants, as the teachers
and examplers of those who are so dear to them, and for whose
training they are responsible?
A recent writer says truly that, "Entire abstinence insures
safety; nothing else can. It is a great act to reclaim a drinking
man, but how much greater to keep a young man from the use of
intoxicating drinks."
ance.
If our clergy are indulging in injurious, and consequently
evil habits and practices, it is the duty of laymen, who see the
truth, to place it before them, and if need, to call them to repent-
Even though the clergy may not lead, at first, in the war-
fare against such external evils as we have been considering, yet
their support is necessary, and in due time we shall have it. It is
their province to lead in good works and minister in holy ordi-
nances, and so we hope and believe it will be with our ministers
whom we honor and love for the sake of their office. When the
battle has fa.i̇ly begun, and the clergy, seeing the truth and freed
from their old prejudices, shall have taken their proper place
among the leaders of the Lord's host in its conflicts with those evils
which are destroying the bodies and souls of men; then, then,
indeed, the victory will be assured. Then the Church of God, a
well-marshaled army, fighting in solid phalanx on the side of
Sruth and love, of justice and mercy, of temperance in all good
uses and total abstinence from all evil uses, shall go on from
victory to victory, till the drinking of fermented wine and whisky,
and the chewing and smoking of tobacco, and tight dressing and
fashionable idleness are forever banished from the Church and the
world.
No man or soldier ever enlisted in a more noble or more worthy
cause than this. The enslavement of a man by his fellow-man is
bad enough, but it is only natural slavery after all, for the slave is
free to will and to think rightly; and if he is so restrained that he
cannot always do what he believes to be right, it is not his fault.
His understanding may be unclouded by his bondage, and his will
498
FINAL APPEAL.
left free; but oh! how different from all this, how much more
fearful is the slavery which results from the use of intoxicating
drinks and narcotics, where the strongest will is powerless and the
clearest intellect is clouded until the truth cannot be recognized, or
if seen is denied.
Stand, kind reader, as the writer has done, by the bedside of
men of naturally strong wills and clear intellects, as they are re-
covering from an attack of delirium tremens, and behold the utter
desolation of the poor slaves, and the despair with which they look
forward to the future; then answer if African slavery is not tame
when compared with the wild, mad slavery which results from the
indulgence in fermented liquors. A very intelligent man whom
the writer had just attended during an attack of this disease, was
asked to give a history of his connection with intoxicating drinks.
He replied that when a young man he found that he was getting
too fond of such stimulants, and he resolved to abandon them for-
ever, and for fifteen years he never tasted them. In the meantime
he married, and became the father of several children. One
evening, when he and his wife were visiting some friends, the lady
of the house passed around some fermented wine, and invited him
to take a glass. 'For the first time within fifteen years," he
said, "I was seriously tempted to drink. I turned to my wife,
and asked her if I should take a glass; she replied that she did
not think one glass would hurt me; but that one glass was my
ruin. My old appetito returned with renewed strength, and you
know the result." Alas, poor man! The writer knew but too
well the sad results which had flowed to him and his distressed
wife and children from that one glass of fermented wine, presented
by a lady friend; for during one attack of delirium tremens, in
an attempt to escape from imaginary foes, ho attempted to kill
himself, by springing with all of his strength and striking his
head against a door-frame, laying his scalp open for several inches;
and on another occasion he was insane for several weeks after an
attack. Little did that lady dream of the dreadful injury she was
doing her middle-aged guest by presenting him with a glass of
wine; little does any lady know of the harm she may do to any
one, especially to the young, when she presents this seductive
fluid to their lips. Let us all remember the words of Holy Writ:
"Woe to him that giveth his neighbor drink; and puttest thy
bottle to him."
And now, dear brethren and sisters of the Christian Church
of every organization, we have seen that the Word of the Lord, as
FINAL APPEAL.
499
"drink that
translated by Emanuel Swedenborg, teaches that a
maketh drunken" is unholy and unclean, and we know that fer-
mented wine will cause drunkenness; we are taught in the Writings
of the Church that all substances which are poisonous and will harm
and kill men, have their origin from hell, and we know that fer-
mented wine has in all ages done this and is doing it to-day all
around us; and Swedenborg actually compares such wine as
causes drunkenness to falses from evil, as we have seen; and we
know that it produces natural drunkenness and insanity, as falses
from evil do spiritual drunkenness and insanity. We are clearly
taught by the sciences of this day, and by abundant observation,
that the use of fermented wine is not only entirely unnecessary
during health, but also that it tends to pollute, disease and destroy
the material body, and to cause the most fearful mental perversions,
not unfrequently even to insanity. Knowing all this, as many of us
certainly do, can we consistently-conscientiously if you please—
continue to partake of leavened or fermented wine in the most
holy ordinance of the Lord's Supper? Some of us we know have
not unfrequently felt that it was almost, if not quite, a profana-
tion to partake of such a fluid, and have even absented ourselves
from the Lord's Table for this reason. Now, is such a course
right, and have we done our duty? Have we, before doing this,
requested the societies to which we belong to furnish unfermented
wine for such members as have conscientious scruples against
using fermented wine? If we have not done this, should we not
do so before absenting ourselves from this most needed ordinance?
As members of societies, we have rights which our brethren aro
bound to respect; and we should remember that they have rights
which we are equally bound to respect. Those who conscientiously
desire to use fermented wine, if there are any such, should certainly
have the privilege of doing so. The freedom we desire for our-
selves we should cheerfully grant to others in the bonds of charity,
for in no other way can unity be preserved in the Church.
In concluding this work, the writer desires to repeat that it is
his settled conviction, that the strongest bulwark of the present
drinking habits, and the consequent drunkenness which exists
around us, is found in the use of fermented wine at the communion
tables in our Churches; for its presence there, especially its ex-
clusive presence, gives it character and credit everywhere where
the influence of the Churches which use it is felt. The use of fer-
mented wine as communion wine is a fearful evil and source of
'woe" to the Christian Church, cruel injury to some of its
1
500
FINAL APPEAL.
members, an injustice to others, a temptation to the young, and a
stumbling-block to multitudes who otherwise might be attracted
to the Church by the beautiful and rational doctrines, with which
the clergy at this day are rapidly becoming acquainted, which
have descended from the Lord out of heaven to purify, heal and
bless the nations of the earth. Let us never rest until this evil is
put away from the Church and from the world.
SPECIAL NOTICES-BOOKS-UNFERMENTED WINE.
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Address Dr. JOHN ELLIS, either at Edgewater, Bergen Co., N. J., or at
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THE TOBACCO PROBLEM, by Meta Lander (Mrs. Margaret Woods Law-
rence), published by De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 365 Washington street, Boston,
will be sent by the publishers, postage paid, for $1.25. This book, with-
out fail, should go into every family, Sunday-school, school and college
library in our country, in the estimation of the author of the present vol-
ume; and parents, clergymen, and teachers should see that it is placed
in such libraries and read by the young and old, too.
UNFERMENTED WINE.-Those who may desire a pure, unfermented
wine for Sacramental or medical purposes, or as a beverage; a wine which
is preserved without the use of acids or any other substance not actually
contained in the grape, can procure such wine of Rev. Dr. E. R. Tuller, of
Vineland, N. J. Price, per dozen pints, $5.00. The writer is well ac-
quainted with the Rev. Dr. Tuller, and with his method of preserving
wine, which is one of the very best. It is put up with great care, and is
very palatable.
A
INDEX.
Abstainers, Total, and life insurance sta-
tistics, 29, 2, 366–369.
Abstinence, Ancient examples of, 9
among the Egyptians, 91, 92.
among the Brahmins, 92, 215.
among the Medes, 92.
Clement of Alcxandria, 94, 209.
Abstinence, Total, from evils is the true
law of Temperance, 59, 213.
from intoxicants the only safe rule, 106,
112, 207, 213, 217, 219, 220, 251, 295, 298,
303, 493.
Appeal of Pliny for, 93.
Christian Churches in favor of, 252-254,
369, 437.
เ
Acton, Cardinal. Crimes at Rome are
largely from use of wine, 315.
Adams Roman Antiquities." 138, 159.
African Race, The, in the Writings, 377-
379.
Recent confirmation of the Writings
concerning, 379–381.
in the United States, 382.
Ainsworth, 248.
Alcohol, a poison, 36, 39, 79, 91-120, 262,
30.).
•
is always the result of decomposition
by leaven, 38, 302.
originates from the destruction of sugar,
33, 74, 91, 236, 303.
is largely the excrementitious dis-
charges of living organisms, 76, 78, 91,
357, 432.
originates from hell, 27, 79, 173, 223, 308,
356.
Seductive nature of, 110.
has no food value, 40, 97, 98, 111, 117.
develops an unnatural appetite for it-
self, 0), 193, 311, 371, 372.
its action on the mind, 100, 103, 110, 193.
Hereditary influence of, 101, 102, 104,
1 2, 311.
compared to the doctrine of faith alone
in its effects, 103, 455, 484.
destroys freedom and sanity, 100, 103.
corresponds to the falsification of the
Word from evil, 305.
corresponds with evils and falses in its
effects on body and mind, 172, 308,
328, 356.
compared as to clearness with wisdom
purified, 326.
is never found in sound grapes, 78, 243:
affords a plane for the influx of spirits
that are spiritually drunk, 113, 240.
reduces the temperature of the body, 98;
117, 810.
is unreliable as a remedy, 10.
generally admits of substitutes as med-
icine, 97, 116.
taste for it, an acquired one, 119.
enfeebles reason and excites the ani-
mal passions, 101.
retards healthy waste from the organs,
115, 311.
Ancient testimony to the poisonous nat-
ure of, 91-94.
Medical testimony to the poisonous nat-
ure of, 94–96, 97–102, 111, 116.
should not be self-prescribed, 97.
Alcoholic Poisoning. Its effects on dif-
ferent organs, 37, 94, 95, 98, 99, 102,
110, 118, 193, 309-311, 320, 321.
Allen, Dr. Nathan, 101, 395.
Alsop, Mr., 146.
Ames, D.D., A. H., 158.
Anacreon, 259.
Ancient teaching and testimony concern-
ing wine, 107 et seq.
Androcydes, 93.
Anthon, LL.D., Chas., 154.
Apostles full of gleukos, 182.
Appeal, Final, against evils of living, 487-
500.
Apple-tree, A sick, 216.
Aquinas, Thomas, 128,
Aristaus, 276.
Aristotle, 102, 132, 134, 155, 158.
Arthur, T. S., 308.
Athenæus, 128, 132, 215.
Augustine, St., 128.
Baal Hatturim, 183.
B
Bacchus squeezing grapes into a cup, 82,
132, 1-3.
Baccius, Andreas, 142.
Bacon, Lord, 129.
Baer, Dr., 322.
Barnes, D.D., Rev. Albert, 202.
Barry, Sir Edward, 143.
Basil, Bishop of Cappadocia, 210.
Beard, Dr., 127.
Beecher, Rev. Charles, 198.
Beecher, Miss Catharine, 407, 409.
Beer is not advisable as a tonic, 323.
and children, 324, 370, 372.
a Beginner's drink, 324, 370.
not a healthful drink, 319–321.
Beer-drinking, Specific diseases produced
by, 319, 321.
Life insurancetestimony concerning;320.
Dr. Bell on, 321.
does not diminish spirit-drinking, 322.
excessive in Germany, 322, 329.
habit, 372.
Beginners' Society, 111.
502
INDEX.
Begole, Gov. ( Mich.), 363.
Jell, Dr., 321.
Bennett, Dr., 435.
Bible, The. Two kinds of wine in, 121-
124, 171–173, 175–189, 313, 357, 3C0.
Tirosh has almost always a good signi-
fication in, 189, 190, 234.
nowhere sanctions the use of fermented
wine, 187, 188, 189, 313, 357, 454.
Yayin in, 181, 257-258, 281.
interpreted by the science of corre-
spondences, 15, 16, 35.
Fermented liquors caused all the drunk-
enness reproved in, 282, 314.
misconstrued to justify drinking fer-
mented wine, 189.
Bible Commentary, The Temperance, 11,
109, 128, 129, 130, 132, 141, 143, 177, 178,
179, 180, 181, 184, 199, 244, 248, 260, 285.
Bible Temperance?
What constitutes,
213, 219.
Bible Wines and Temperance, Prof. Geo.
Bush on, 123.
Blood, The circulation and purification
of, 416-418.
is purified in passing through the air-
cells of the lungs, 416-418.
Blood of Grapes signifies spiritual celestial
good, 170, 222, 230, 237, 241, 341, 348.
is not formented wine, 243, 244.
needs no purification, 32, 339.
Blood, Pure wine has a composition and
signification similar to, 81, 205, 226,
240, 245, 272, 357, 481.
Body, The material, is the effect of the
spiritual, 41, 44.
is developed by the spirit's growth, 53.
built up symmetrically by good uses,
64.
Conditions necessary for the develop-
ment of, 424-443.
Importance of sunlight for development
of, 424-429.
Perfect adaptation of unfermented wine
for nourishing, 82, 84, 192, 205, 226,
229, 245, 278, 357, 481.
Boerhave, Herman, 138.
Bowers, Rev. J. E., 379.
Boys and the tobacco habit, 369, 394.
Brahmins, Abstinence among the An-
cient, 92, 215.
Bread, Correspondence of leavened, 354.
Correspondence of unleavened, 344.
Superior healthfulness of, when made of
flour ground from entire grain, 433-435.
Baking drives ferment out of, 195, 331,
338, 344.
Fermented bread and fermented wine
in the Lord's Supper, 194, 195.
Brown, Wm. G., 103, 145.
Buckingham, Mr., 147.
Burns, A.M., Rev. Dawson, 130, 260, 283.
Bush, Prof. Geo., 123.
C
Cana, Miracle at the wedding feast in,
159, 257–265.
6:
Groundless assumption that the guests
were exhilarated with wine" at,
257-260,
Wine of was not alcoholic, 260-265.
Calmet, A gustine, 138.
Carpenter, Dr. Wm. B., 151, 183.
Cato, 153, 183.
Causes, natural and spiritual, correspond,
35, 173, 325.
Charity, What constitutes, 22.
Chambers, F.R.S., E., 129.
Chandler, Prof. Chas. F., 71.
Chaptel, Count, 74.
Chest. Its action in breathing should be
unconfined, 412.
Children, Abuse of, 425–437.
by keeping them out of the sunlight,.
425-429.
by depriving them of suitable food,
431-437.
by undue restraint and privation of
healthy exercise, 429-431.
by giving them tea and coffee, 436.
Children, Saloons and tobacco shops the
ruin of young, 369.
and the tobacco habit, 369, 394.
Christison, 102.
Chrysostom, St., 262.
Church, Consummation of the first Chris-
tian, 329.
Affection for knowing truths, joined to
charity, is the foundation of a, 17, 18.
Life, not doctrine, constitutes the, 18,
19.
in charity should protect its young
against evils of life, 18, 487.
should be a refuge against drinking
habits, 226, 251, 445, 460, 463.
Its duty regarding intoxicating drinks,
215, 360.
Its duty toward reform movements, 360.
must purge itself from evils of life,
463, 465.
Harvest-fields ready for the, 46, 402,
495.
Its undue apathy toward reform move-
ments, 360.
Churches. The former Churches were
external, 17.
Churches, Eastern, use unfermented wine
at communion, 247-240.
Clarke, Dr. Adam, 123, 127, 180, 207.
Clement of Alexandria, 94, 107, 208, 209.
Clergymen should not use intoxicating
drinks, 210, 221, 226, 496.
Duty and responsibility of, 112, 221,
251, 445-447.
Evil effects of the bad habits of, 221,
463- 471, 472, 475, 494, 497.
Difficulties that confront, 447, 448.
and the tobacco habit, 391, 393, 400.
must oppose evils of life, 449, 459, 495.
are not infallible, 450.
Cluster, Wine in the, 222, 236, 257.
Coskran, Rev. J. G., 316.
Coffee and Tea, Effects of, 404-406.
Coffee Houses not desirable, 404.
Coit, T. W., 249.
Coles, Dr. L. B., 387, 391, 394.
Collins' Voyages, 183.
Columella, 139, 153, 154, 165, 318.
Communion Wine, Preparation and pres-
ervation of, 218, 238, 240, 248, 249.
INDEX.
Unfermented must has the highest sig-
nification as, 231–234.
Unfermented wine used by the Eastern
Churches for, 217-249.
Only unfermented wine suitable for,
191, 852.
Fresh-pressed grape-juice fit for, 133,
218, 231–233, 237, 238.
in the early Christian Church, 207–210.
A letter on the propriety of using un-
fermented wine as, 483-485.
Fermented wine not suitable for, 13, 38,
71, 91, 125, 174, 206, 235, 236, 246, 278,
308, 852, 453, 482.
Comparison of process of regeneration
with fermentation, 85, 246, 277, 326,
387, 349, 354.
of spiritual purification with purifica-
tion of natural spirits, 325, 341, 349.
of alcohol to the doctrine of faith alone
in its effects, 106, 455, 484.
of alcohol as to its purity with wisdom
purifled, 325.
Falses from evil to intoxicating drinks,
171, 282, 305, 325, 328, 454.
Falses not from evil to waters not pure,
282, 454.
Comparisons, Misconceptions of E. Swe-
denborg's, 325-329, 33, 345, 350.
Connelly, Father, 183.
Cook, Rev. Joseph, 133, 225, 226, 366, 368.
Cooper, Sir Astley, 95.
Cooper, J. Fenimore, 315.
Corning, Rev. J. L., 393.
Correspondence of Alcohol with evils and
falses in its effects on body and mind,
172, 308, 326, 356.
of alcohol with the falsification of the
Word from evil, 305.
of natural and spiritual causes, as food,
medicine, etc., 35, 173, 325.
of leavened bread, 354.
of unleavened bread, 844.
of discases with unclean things in the
spiritual world, 60.
of fermented wine is never good, 170,
255, 854, 356, 358, 454.
between the action of poisons on the
body, and evils and falses on the soul
of man, 39.
of poisonous substances as food and
drink, and evils and falses appropri-
ated and imbibed, 34, 39.
of must, 86.
between natural and spiritual drunken-
ness, 113, 114, 172, 302, 304-306, 356,
455.
between sugar and spiritual delights,
236, 242, 213.
of lees, 153, 156, 195, 827.
Correspondences, Difference between com-
parisons and 325, 337, 353.
Correspondences, The Science of, Univer-
sal application of, 16.
Its importance in the question of in-
toxicating drinks, 14.
The Word Interpreted by, 15, 16, 85.
concerning poisons and healthy food,
86.
Cotton, Mayor C. B., 220, 317.
503
"Crazes that help men to lead good
lives," 297.
Creation, Love of God shown in, 42.
The ultimate purpose of, 42, 43.
The visible creation is but the embodi-
ment of the spiritual 42.
Crime, Intoxicating drinks the chief
source of, 20, 480, 492.
Cushman, Dr., 441.
Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, 200.
Cyrus, Anecdotes of, 92.
Dandalo, Count, 159.
D
Danger of moderate drinking, 27, 100, 107,
109-112, 213, 353, 460.
Darwin, 103.
Davis, Hon. Noah, 25.
Debsh, or grape-honey, wine thickened by
boiling, 130, 138, 139-142, 147, 148.
Delirium Tremens, 111, 112, 498.
Desires, Evil, must not be allowed to ulti-
mate in acts, 105, 306.
Development, Healthy, requires food, ex-
ercise, and light, 424–142.
Dictionaries, Webster's and Worcester's,
127, 224.
and Encyclopedias, 127-130.
"The Gardeners'," 155.
Dioscorides, 129.
Disease, What constitutes, 41.
Origin and cure of, 45.
results from evils and perversions, 46,
49, 50.
External and internal causes of, 51.
Spiritual causes of, 52-57.
Perverted affections a fruitful sourco
of, 55.
Depressing emotions cause, 56.
germs will affect healthy bodies, 58-62.
Diseases. Methods of curing natural and
spiritual diseases correspond, 6-69.
cured by evil uses corresponding to the
disease, 66-19.
have a correspondence with unclean
things in the spiritual world, 60.
Diseases, Spiritual, restrained by punish-
ments and sickness, 66.
by one evil passion restraining another,
66.
by temptations, 67.
Dispensatory, U. S., 94, 276, 401.
Distillation unknown till the sixth cent-
ury, 281,
Doctor of Divinity, Erroneous and hurt-
ful teaching of a, 125, 471, 472, 470.
Doctrine only useful as it leads to charity,
18, 19, 488.
Doctrines alone will not save, 18, 19.
Doctrines, Essential, of the New Chris-
tianity, 21.
Doctrines, False, invented to justify evils
of life, 20, 57.
Domestic work is not degrading, 441.
Drink-crave, The inherited, 103, 104.
The acquired, 811.
Drinks, Strong, Two kinds in the Word,
282.
Good signification of, 284.
not necessarily intoxicating, 281-286.
504
INDEX.
Drunkard, The danger of relapse in a
reformed, 125, 217, 221, 498.
Drunkard, Natural, No one who avoids
alcohol can become a, 113, 114, 119,
294, 35, 861.
Drunkards. How they are made, 370-373.
Drunkenness comes entirely from so-
called temperate drinking. 27-29, 180.
Enormity and selfishness of, 28, 213–215.
No temperate drinker safe from, 29, 100,
212–214, 230, 251, 306.
Natural and spiritual drunkenness cor-
respond, 113, 114, 172, 362, 304–306, 455.
E. Swedenborg on, 312.
Imbibing unperverted truths never
causes spiritual, 113, 204, 205, 255, 356.
signifies insanity from truths falsified,
350.
All drunkenness mentioned in the Bible
was from fermented drinks, 223, 314.
prevails greatly in wine-growing and in
beer-drinking countries, 314-524.
of Noah, 312.
Duff, Dr., 146.
Duffield, D.D., Rev. Geo., 146, 203, 257.
Dunn, Rev. James B., 131.
Duties enjoined by the New Christianity,
21.
E
Eastern Churches use unfermented wine
in the Lord's Supper, 247-249.
Eberle, Dr., W.
Egyptians, Ancient, Abstinence among
the, !!.
Methods of wine-making among, 163–
165.
Elian, 133.
Ellison, H. J., 373.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 18, 225.
Americana, 128.
Zell's, 277.
of Chemistry, 70, 75.
Equilibrium, Dangerous doctrine about
evil ɩ ses and, 57–65.
Eschylus, 131, 259.
Eubulus, 107.
Euripides, 259.
Excrementitious, Alcohol an excrementi-
tious discharge from ferment, 76, 78,
91.
Exercise of bodily and spiritual faculties
necessary for their development, 427,
420-514.
Necessity for active out-door, 419.
Evil tries to overcome and destroy good
in fermentation, 246, 827.
Origin of, 9.
Dvils, Man is able of himself to abstain
from, J, 461.
must be recognized and shunned as
sins against God, 1', xx-24, 408, 425.
and falses are only seen as we strive to
put them away, 42, 40, 254, 329, 330, 58.
The first step toward reform is to put
away, 65, 460, 462.
being removed, good flows in, 29, 30,
254.
Evils of Life destroy freedom of judging,
8, 254, 291, 29, 32, 335, 446, 471.
The New Christianity must put away,
449, 489.
demand more attention from religious
teachers and periodicals, 106, 112, 308,
489, 490.
Suffering and premature death caused
by, to et seq., 448, 490, 491.
Suffering among women from fashion-
able, 24, 40-423.
Clergymen must lead in reforming, 449.
cause men to invent and receive false
doctrines, 20.
Evil uses are such as hurt, and originate
from hell, 31, 97, 113, 193, 340, 346.
F
Faculties not used lose their strength, 420.
Fulses, Man receives strength and free-
dom to avoid, 64.
Falses from evil compared to such wines
and strong drink as cause drunken-
ness, 171, 305, 328, 454.
do not make natural or spiritual drunk-
ards till imbived or appropriated, 65,
119.
Fals s not from evil compared to waters
not pure, 340, 464.
Families, American, Paucity of children
in, 24.
Farrar, Archdeacon, 472.
Fashion Plates and Magazines, Injurious
effects of, 411, 421, 442, 443.
Ferment destroys everything in wine hav-
ing a good correspondence, 80–82, 192,
226, 278, 204, 203, 327, 857.
signifies the false of evil, 224, 229, 255,
209, 302, 354.
Ferment, Germs of, are living organisms,
70, 7, 9, 20%.
their food and excrement of, 70, 76, 7,
91, 303, 45%.
Propagation of, 74-79, 303.
always come from without the grape,
69, 72-74, 75, 77, 78, 90, 275.
cannot exist in the atmosphere of
heaven, 275, 290.
are harmless apart from their poisonous
excretions, 8, 88.
Boiling and sulphurization destroy, 73.
prohibited in every representative rite,
2.28.
Fermentation is not an orderly process of
purification, 69, 77, 358, 451, 482.
Cause and laws of, C0-90.
will not ensue where germs of ferment
arc excluded, 70–73, 78.
Influence of grape-skins on, 71, 72.
is not separation, but decomposition,
77, 78.
Conditions requisite for, 136, 153, 303.
Spiritual and natural. 381.
Process of regeneration compared to,
145, 246, 277, 6, 337, 319, 3.4.
Climate of Palestine not favorable for,
186.
Chemical changes caused in wine by,
8-', 88, 229, 343.
Methods of preventing, 69-90.
Field, A.M., Leon C., 126, 131, 132.
First glass, Danger of, 112, 213–215.
INDEX.
Flour or Meal, Signification of, 86, 332,
344.
The entire wheat grain should be ground
for, 431.
Deficiency of gluten and phosphates in
fine white, 431, 432.
Effects of exclusive use of fine white,
131-48J.
is not purified by leaven, 88, 331, 338,
344.
Food and Poisons, 30-40.
How shall we distinguish? 34-37.
Science of correspondences and, 31-40.
Food, Natural and spiritual, correspond,
35.
should be prepared for health of body
rather than taste, 0.
for the spiritual body is knowledges
and love, 54.
Food Value, Alcohol has no, 40, 97, 98,
111, 117, 118.
Foote, Dr. Gco. F., 75, 76.
“Foundations of Death,” 485.
Fowler, D.D., C. H., 137, 140, 203, 213, 315.
Freedom, The writer's personal, 9, 10.
To see evils we must be in, 3.
Freedom of Man to think and will evils,
but not to do them, 105, 306,
Freed m of Will is given to all, 47, 105.
Man's perception of, 47.
Necessity for, 50.
Habitual use of poisons destroys, 61,
292.
Restraint from evil not an interference
with, 22.
Fruit of the Vine, Unfermented wine is
essentially the, 297, 352, 481.
G
Gentile Nations, Ravages of intoxicating
drinks among, 75-577, 474.
Gesenius, 148, 183, 199.
Gill, Dr. John, 120.
Girls and Young Ladies, Cruel treatment
of, 426, 47-143.
By depriving them of active out-door
sports and strengthening labor, 437–
441.
By making them "little ladies" instead
of substantial girls, 438.
By not fitting them for duties of wives
and mothers, 440.
By improper dressing, 420, 441-443.
Gleukos, Apostles full of, 182.
Gmelin, 147.
Gobat, Bishop of Jerusalem, 248.
only, 21.
505
is called wine in the Word and Writ-
ings, 176-179, 183-186, 189.
does not ferment, but is fermented, 69–
77, 982.
freshly pressed, is suitable for commun-
ion wine, 13, 218, 281-233, 237, 138,
357, 481.
freshly pressed, is turbid, but not im-
pure, 81-81.
corresponds to blood, 81, 205, 226, 240,
245, 246, 272, 357, 481.
how it may be prepared for the Lord's
Supper, 8, 239.
anciently pressed into cups and drank
as wine, 8, 59, 123, 131, 184.
preserved by evaporation at Buda-Pesth,
159.
solidified, 147.
Grapes, Signification of, 222, 224, 312.
Double signification of, 152, 245.
consecrated and used at Braga in the
Lord's Supper, 24c.
Grape Skins hasten fermentation, 71,
Greek and Roman Antiquities, Smith's,
1.4.
Anthon's, 154.
Greeley, Horace, 315.
Green, Col., 520.
Gregsen, Rev. J. Gelsen, 376.
Guillaume, Dr., 315.
Gull, Sir Wm., 95, 263.
Gustafsen, Axel, 485.
Guthrie, Dr. Thomas, 131.
H
Hale, Sir Matthew, 25.
Hall, Rev. Newman, 406.
Hargreaves, M.D., Wm., 99, 303.
| Health and Disease? What are, 41.
Heart, The, and its functions, 416, 417.
Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English words
for wine in the Word and in the Writ-
ings, 175 et seq.
Hebrew and Greek words in the Bible
translated wine, 179.
Henry, Matthew, 180.
Hereditary influence of drinking habit,
107, 102, 105, 162.
Hieratic Papyri, 91.
Hill, Recorder, 315.
Hippocrates, 128.
Holland, Dr., 317.
Holmes, Rev. H., 144.
Homer, 142.
Hopkins, Canon, 266.
God, The Lord Jesus Christ is the One Horace, 142.
rape-cure in Switzerland, 89, 272.
Grape-honey, or Debsh, 10, 138, 139–142,
147, 148.
Grape-jelly, How to make, 273.
Grape-juice contains all things needful
for the body, 82, 84, 226, 240, 245, 481.
as squeezed from the grape and in the
press is called wine, 123, 130, 176-179,
18. 9, 231-234, 272, 451.
may be kept years unfermented, 87, 139.
is pure till polluted by ferment, 84-87,
243, 246, 832,
Howe, Dr. S. G., 103.
I
Insanity caused by intoxicants and tight
dressing,, 103, 172.
Truths falsified produce spiritual, 55,
172.
Institutes of Meǹu, 92, 215.
Intemperance the chief source of crime,
25-28, 362, 473, 480, 492.
Intoxicating
Intoxicating drinks, Philosophy of the
New Christianity bearing upon, 31-
39, 58-61, 169–174, 302-305, 453-457,
506
INDEX.
compared to falses from evil, 171, 305, | Lees have a good and a bad signification.
328, 454.
Sin of cultivating a love for, 213, 293.
Mortality caused by, 298, 362, 366–369.
are unreliable as remedies, 10, 116.
often needlessly prescribed. 40, 469–471.
are being abandoned in Hospital prac-
tice, 470.
are especially dangerous to brain-work-
ers, 100, 101.
Abstinence from, the only course of
safety, 104, 206, 207, 213, 217, 306, 460,
461, 498.
Misery caused by, 109, 211, 212, 213–215,
360, 473, 492.
Duty of the Christian Church in regard
to, 106, 226, 251, 445, 4C0, 463, 89, 90,499.
in Toledo, 372.
No justification for their use by healthy
persons, 34.
and Gentile nations, 373-377, 382, 474.
Isaacs, A. C., 197.
Jacobus, Dr., 146.
Jerome, St., 199.
J
Jewish Religious Festivals, Shekar at,
285, 18J.
Joachimsen, Hon. J. P., 203.
Johnson, Rev. Dr. Herrick, 132, 255, 478.
Joseph, the king's cup-bearer, 123, 132,
155, 179.
Josephus, 132, 155.
Kearsey, S. H., 375.
K
Kelly, Lord Chief Baron, 26.
Kerr, Dr. Norman, 147, 148-150, 159, 197,
206, 217, 262.
Kirk, Dr. E. N., 316.
Kitto, 130, 143, 145.
Knowledge of good and evil, What con-
stitutes the tree of, 49, 383.
L
Lacy, Rev. E. S., 316, 318.
Last Judgment, The, Influx of Divine
truth since the, 254, 270, 487.
Latimer, Faith, 168.
Laymen are often beginners of reforms
from evils of life, 447, 449.
Leaven signifies the evil and false, 224,
229, 255, 269, 302, 308, £30.
destroys everything in wine nourishing
to the body, 69, 84, 202, 204, 223, 229,
245, 327, 857.
overcomes and destroys pure wine, 224,
229, 246, 278, 280, 343.
Changes wrought in must by, 79, 84, 228,
229, 278, 202, 357.
Its action on grape-juice and flour or
meal, 194, 195, 202, 331-340, 344.
not allowed at Jewish religious festi-
vals, 192, 195–204, 207, 227, 483.
poisonous products driven out of bread
in baking, 83, 195, 338.
hid in three measures of meal, 336.
never purifies, 338.
E. Swedenborg's
against, 338.
Le Clerc, M.,
315.
solemn warning
155, 156, 195, 327-328.
Lees, Dr. F. R., 130, 146, 260, 268, 283.
"Lees' Appendix," 122.
Lewis, Prof. Tayler, 131, 177, 218.
License, High. Its results in Chicago and
Omaha, 477-480.
Life, not doctrine, fits for heaven, 19.
Life Insurance. Statistics of moderate
drinkers and of abstainers, 298, 562,
366-569.
Little, Rev. W. H., 376.
Locke, D. R. (Petroleum V. Naseby), 870.
Lord Jesus Christ, The, is the only true
object of worship, 21.
Second coming of, 16, 487.
All life and goodness in man are from,
48, 49, 385.
Lord's Presence, The, is different from
His coming, 17.
Lord's Supper, The.
Unleavened wine used at the institution
of, 195-199, 201-204, 207, 225, 127, 483.
Fitness of unleavened wine for, 82, 191,
205, 211, 226, 238, 246, 483.
Unleavened wine is used by the Coptic
and in some other Eastern Churches,
247-249.
Unleavened wine was used in the early
Church, 206, 20.
Lord's Supper, The.
Leavened wine should be excluded
from, 207, 15, 228, 239, 499.
Leavened wine is dangerous to the re-
claimed drunkard in, 1:5, 213, 217, 124.
The stronghold of intoxicating drinks
is the use of leavened wine in, 215,
218, 2:6, 35, 360.
Leavened wine causes profanation of,
224, 33, 242.
Lowth, Bishop, 132.
Lungs, The, and their functions, 41C-118.
Mair, Dr. John, 120.
M
Man is the crowning work of creation, 43.
is the constant recipient of life from
God, 43.
Freedom of Will is given to every,47, 105.
Man's primitive state, 45.
material body the effect of the spiritual
body, 4).
material body corresponds with his
spiritual body, 44-46.
bodily and spiritual degeneration, 44,
383-385.
sufferings and diseases arise from his
evils and perversions, 46 et seq.
Manning, Cardinal, 95.
Material Substances are all inert without
spiritual influx, 51, 173.
Medes, Temperate habits of the, 92.
Medical Testimony on intoxicating drinks,
94-105, 109-111, 116-119, 205, 276, 809,
332, 470.
Medicine, Alcohol admits of substitutes
as, 10, 97, 116.
should not be self-prescribed, 97.
Unfermented wine as a, 72.
Orderly living the best, 469.
INDEX.
Medicines, Difference between curative
and palliative, 467, 468.
Evil uses may have a use as, 32, 34.
Poisons (intoxicants, opium, etc.) in
large doses are but palliatives, and
should be rarely used as, 9, 402, 467.
Methodist Episcopal Church on intemper-
ance 253, 487, 493.
and tobacco, 23, 493.
Meyers, Rabbi E. M., 193.
Michelet, M. J., 384.
Mill, John Stuart, 178.
Miller, F.R.S., Philip, 154.
Minend, 70.
Mitchell, Dr., 99.
Moderate Drinkers and life insurance sta-
tistics, 298, 362, 366–369.
Moderate Drinking especially dangerous
in this age, 115.
Great danger of, 27, 29, 100, 107, 109-
112, 220, 295, 353, 400.
Responsibility for and sinfulness of,
212, 213, 295, 309.
Moderation Fallacy exposed, 109-112.
Mohammedanism, The mission of, 251.
Montalembert, 315.
Mussey, Prof., 388.
Must is given the highest signification of
wine for the Lord's Supper, 231–234,
236-239, 244, 245, 280, 348.
is repeatedly translated wine in the
Writings, 85, 89, 179-181, 189, 223,
230-333, 348.
Two kinds of, 192, 239, 347.
when fermenting "infests the stom-
ach "82, 28, 339, 347.
Fermentation in méal, 331-333.
N
Narcotics-tobacco, opium,-coffee, and
tea, 383-106.
affect chiefly the brain and nervous
system, 381-385.
See Tobacco.
Opium.
Coffee and Tea.
Nelson, Mr., 298.
Neuman, Caspar, 145.
New Christianity, The. Its philosophy
bearing upon intoxicating drinks, 31-
39, 58-51, 169-174, 302-305, 453-457.
must free its communion from wines
that cause drunkenness, 225, 228, 235,
236, 245, 251, 291–293.
A New Wine for the, 190, 212, 216, 226,
234, 235, 238, 278, 360, 499.
Clergymen justifying the use of intox-
icants in the, 453, 492-494.
Evils of life must have no place in,
487-500.
Duties enjoined by, 21, 22.
Life and light of, 190, 254, 490.
Harvest-field for, 492–494.
Essential doctrines of, 21.
Newcombe, Archbishop, 120.
Nicander of Colophon, 131.
“Nineteenth Century,” 433.
Noah, Judge, 197.
Noah planting the Vine, 485.
Noah's drunkenness, 312.
Nonnos, 260.
50%
Nott, D.D., Rev. Eliphalet, 122, 132, 142,
145, 159, 225, 263.
O
Oinos, Yayin, and Vinum, Unwarranted
assumption that fermented wine is
always meant by, 17, 257.
Oinos is a generic name for wine, 153, 159,
259-260, 279.
Olearus, Adam, 147.
One-wine Theory, Ignorance of facts
among the advocates of the, 125, 180,
257, 471.
Opium, Specific effects of, 401–403.
should never be used in chronic diseases,
59, 402, 467-469.
habit, 403.
Orfila, 100.
Origin of evil, 49.
P
Parents are responsible for their chil-
dren's training. 107, 426, 430, 431.
Example and influence of, 257, 369, 405.
Their cruelty to girls, 437-443.
sending children for beer, 324, 370.
Parker, Dr. Willard, 96.
Parkinson, 129.
Parsons, Wm. J., 76, 77.
Passover, Jews', Unleavened wine used
at the, 195-199, 201-204, 225, 227, 228.
Pasteur, 70, 72, 77.
Patton, D.D., Rev. Wm., 122, 123, 132,
135, 138, 142, 154, 199, 279.
Paul's, St., advice to Timothy, 268, 272,313.
reproof to the Corinthians, 207, 209.
Payen, 70.
Peabody, D.D., Rev. A. P., 199.
Percy, Dr., 99.
Pereira, 102.
Personal reminiscences of the writer, 9,
29, 493.
Perversions of natural desires cause dis-
eases, 49, 50, 383.
Philo, 194.
Physical Law, Suffering follows viola-
tions of, 22, 425.
Physicians are largely responsible for
the prevailing evil habits, 467.
Pindar, 259.
Pitman, LL.D, Robt. C., 314.
Platt, T., 114.
Pliny, 93, 127, 134, 138, 153, 162, 215.
Plutarch, 102, 161.
Poisons (alcohol, tobacco, opium) create
an unnatural appetite for themselves,
36, 61, 65, 292, 383, 446.
How to distinguish healthy food from,
34-37.
should never be used during health,
34, 61-66.
develop diseases peculiar to themselves,
37, 292, 383.
will attect healthy bodies, 58–62, 113.
have their life from hell, 59.
Habitual use of destroys freedom, 292.
affect the body as evils and falses do
the soul, 39.
508
INDEX.
used as food and drink correspond to
evils and falses appropriated and im-
bibed, 34, 395.
Polybius, 133.
Porphyry, 91.
Potter, Archbishop, 138.
Potter, J. S., 12.
Proclus, 181, 200.
Prohibition, Necessity and advantages of,
290-3)1.
not an interference with private rights,
295, 363-365.
Freedom and, 291–293.
E. Swedenborg on, 97.
in Maine, Kansas, and Atlanta, 365.
High License no step toward, 480.
Pseudo, Justin, 94.
Pulsford, Geo. Gordon, 363.
Punch and prohibition in spiritual Lon-
don, 276, 289, 301.
R
Ramsey's "Roman Antiquities," 134.
Raisins, Infusion of, Wine suitable for
the Lord's Supper can be made from,
212, 214, 218, 247–249.
used by modern Jews at the Passover,
192, 196-198.
Reforms of this New Age are from the
Lord, 254, 307, 487 et seq.
Difficulty of effecting, 460.
Regeneration, Comparison of fermenta-
tion with, 85, 246, 277, 326, 337, 349,
354.
Reihlen, M. Adolph, 71.
Religious Organizations, Action on tem-
perance of, 252-254, 487, 426.
Religious Periodicals must denounce evils
of life, 106, 112, 445, 453, 457-159,
464, 487.
and the temperance reform, 450-464.
Unfair representations of, 293, 298, 299.
Erroneous teachings of, 194, 288-296.
Error concerning must, 89, 194, 241, 347,
450.
justifying the use of wine and whisky,
13, 89, 112, 300, 453.
on Punch and Prohibition, 276, 288-296,
301.
do great harn by upholding the use of
intoxicants, 457-462.
opposing organization for reform work,
460-4164.
Defense of leaven by, 333–336.
which should be excluded from fami-
lies, 13, 112, 445, 458, 464.
Revelation, Office of, 48.
Rich, Dr., 225.
Richardson, Dr. Benj., 95, 98, 100, 103,
103, 116, 205, 397, 471.
Ritchie, Rev. Wm., 186, 197, 281.
Robertson, W., 129.
Roesler, Prof., 71.
Rule, Dr. W. H., 134.
Russell, Dr. A., 129.
S
Saloon, The Drink. Methods of making
trade 370-378.
Political power of, 474, 479.
Samson, D.D., Rev. G. W., 91, 120, 189,
141, 153, 103, 193, 199, 208, 210, 218,
264, 314, 365, 466.
(6
Scalpel," The, 390.
Science of Corresponences, The, revealed
through E. Swede borg, 14.
Scripture to be interpreted by, 14-16,
35.

Importance of, 14,
Growing knowledge of, 16.
Seabrook. T. W., 250.
Selwyn, Bishop, 375.
Sensual Gratifications, Overruling love
of, 383-385, 395, 466, 460.
Shaded Houses, Unhealthiness of, 428.
Shekar in the Bible, 19, 281–286, 452.
generic name for fruit-juice, 281.
Simon, M. Jules, 316.
Smart, Prof. Christopher, 142.
Smith, D.D.. Rev. Eli, 146.
Smith's "Antiquities," 154.
Snow, Rev. Thomas, 200.
Spiritual Body, The, Knowledges and
love are food for, 54.
Reality of, 41.
Spiritual Diseases. The method of their
cure corresponds to the method of
curing natural diseases, 66, 67.
Spiritual Influx, All matter is inert with-
out, 51.
Spiritual World, The, Discases have a
correspondence with unclean things
in, 60.
is the world of causes, 14, 41–43.
Strong Drink in the Word, 20, 281–286,
452.
Stuart, Prof. Moses, 122, 199, 204, 207, 281.
Sugar, Alcohol always results from
destruction of, 38, 74, 91, 236, 278,
327.
corresponds to spiritual delights, 236,
242, 242.
Germs of ferment consume, 70, 71.
in old natural fermented wines is all
decomposed, 75, 90, 236, 245.
Sunlight. Its importance in the develop-
ment of all living organisms, 44-451.
The evil of closing occupied rooms
against, 426.
Its effect on the eyes, 427, 428.
All natural life flows in from the Lord
through, 425-427.
Sutton, H. S., 174, 212, 354.
Swedenborg, Emanuel, Subjects of quota-
tion from-
Africa, Central, A revelation given to
the nations of, 378, 379.
Alcohol compared in its effects to justi-
fication by faith alone, 455.
Alcohol compared as to clearness with
wisdom purified, 325.
Blood of Grapes signifies spiritual celes-
tial good, 170, 222, 230, 237, 244, 341,
348.
Bottles, Signification of, 269.
Charity, Definition of, 22.
Church, Life, rather than doctrine, con-
stitutes the, 18, 19.
Diseases have a correspondence with
the spiritual world, 60.
INDEX.
Doctrine is useful only as it leads to a
good life, 18, 48.
Drunkenness an enormous sin, 305.
Drunkenness, Natural, corresponds to
spiritual, 32, 204-306, 4 4.
runkenness of Noah, 312.
Dnkenness signifies insanity from
truths falsified, 302–304, 35 ;.
Every man has freedom to think and
will evils, but not to do them, 105, 306.
Evils, Every man is of himself able to
refrain from, 9, 461.
Evils of life take away freedom of
judging, 8, 9, 41.
Falses from evils compared to such
wines and strong drink as cause
drunkenness, 171, 223, 282, 325, 454.
Falses not from evil compared to waters
not pure, 340, 454.
Ferment signifies the false of evil, 269,
302, 344, 455.
Ferment prohibited in every represent-
ative rite, 228.
Fermentations, Spiritual and natural,
331.
Flour or Meal, Signification of, 86, 336,
843.
Food should be prepared by man chiefly
with reference to use and the health
of the body, 0.
Fruit of the Vine, Signification of, 227,
233.
Grape-juice freshly squeezed is called
wine, 179.
Grapes signify the goods of charity,
222, 230, 2-14, 312.
Grapes, Double signification of, 152,
215.
Leaven, the false principle, defiles good
and truth, 345, 455, 456.
Leaven not at the institution of the
Lord's Supper, 227, 228.
Leaven, Signification of, in food and
drink, 302, 328, 344, 454, 456.
Leaven, Warning against, 255.
Lees, Signification of, 150, 327.
Life, more than doctrine, fits man for
heaven, 18, 19.
Lord's Presence, The, is different from
His coming, 17.
Must, Unfermented, has the highest sig-
nification of wine, 85, 189, 24, 246.
Punch in spiritual London, 289.
Process of regeneration compared to
fermentation, 326, 349.
Spiritual purification compared to the
purification of natural spirits, 225.
Strong Drink, Significations of, 234.
Sweet, or Sugar. Correspondence of, 242.
Uses, Good and Evil, and their origins,
81, 193, 340, 346.
Uses, Good, are not destroyed by excess
or abuse, 31, 346.
Uses, Evil, have a use as remedies, 22.
Vine, or Vineyard, signifles the Church,
222, 230, 244, 312.
Vinegar, Signification of, 237.
Whisky a pernicions drink, 97, 341.
Wine, Good signification of, 170, 184,
230-233, 244, 312, 348.
509
Wine, Evil signification of, 171, 173,
215,3 3, 154.
Wine, New, solidified, 274, 290.
་
Talmage, Rev. Dr., 401.
Taquet, 103.
Tavenier, Baron, 247.
Taylor, Bayard, 408.
Taylor, Rev. W. J, 313.
Tea, Injurious effects of, 404–406.
Temperance, Total abstinence from evils
is the true rule of, 9, 220. 253.
Action of religious organizations on,
25-274, 369, 487.
Thayer, Rev. W'm. M., 120, 134, 144, 148,
162, 177, 197, 204, 206, 212, 213.
Thermopolium, Engraving of an ancient,
14.
Thompson, Dr., 145.
Tight-dressing, Injurious effects of, 24,
410.
Prevalence of, 411, 413, 420, 491.
General denial of the habit of, 413, 441.
Evidence of, 1, 420.
I.
Injuries by corsets in, 411, 415.
gradually diminishes the capacity of
the lungs, 412.
prevents action of the chest in respira-
tion, 112, 14.
Deformity the inevitable result of, 415.
interferes with functions that are vital
in their nature, 16.
Effects on the heart and lungs, 416.
impedes the circulation and purification
of the blood, 417, 418.
displaces the organs in the chest, a
domen, and pelvis, 418.
injures the breasts, 419.
unfits women for making attractive
homes, 422.
Responsibility of mothers for allowing
daughters to practice, 441, 442.
Timothy, Paul's advice to, 268, 272, 313.
Tirosh (must) is translated wine, 170-178,
185, 186, 232.
has almost always a good signification.
in the Word, 189, 1:0), 234.
Serious error concerning, 347.
sometimes means grapes, 177.
Tischendorf, 248.
Tobacco a narcotic poison, 386-390.
and the Methodist Episcopal Church,
23,496.
Danger of external application of, 387,
388.
Medical testimony concerning, 386–390,
897-100.
using is a sin, 393, 399, 400.
juice, 91.
snuff dipping, 292.
Tobacco Habit, The, Injurious results of,
388-391.
is as strong as the drink-crave, 386, 394,
396, 399.
in boys, 369, 394.
in clergymen, 23, 391, 393, 400.
leads to drink, 23, 36, 398, 400.
impairs vitality, 24, 390, 392, 396.
Offensiveness of, 23, 391, 396, 399.
510
INDEX.
Total Abstainers and life-insurance sta-
tistics, 298, 362, 366-369.
Total Abstinence the only absolutely safe
rule, 104, 220, 251, 306, 498.
Archdeacon Farrar on, 472.
Treatt, Capt., 146.
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,
What constitutes the, 49, 383.
Tree of Life, What constitutes the, 48.
Ure, Dr., 159, 161.
U
Use, Evil, Fermented wine is clearly an,
82, 44.
Uses are all things created by the Lord,
31.
Uses, Evil, arc such as hurt and kill men,
and originate from hell, 31, 79, 113,
193, 340, 346.
afford a plane for the influx of evil
spirits, 64, 113, 240.
Craving for, no sign that the body
needs them. 63.
should never be used in health, 32, 68.
may have a use as remedies, 32, 34.
Dangerous error concerning diseases
and, 57-65.
and equilibrium, 61–55.
Uses, Good, are all things created by the
Lord for nourishing the body, 31 et
seq., 64, 340.
become evil if contaminated by evil
uses, 34.
Their abuse does not result like the
use of poisons, 31, 27, 27', 432.
are not destroyed or changed by excess
or abuse, 31, 33, 346, 432.
Usher, James M., 316.
V
Valpy, A.M., F. E. J., 129.
Van Buren, Rev. J. M., 111, 112, 147, 185,
189, 285.
Van Teighem, 210.
Yarro,, 134, 162.
Vine, The, Good signification of, 222,
244.
Vinum a generic word, 352.
Warren, Sir C., 374.
W
Washing the Feet, Signification of, 29.
Watts, 147.
Wayland, Rev. Francis, 397.
Wells, Commissioner, 316.
Wells, Rev. A. S., 201.
Wheat, Good, needs no purification, 339,
343.
contains all substances needed to nour-
ish the body, 482.
Whisky. E. Swedenborg on the effects
of this pernicious drink on the Swed-
ish people, 97, 341.
Wilkinson, Sir Gardener, and Dr. Sam
son, on Egyptian wine-making, 162-
165, 180.
Wine a generic word, including fermented
and unfermented grape-juice, 127-
180, 189, 224, 234, 313, 352, 856, 457,
471, 477.
Its good signification in the Word and
in the Writings, 81, 170, 177, 184, 211,
230-233, 236, 244, 280, 294, 348.
Its evil signification, 170-174, 454, 456.
Two kinds in the Word, and in the
Writings, and in Ancient Authors, 13,
121-135, 169-190, 191, 192, 266, 269,
313, 357-360.
Both kinds contrasted, 80-82, 107, 121,
122, 124, 171, 192, 229, 263, 358, 359.
Philosophy of the New Christianity
concerning, 170-174, 341.
in the Cluster, 152, 236, 259.
anciently squeezed into cups and drank
fresh, 82, 89, 123, 131, 132, 179.
E. Swedenborg's Latin calls freshly-
squeezed grape-juice wine, 231-284,
242, 245, 342,
Thirteen words in the Hebrew and
Greek Scriptures that are translated
wine, 179.
Ferment destroys all nutritious sub-
stances in, 70, 71, 81, 192, 201, 205, 226,
278, 294, 303.
used by the Corinthians in the Lord's
Supper not necessarily fermented,
207-210.
Wine, Ancient Sweet, that did not intox-
icate, 125-130, 132-15, 138–142.
Wine, Fermented, Analysis of, 81.
never has a good correspondence, 170,
252, 255, 305, 354, 356, 358, 454.
is in no sense the fruit of the vine, 69,
74, 77, 78, 83, 84, 352, 451.
suitable only for a church holding jus-
tification by faith alone, 82, 238, 242.
condemned by the Prophets, 120, 225.
is not fit for use in the Lord's Supper,
13, 38, 71, 91, 125, 174, 201, 212, 215-
227, 236, 287, 329, 458-458.
Uncleanness of, 76, 78, 83, 90, 91, 115,
351, 357, 360, 482.
Warnings against, 107-109.
Frequent results of a "first glass "of,
112, 213–215, 498.
is clearly an evil use, 33, 174, 223.
Fruits of, 32.
Specific effects of, 276, 360.
The Bible nowhere sanctions the use
of, 187-189, 357, 454.
corresponds to truths falsified, 171–174,
223, 303, 327, 356.
Its pernicious effect in the Lord's Sup-
per, 125, 213, 217, 224.
Roman women were forbidden to drink,
133, 134, 143, 162, 215.
forbidden in Jewish ordinances, 192,
195-200,
Ancient fermented wine would not keep,
131, 169, 191.
was not offered in sacrifice by the An-
cients, 132, 215, 329.
Wine, Generous, 327.
Wine, Modern unfermented, 148-152, 471.
Wine, New, in old bottles, 265–268.
solidified, 274-276, 290.
signifies holy truth and truth from
good, 189, 222, 236.
for the New Christianity, 190, 212, 216,
220, 234, 235, 288, 278, 860, 499.
Wine, Noble, 274.
INDEX.
Wine, Strong, in the Word, 452.
Wine, Unfermented, Analysis of, 80.
has a composition and correspondence
similar to blood, 81, 205, 226, 240, 245,
272, 357, 481.
contains every necessary nourishment
for the body, 82, 84, 192, 205, 226, 229,
245, 278, 357.
is always pure, 84-30, 226, 351.
is strictly the fruit of the vine, 84, 279,
35%, 481.
Modern methods of preserving, by boil-
ing, 143–147, 148–153.
by evaporation, 144.
by filtration and keeping cool, 146, 155–
I56.
by sulphurization, 159–161.
No special difficulty in preserving, 151,
168.
Wine, Unfermented, Author's experiments
in preserving, by straining and ex-
cluding air, with immersion, 87, 155–
158.
by keeping it cool, 87, 155-158.
by boiling, 72, 87, 137.
by filtering, 162.
by straining and covering with sweet
oil, 166–178.
Wine, Unfermented, Religious use of-
used at the Jewish Passover, 195-199,
48%.
therefore used by our Lord at the insti-
tution of the Lord's Supper, 198, 200–
20, 224,
used by the Coptic and Eastern Churches
in the Lord's Supper, 247-249
alone should be used in the Lord's
Supper, 191, 211, 226-228, 234, 238, 278,
499.
made from infusion of dried grapes
(raisins) used at the Passover, 192,
196-198, 204.
allowed in the Church at all periods
for use at the Lord's Supper, 205.
Wine Question, The. Unanimity of opin-
ion among careful investigators of,
121.
Scholars who have critically examined,
123.
Labor and research expended on, 121,
124, 130.
A statement of, 170, 182, 280.
E. Swedenborg's teaching in its bear-
ing on, 188.
Scope of this book in considering, 12.
311
Wines, Ancient Unfermented, were known
as wine, 123, 128, 129, 131-135, 130-142,
154, 162, 191.
were esteemed as the best wines, 122,
21, 146, 169, 249.
were preserved by boiling, 134, 137-139.
by covering with sweet oil, 162-165.
by evaporation, 138.
by filtration, 161-162.
by immersion, 153–155.
solidified, 19, 140.
Women, American, Pernicious and de-
structive habits of, 407–423.
Delicacy of constitution of, 407-408.
Sensile dresses of Swedish, 408.
The natural form the most graceful,
415-431.
Necessity of active out-door exercise
for. 419.
Active habits of the English, 419.
Tight dressing destroys the health of,
410-423.
Things to be avoided in the clothing of
children and, 420-421.
Deformity and disease caused by “con-
tracted and elongated waists," 421.
Infecundity is caused by the pérnicious
habits of, 422.
Appeal to, 423, 491.
Writer's, The, views re-stated, 280.
personal freedom on the Wine Ques-
tion, 8, 9.
personal experience on the Wine Ques-
tion, 9, 494.
advantages for examining the Liquor
and Wine Question, !-,2.
desire to avoid controversy, 7.
experiments in preserving wine unfer-
mented, 10, 155.
special examination of the Wine and
Tobacco Question, 11, 188, £95.
observations abroad concerning, 19,
148.
experience in Egypt, 248-250.
interview with missionaries at Cairo,
248, 482.
Y
Yayin, Tirosh, and Oinos are generic
terms for fermented and unfermented
wines, 257, 279, 281, 347.
Yayin, Oinos, and Vinum. Unwarranted
assumption that these words always
mean fermented wine, 175, 279.
Yayin in the Bible, 181, 257-258, 281.
Yayin, Different applications of, 183-184.
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following works, postage paid, on receipt of
price. Address J. N. STEARNS, Publishing
Agent, 58 Reade Street, New York:
Scripture__Testimony Against Intoxicating Wine. By Rev.
WM. RITCHIE, of Scotland..
•
Bible Rule of Temperance; or Total Abstinence from all In-
toxicating Drinks. By Rev. George Duffield, D.D……….
Four Pillars of Temperance. 18mo, 240 pp. By J. W. KIRTON.
The Text-Book of Temperance. By Dr. F. R. LEES, F.S.A.
Historical, Biblical, Physiological, Statistical, Political and
Moral. Cloth..
$0 60
60
50
1 25
Paper..
50
·
Bible Wines; or Laws of Fermentation. Wines of the An-
cients. By Rev. WM. PATTON, D.D. Cloth...
Paper....
880
60
30
The Action of Alcohol on the Body and on the Mind. By B.
W. RICHARDSON, M.D., of England. Paper edition.
Communion Wine; or Bible Temperance. By Rev. W. M.
THAYER. Paper...
20
220
50
10
Cloth..
The Wines of the Bible. By C. H. FOWLER, D.D. 36 pages..
Temperance Bible Commentary. By Dr. F. R. LEES and Rev.
DAWSON BURNS..
Gospel Temperance the Law of God. By Rev. J. M. VAN
BUREN
Wines, Scriptural and Ecclesiastical. 12mo, 138 pp. By
NORMAN KERR, M.D., F.R.S. Paper, 25 cents; cloth...
Unfermented Wine a Fact. By NORMAN KERR, M.D., F.R.S.
12mo, 48 pp.
•
Wine and Truth. By FELIX R. BRUNOT. 12mo, 12 pp......
Wine-Drinking and the Scriptures. By Prof. TAYLER LEWIS,
LL.D. 12mo, 21 pp...
Moderation versus Total Abstinence; or, Dr. Crosby and his
Reviewers. 12mo, 126 pp. Comprising Dr. Crosby's cele-
brated address, "A Calm View of Temperance," and the
Replies of Dr. Mark Hopkins, Wendell Phillips, Mrs. J.
Ellen Foster, Rev. Dr. T. L. Cuyler, Ezra M. Hunt, M.D.,
with Medical and Biblical authorities. Paper.
Cloth...
•
2 50
25
50
10
5
10
3229
25
50
THE SWEDENBORG LIBRARY. Compiled and edited by B. F.
BARRETT IN 12 neat, cloth-bound volumes, averaging 250 pp. cach. Price 45 cents
(single vol.), or $5.00 the set, post-paid.
A new edition, cloth-bound, but in 6 volumes, sold only in sets. Price $3.25, post-
paid; to ministers and theological students, $2.50 if ordered, from the Swedenborg
Publishing Association, Germantown, Pa.
This series consists of the choicest selections from Swedenborg's writings, topically
arranged, with a full Table of Contents; presenting a clear and complete view of all
the author's religious and ethical teachings in a neat and extremely cheap form. A
pamphlet of 93 pages, giving the Contents of each volume, with a valuable essay of 12
pages on these "Writings," sent gratis on application.
THEIR TITLES ARE:
I. Death, Resurrection, and the Judgment. II. Heaven. III. Freedom, Rationality
and Catholicity. IV. Divine Providence and its Laws. V. Charity, Faith
and Works. VI. Frec-Will, Repentance, Reformation and Regeneration.
VII. Holy Scripture and the Key to its Spiritual Sense. VIII. Creation, Incar-
nation, Redemption and the Divine Trinity. IX. Marriage and the Sexes in
Both Worlds. X. The Author's Memorabilia. XI. The Heavenly Doctrine
of the Lord. XII. Swedenborg; with a Compend of his Teachings.
THE SCIENCE OF CORRESPONDENCES ELUCI-
DATED: The Key to the heavenly meaning of the Scriptures. By Rev. Edward
Madeley. 742 pp. 8vo. cloth; price $1.50; to ministers and theological students $1.00,
if ordered from the Swedenborg Publishing Association.
The only complete and exhaustive treatise on this subject ever published. No
sceker after spiritual truth, and especially no minister or theological student, should
be without this valuable Key to the true meaning of the Scriptures.
A catalogue (32 pp.) of our New-Church publications, with prices, together with
more than 40 “Opinions of the Press and of Distinguished Authors" concerning
Swedenborg and his writings, sent gratis on application to B. F. Barrett, German-
town, Pa.
The following works will be sent by their Author, postage paid, on the receipt
of their price:
THE AVOIDABLE CAUSES OF DISEASE, INSANITY AND DEFORMITY, includ-
ing Marriage and its Violations. 416 pages
$1.50
THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. An appeal to the clergy and to all men in behalf
of its life of charity (500 pages), in cloth, $100. A single copy in paper cover
for 50 cents, or 3 copies for……..
1.00
SKEPTICISM AND DIVINE REVELATION. 260 pages, in paper cover.
20
A liberal discount from the above prices to those who purchase the works to
sell again.
ADDRESS,
DR. JOHN ELLIS,
At either 157 CHAMBERS STREET, NEW YORK CITY, N. Y.,
or at EDGEWATER, Bergen Co., N. J.
GREAT REDUCTION IN PRICES OF SWEDENBORG'S WORKS.
The American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society, wishing to secure a
wider circulation for Swedenborg's writings, offers its large uniform edition of his
Theological works, on good paper and well bound in cloth, at the following greatly
reduced prices:
*
Arcana Cœlestia, 10 vols.,
Apocalypse Revealed, 2 vols.,
True Christian Religion,
Conjugial Love,
Miscellaneous Theological Works,
Heaven and Hell,
Divine Love and Wisdom,
Divine Providence,
Four Leading Doctrines,
Former
Price.
$15.00
3.00
2.50
Present
Price.
$6.00
1.20
Sent by mail,
per vol., extra.
18 cts.
15 cts.
111
1.00
24 cts.
1.25
.60
15 cts.
1.50
16 cts.
1.25
.50
15 cts.
1.00
1.25
10 cts.
11 cts.
1.00
.50
10 cts.
This set includes all the theological works that Swedenborg himself published.
A discount of 20 per cent. on the above prices will be given to the trade, and to all
who desire the works for missionary purposes.
ALL SALES STRICTLY FOR CASH.
Special Offer to Clergymen.-For the purpose of bringing the Writings of
Swedenborg within the reach of all clergymen they are offered, to clergymen
only, at a price considerably less than cost; as follows:-
The Full Set of nineteen octavo volumes, on good paper and well bound in cloth,
containing 9,434 pages, boxed ready for shipment, for $7.50.
Or, omitting "Heaven and Hell," True Christian Religion," and "Apocalypse.
Revealed," for $6.00.
For those offered on the above list at 60 cts. per vol., the price to clergymen will be
40 cts.; those at 50 cts., the price will be 35 cts.; for the "True Christian
Religion," 70 cts. To these prices the postage must be added, when sent by mail.
As a specimen volume, the first volume of the Arcana Calestia will be sent to any
clergyman, prepaid, for 50 cts.
The Arcana Calestia is an exposition of the internal or spiritual sense of Genesis
and Exodus, in accordance with the laws of correspondence, which are philosophically
explained in other of Swedenborg's works. The first volume covers the first eleven
chapters of Genesis, that portion of the Old Testament the historic truth of which has
been most generally called in question. Many conservative scholars have come to
believe that these early chapters have a different origin and are of a different character
from those that follow; that, in fact, authentic history can be carried no farther back
than the beginning of the story of Abraham. The language of these chapters
furnishes indisputable proof of their antiquity, and is more suggestive of poetry or
parable than of pure narration. Swedenborg asserts that they are remnants of a prior
Revelation, which had no actual historic basis, as so large a part of our Bible has, but
was pure parable throughout. They are not to be taken, therefore, as a record of
physical and ethnological facts, but of the spiritual experiences of mankind down to the
historical period, described in the language of correspondence or of pure symbol or
parable, which is the true Divine language. This volume, therefore, furnishes an
example of Swedenborg's theory and method of interpretation, applied to one of the
most interesting portions of Scripture.
Address, AM. SWEDENBORG PRINTING AND PUBLISHING Soc.,
20 Cooper Union, New York City.