bringing them water from the rock," are often referred to in the Scripture, to show that these young people were especially well provisioned during these forty years.

But we have another example of God's providing for one who was especially a favourite of Heaven. The prophet Elijah was for a considerable time sustained by the immediate and miraculous providence of Jehovah; but we never read that wine was set before him. The ravens brought him "bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook." Not a drop of wine was sent to the prophet; yet it would have been easy for Omnipotence to have sent additional messengers with wine to cheer the prophet in his solitude. And on another occasion, when an angel brought him food, "a cake baken on the coals and a cruise of water" was the provision. Here, Mr. Jordan might say that the "iron hand of necessity compelled the prophet to drink water, but still this iron hand was the hand of Jehovah; was the same hand that brought water out of the rock for the Israelites, and although branded by a wine-bibber with the name "iron," is, after all, the hand of Divine love, and is never outstretched but at the dictate of infinite wisdom and goodness.

I might add to these examples, that when the Saviour fed the multitudes, we never hear that he gave them wine. He fed them with the loaves and the fishes, but he evidently left them to drink water. He could have created port and sherry, could have anticipated the discovery of ardent spirit and have mixed these wines with twenty per cent of alcohol, if he had pleased. "The iron handed necessity" that kept him from doing it was, not the fates to which pagan gods were subject, but simply his own pleasure, his own goodness, his own wisdom, and his own love.

I have indroduced these examples of Divine procedure because they afford a striking demonstration that Jehovah has never considered that inebriating liquors are either necessary or useful as articles of diet, and therefore when he has spread a table in the wilderness, has never put wine upon it.

The Israelites were fed by his immediate bounty, so was Elijah, and so were the multitudes; but as long as they feasted at the table which he miraculously supplied, they were all confined to "total abstinence." Our wine-bibbers think it very hard to be kept from wine when they visit the house of a tee-totaller, but they would do well to observe that those whom God miraculously fed were always subjected to this fare. The wine produced for the marriage in Cana scarcely forms an exception, because we have shown that it was not intoxicating; and that it was produced in a small quantity,

and for a time of festivity; but the question before us concerns intoxicating drinks, which we never find him creating for the multitude; and the small quantity of "innocent" wine which he produced, together with the injunction not to "look at wine," and the command to the Priests, to the Nazarites, and to Samson, and John the Baptist, fully prove that he who gave us a body with which alcoholic drinks wage a deadly war, has in every instance confined those whom he has miraculously supplied with food; or whose diet he has prescribed; or who were engaged in offices especially sacred; either to water or to drinks no stronger than water. God's command, and his divine example therefore enforce the principle of total abstinence.

It is worthy of observation that the words npaλios, and now, rendered in the New Testament by the terms "sober,” “vigilant,” and “ watch," are allowed by all critics to come from the adverb. vn, not, and the verb Tiw, to drink, and signify, "not to drink," and of course refer to abstinence from inebriating liquors. Hesychius says that νηφάλιος means μη πεπωκότες, "not having drunk ;" and one of the significations given to now by Schleusner is, "abstineo omnis potus inebriantis usu; "I abstain from the use of all intoxicating drinks." It is rather remarkable that the interpretation of the lexicographer should contain the very words of the tee-total pledge. In Philo these terms are repeatedly used, and there is scarcely an instance in which they do not express "total abstinence." The existence of such a word, as expressive of vigilance and watchfulness, shows that the ancients associated the use of wine, and mental slumber and idleness together; and, in the very structure of this word, enjoined entire abstinence on those who would be vigilant, watchful, and able both to attend to their duties and compete with their enemies. How many who have become an easy prey to Satan and sin, might have stood if they had attended to the primitive advice contained in the word nare, "be vigilant," or rather, " do not drink, for your adversary goeth about as a roaring lion!" and who so likely to become a prey as those who are in the habit of using intoxicating drinks? "Wine and new wine take away the heart," says Hosea and again, "The princes have made him (the king) sick with bottles of wine he stretched out his hands with the scorners. Habakkuk adds: "He transgresseth also by wine; he is a proud manwho enlargeth his desire as hell." Here we are told that wine takes away the heart; produces sickness; induces scorn, transgression, and insatiable desire; so that the wine drinker becomes heartless, diseased, a mocker at religion, a transgressor of God's commands, and burns with an unquench

able thirst, and the most ungovernable lusts and passions. What a picture of the effects of intoxicating drinks! yet all this depravity of conduct might have been avoided by total abstinence; for the Holy Spirit himself, in the texts quoted, has attributed these evils solely to drinking. What force such examples give to the command, "Be sober, unpare, Do not drink!"

One of the most awful pictures of the effects of drinking is given us by Isaiah: "Woe unto them that rise up early, that they may follow strong drink, and continue until night, till wine inflame them! And the harp, and the viol, and the tabret, and the pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands. Therefore my people are gone into captivity because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and the multitude are dried up with thirst: therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it." Isa. v. 11 -14. Here we have at one view an epitome of the dreadful consequences of drinking. God and his works and dispensations are disregarded, and spiritual ignorance is the result: God's worship is neglected; the people are enslaved, degraded, famished, and parched with thirst: the most honourable and respectable are brought to ruin; and, in consequence of the aboundings of disease and crime, the grave is enlarged, and "hell opens her mouth without measure." Need we stay to remark how closely the description of the prophet answers to the effects of drinking in our own country? Here, in a land of bibles and religious ordinances, the alehouse and the gin-shop have been, on a Sabbath day, on an average, better attended than the house of God: drunkards, and the children of drunkards, and even of many moderate drinkers, are ignorant as Hottentots thousands of families are daily being starved, famished, and ruined: our graveyards are enlarged, and the grave constantly kept open and the abyss beneath is being hourly peopled with impenitent drinkers. Sixty thousand drunkards in our own country die annually; many die drunk, and all die prematurely in consequence of drinking. Every ten minutes, therefore, the gate of death is opened to admit some poor victim of strong drink to the bar of God to receive sentence from that Judge who has said, "The drunkard shall not inherit the king. dom of heaven." As we do not bury by night, but only through about eight hours of the day, the grave is opened every three minutes to admit the mortal remains of some poor wretch who has been slain by strong drinks. And if to the list of drunkards we add those who are poisoned and destroyed by moderate drinking, and others

who perish by murder, starvation, grief, and other evils resulting from inebriating liquors, we may safely affirm that, during the common burial hours, the grave is every minute kept open in consequence of moderate and immoderate drinking. We may, therefore, justly use the words of the prophet and say, "the grave hath enlarged herself, and hell hath opened her mouth without measure." Is it any wonder that a God of love commands us not to "look upon wine;" that he prohibited it from his Nazarites and priests, that he never gave it to his prophets, nor placed it before those whom he miraculously supplied with food, or, in other words, fed at his table? When Christ changed the water into wine, it was produced as a luxury, and not as an article of diet. In other cases, when God has miraculously fed the multitude, he in no instance produced wine. In the dietetic rules prescribed to the Nazarites, to the priests, to the wife of Manoah, and her son Samson, and to John the Baptist, he particularly enjoined total abstinence; and strange would it have been if, as a God of love and mercy, he had recommended a poison which enlarges the grave, and peoples the bottomless pit. The only case in which he produced wine was at a festival, and we know, from his character, that this wine was harmless. The only case in which he commended it to an individual was as a medicine, and doubtless the wine was medicinal; in other instances we find him, both by his example and command, enjoining us to abstain.

In

A careful examination of the Scriptures will show not merely that fermented or inebriating drinks are condemned by the word of God, but also, that unfermented wines, for many ages, were not in general use. by far the greater number of places in Holy Writ in which drinking is referred to, water is the beverage. The drink of Abraham appears to have been water, for when he sent Hagar and Ismael away, he gave them a "bottle of water." The angel that appeared to Hagar when in distress, showed her a well of water. Abraham's servant, when in Syria, asked of Rebekah nothing but water. The great God, as shown already, gave the Israelites in the wilderness nothing but water. Here are upwards of a million people provisioned for forty years by the immediate superintendence of the Creator of the world; he, and he alone, ordered and regulated their diet, and yet, during all this time, he rigidly confined them to water; nor do we find that they once murmured, or asked for wine. "They asked for flesh, for leeks, and for garlic," but never for wine. At Rephidim and other places, the whole congregation thirsted for water, and murmured for water, but not a word did they utter for "wine and strong drink ;" a clear demonstration this, that wine at that time was

not a common beverage; else these murmurers had never been silent about the hardship of being confined to water. Gideon's three hundred valiant soldiers were drinkers of water. Both Samson and his mother were commanded of God to drink nothing but water. King Saul had a cruse of water at his bolster in the cave. And if the monarch drank water, we may be sure that his army drank nothing better. David and his men drank water; for they had nothing but water to give the fainting Egyptian. And when Ziba brought him a bottle of wine, he put it by "for the sick." Even at the feast of the drunken Nabal, water appears to have been the chief beverage of the majority of the people. "Shall I take," said the churl, 66 my bread and water, and the flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give them unto men that I know not whence they be?" Here it is evident that at the joyful season of sheepshearing, nothing but water was provided for the greater part of the guests. It is true he and his favourites drank something stronger at his table; but the next morning his wine had left him so nervous, that a threat from David the water-drinker frightened him to death. Nabal, the fool, as his name imports, may be taken as a very fair sample of wine drinking and its effects. Abigail, in her valuable presents to David, brought him no wine. What an omission this must have been if wine was the common drink. The old prophet that came to Jeroboam was commanded "to eat no bread and drink no water in Bethel," a plain proof that water was the common drink; and the old prophet that deceived him and brought him back, gave him nothing but water. Elijah was for a long period supplied with food by the ravens, and had nothing to drink but the water of the brook; and when he came to Zidon, he asked of the widow woman no other drink than water. The angel that brought him the food that was to carry him to Horeb, gave him nothing to drink but a cruse of water. Obadiah fed a hundred of the Lord's prophets on bread and water. The king of Israel set bread and water before the army of the Syrians, and it is said, that "he set great provision before them." The king of Assyria promised to the Jews if they would submit to him, that they should "eat every man of his own vine, and of his own fig-tree, and drink the waters of his own cistern." Here the fruit of the vine was to be eaten, and the people were to drink water. The traveller in Job went to the brook for water. In Isaiah we read of "the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water." The same prophet says "Bread shall be given, and water shall be sure. "" This is the provision that God engages to make for his people, but he does not promise them wine, he only pledges his

word that for drink they shall have water. Then "with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation," is another gracious declaration of the same inspired penman, and which receives a beautiful illustration from Numb. xxi. 16-18. "And from thence they went to Beer: that is the well, whereof the Lord spake unto Moses, Gather the people together, and I will give them water. Then Israel sang this song: Spring up, O well! sing ye unto it. The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver.' Here we find these people as delighted and joyful round a a well of water as the sons of dissipation could be over their cups, and indeed more so the joy here was rational, it was not followed by depression, nor was the drink that produced it poisonous either to their bodies or their minds. These same Israelites, when asking leave to pass through Edom and other countries, asked for no better drink than water, and proposed to purchase it. Surely if they had been as fond of strong drink as the moderns, we should have heard something about their buying wine rather than water, and of course if wines had abounded or been a common drink, the Edomites would have been able to furnish them with an ample supply. We have before shown that God prescribed to the Nazarites, to Aaron and his sons, and to John the Baptist, total and entire abstinence from all inebriating drinks; and we have reason to believe that the common beverage of the Son of God was water. His disciples went into the city to buy food, not to buy wine, and the Redeemer, not anticipating such a beverage, asked the Samaritan to give him water from Jacob's well. When his followers also returned, they prayed him, saying, "Master, eat," not "Master, drink." The accusation that he was a "wine-bibber." was as great a libel as that he was a glutton; there is not the shadow of a doubt but that he generally drank water.

These quotations are sufficient on this head, and fully prove that water was the common beverage of the people. There is every

reason to believe that even their best wines and most harmless wines, were only used occasionally at festivals, or as medicines. At any rate, if we will only weigh water-drinking and wine-drinking, as recorded in the Scripture, in an even balance, we must perceive that water-drinking very greatly preponderates, and has the especial sanction of the divine command and divine example. He provided diet for a million of people for forty years, he brought them food and water by miracle, but never allowed them one drop of wine. We are rather surprised that those who are so strenuous for the use of alcoholic drinks, because, as they say, they are commended in Scripture,

do not stay to consider that God speaks in his Word in the highest terms of water: if, therefore, tee-totallers are committing a sin in avoiding wine and brewers' beer, then wine-bibbers are sinning to a greater degree in rejecting water, because the Word of God speaks more highly of water than it does of wine. But I shall conclude this chapter.

From a careful examination of the word of God, we find that in no single instance can it be proved that it has mentioned intoxicating drinks with approbation; and consequently, those who use alcoholic poisons are left without the least sanction from that unerring guide. Far from commending such drinks as inebriate, it tells us that they "bite like a serpent, and sting like an adder;" total abstinence is therefore in exact accordance with the letter and spirit of the word of God. And when, independent of other reasons, we duly consider the great obligation of self-denial for the good of others, which the gospel enjoins, even to the laying down of life itself, would it benefit either friend or foe, the duty of total abstinence is placed beyond the shadow of a doubt; by drinking what is intoxicating we encourage others to do the same, and thus our example may lead them astray, and be their ruin. "Destroy not him by thy meat for whom Christ died," is the Apostle's exhortation; and to enforce it, he mentions his own determination; "Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." In another place he says, "Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs;" which evidently prohibits us from seeking the senseless excitement of inebriating liquors; and commands us to obtain the quickening influence of the Holy Ghost inspired by his grace, we shall not want the vile mirth of the drunkard, but shall have the melody of divine love in our hearts, and the praises of God on our tongues.

CHAPTER VII.

Water Drinkers. Testimonies in favour of Water from Physiologists, Naturalists, and Medical Men, and of Divines, and Theological writers, concerning Drinking. Hebrews, Egyptians, Macrobians, Ethiopians, Greeks, Ancient Romans, Chaldeans, Cyrus, Ancient Britons, Indians, Mahometans, Circassians, Daniel and the Nazarites, Mr. Buckingham, Dr. Jackson, Captain Ross, Parry, Dr. Farre. Health of Prisoners and Convicts, Suevi. Countries that were ruined by Drinking. Present inhabitants of Mount Lebanon. Wives aud Children of Drunkards. English Tee-totallers. Numerous Testimonies of Medical Men in favour of a Water Beverage. Testimonies of Divines and Theological Writers, and Ministers of the present day.

NOTWITHSTANDING the great stress that we lay upon alcoholic beverages, it is a well attested fact, that a very great proportion of the world has, from the most ancient times, been in the habit of drinking nothing stronger than water. We have seen that the Bible, which is the oldest record in the world, most fully corroborates this sentiment. That wines were used at festivals, in sacred libations, and also as medicines, none can deny; but then it is equally clear that they were almost, if not entirely confined to these uses. We have also, from an appeal to history and science, proved that many of the drinks, which in former times were denominated wines, were as free from anything like alcohol as the purest water. In the last chapter I showed that Abraham, Samson, Saul, David, Elijah, John the Baptist, the Prophets, the Priests, and the Nazarites drank water. The fact, that the Israelites, during the whole time that their diet was under the immediate direction of Jehovah, were supplied with this simple beverage alone, speaks volumes. Were any of us to live with an individual for forty years, and during that period were he to have the sole care of providing us with food and drink, and although it was just as easy for him to give us wine as water; yet, if notwithstanding the large quantity of wine he possessed, he for the whole period kept out of our sight everything alcoholic or intoxicating, and confined us solely to water, I think we should naturally conclude, that he approved of total abstinence. And further, if the person that acted thus was a friend, in whose judgment we could place the highest confidence, and whose sincere regard for us admitted not the least shadow of a doubt, we should very rationally consider that water was better for us than any other liquid; for was it not so, our friend would provide for us a more wholesome drink. Further, were we in a state of entire destitution, and the same kind-hearted, and very judicious friend compassionated our wants, and sent some of his messengers, or some of his most honourable attendants to us, with a daily portion of food and drink, and still directed that our only beverage should be