ent, and in many instances, the end sought by drinking the very reverse to ours. In the word of God we read of persons who rose early and stayed late at their cups, men "mighty to drink wine, and persons of strength to mingle strong drink." In these and similar passages we have allusions to the ancient mode of taking immense quantities of wine, and therefore the drinkers, in many instances, were rather drenched with liquor than really intoxicated. It is not improbable that the term " drunk," which evidently refers to the large quantity taken, owes its original signification to a similar custom. "To be drunk," and "to be intoxicated," were not always the same, nor, indeed, could be so, at a time when the liquid in use contained scarcely any spirit or alcohol.

What has been stated above must be sufficient to satisfy any candid mind that the tastes and habits of the ancients respecting drinks were very different from those of our own day. Not only were their wines weaker than ours, but beverages destitute of all strength were deemed the best, and therefore nothing can be more fallacious than to conclude that the term "wine" has always designated a drink containing a large per centage of alcohol. In 1838 port, with twenty-four per cent. of spirit, may be deemed the best wine, but in the days of Pliny, who was contemporary with the apostle Paul, "utillissimum vinum," "the most useful wine," was that which was deprived of all spirit, and the topers of that day used as many arts to render their wines weak as tipplers of our time do to make them strong.

The Hebrew word " rendered wine is supposed to be the origin of the Greek ovos, the Latin vinum, Italian and Spanish vino, French vin, Celtic or Welsh gwin, Cimbric uin, Gothic wein, old German uuin, Danish vien, Dutch wun, and English wine. This term is derived from the root r, to press or squeeze ;" no word, therefore, could better designate the simple juice of the grape; for, whether fermented or not, it was nevertheless a liquid which had originally been expressed from the fruit. Hence we see that the terms of the Hebrews, the ovos of the Greeks, the vinum of the Romans, and wine of the English, are generic, and in each language are used as the name of a liquor that has been obtained from the vine. It may have been fer

mented or forbidden to ferment; it may contain twenty-six per cent. of alcohol, or no spirit whatever; it may be made by boiling away the water from the must, by adding water to it, or by drugging it with aromatics or poisons; it may be sweet, acid, or bitter—but still, in each case, it is wine, and is so denominated in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English. Pliny says that in Cato's time the word "temetum," "inebriety," was applied to wine: "Hoc tum nomen vino erat, unde et temulentia appellata," a plain proof that the word "vinum," or "wine," did not always express" temetum," or an intoxicating drink. Indeed we know that in our day the term, when used alone, conveys to us no very definite idea; for it may mean port, or madeira, or sherry, or hock, or elder, or palm wine; it may stand for a weak wine or a very spirituous one; it may mean the strong wines of England, the weak wines of France, or the drugged, boiled, and unfermented wines of the ancients. Hence we use the words port wine, sherry wine, malmsey wine, currant wine, elder wine, &c. &c.

The reader must not be surprised that the term should thus admit of more than one signification, because he must know that there is scarcely a word in the English tongue but has more than one acceptation. The word "post," the Latin "ratio," and thousands of terms that might be mentioned, have more than one signification, and in these cases the context, or the adjective appended, is allowed to settle the meaning. If a man perseveringly maintained that post, or ratio, or Aoyos, never had but one application, we should conclude he was mad, and leave off arguing with him; yet he who asserts that "wine" always refers to the same kind of liquor, is guilty of an equal degree of folly, and bids defiance to history, science, his own mother-tongue, and even his own taste and observation. But if wine does not always mean the same kind of drink, it follows that we are under no obligation to use those that may be recommended in Scripture, because the commendation can only extend to the kind of liquor recommended, and cannot, by any of the perversions of sophistry, be made to include all and every sort of poisonous wine which the vice or cupidity of man may invent or manufacture.

In accordance with these arguments, we find among the Greeks and Latins various appellations given to wine.

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TAEUKOS, is mustum, vinum, et succis dulcis ;" "must, wine, and a sweet juice." Suidas calls it, το αποσταλαγμα της σταφυλης πριν παTn9," the wine that dropped from the grape before it was trodden." Mr. Buckingham says that this wine in Smyrna is called "the droppings of the wine-press," and "virgin wine," and adds from having tasted it, that it was most delicious. Hesychius tells us that γλευκος is γλευξις, οινος, έψημα, a sweet juice, wine, and sodden wine. I'λEUKʊ is said to be "genus vini quod Latine dicitur, passum ;” “a kind of wine which the Latins call passum.' These are the wines which Aristotle tells us "would not intoxicate," and which, on that account, Polybius says, were conceded to Roman females. Still it must be remembered, that they are called wines.

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Enua was the name which the Greeks applied to boiled wine; the term is derived from spaw, to boil. Dioscorides calls it, "sapa genus vini," " sapa, a kind of wine." In making it, two-thirds of the juice were evaporated: this wine, therefore, could not be fermented. Donovan says, 66 must or grape-juice, unless as liquid as water, will not ferment: and if wine, after evaporation, leaves any residuum sweet and agreeable to the taste, it is proof that any degree of fermentation to which it had been subjected, must have been very trivial. Besides, it is an opinion maintained by respectable authorities that boiling any sweet vegetable juice has a tendency to lessen its susceptibility of fermentation. Newman 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 had exhaled from them. Thus sundry sweet liquors are preserved for a length of time by boil ing. From these considerations it is probable that the qualities for which the Romans and Greeks valued their wines were very different from those sought after in the present day; and that they contained much saccharine matter and little alcohol."-Donovan's Domestic Economy, pages 24 and 25.

This same writer observes, page 24, " Many of the wines de

scribed by the ancients seem to have been rather the stock from which wine was to be made than the wine itself. They were often so thick as to require solution in hot water, and filtration before they were fit for drinking, as appears by the statements of Pliny and Aristotle." This passage shows that they were not fermented, otherwise they could not have been thick; because you cannot concentrate or thicken grape-juice, after having decomposed and destroyed the sugar by fermentation. The former quotation also proves, on scientific principles, that it is difficult to make sweet vegetable juices ferment after you have once thickened or concentrated their saccharine matter by boiling. And we see further, that previous to drinking these wine stocks, or concentrated juices, they merely diluted them with water, and then filtered them. If they had wished them to ferment, they would not have filtered them, and thus have deprived them of the yeast, which is the active principle of fermentation, nor would they have boiled them down that they might prevent fermentation by concentrating the sugar and evaporating the water. They wanted water, they wanted yeast, and at the same time were too thick to ferment. Every chimist knows that these wines could not be fermented, and yet the ancients called them wines.

Σιραιον was a name applied to defrutum, sapa, vinum novum decoctum," ," "defrutum, sapa, new wine sodden." This wine differed but little from Hepsema.

Passum, to which Polybius refers as the drink of the Roman females, was so called because it was made from the "uva passa," the dried grape or raisins. In manufacturing it, Columella says that some poured must, and others water, upon the dried grapes. This drink would quench thirst, but, as Polybius asserts, would not intoxicate. It was this kind of liquor which the Jews used at the Passover, and which our Lord drank at the first Christian sacrament. This shall be presently shown. I have made this kind of wine from raisins, and, when boiled, have kept it sixteen months in a warm room without its fermenting.

The defrutum and sapa of the Romans answer, as Pliny asserts, to the Hepsema, or boiled wines of the Greeks. If this

wine had fermented previous to boiling, not only would the alcohol have escaped during the process, but there would have remained no sugar to form a sirup. It is impossible to inspissate a fermented wine; and, if it had not fermented, boiling it down to the consistence of sirup most effectually prevented the formation of alcohol. If defrutum became inebriating, it must have been rendered so by the addition of stupefying drugs.

Protropum is said by Pliny to have been "mustum quod sponte profluit antequam uvæ calcentur," "the must which flows spontaneously from the grapes before they have been trodden." This explanation exactly corresponds with Hesychius' description of yλɛukus, or sweet wine. It was not fermented, and yet was called "wine." This is also what Mr. Buckingham drank at Smyrna, as "the droppings of the wine-press," or virginwine.

The drink called "mustum" was, according to Ainsworth, new wine close shut up, and not suffered to work," or ferment. In England this was formerly called "stum." In the London Encyclopædia "stum" is termed an unfermented wine; to prevent it from fermenting, the casks are matched, or have brimstone burnt in them. Sulphur is placed among the antiferments mentioned by Donovan. Dr. Ure, in the article already quoted, page 225, has philosophically accounted for the influence of sulphurous acid in preventing fermentation. The ancients were aware of this fact, and therefore put a considerable quantity of gypsum, or sulphate of lime, into their wines. The interior and exterior of their casks were, in many cases, covered with gypsum.

Columella gives recipes for making wormwood wine, hyssop wine, and others of the same character. These wines were bitter, soporific, and stupefying. "He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunk with wormwood," is the exclamation of Jeremiah. Wormwood, myrrh, gall, and hemlock are promiscuously used for each other in the Scripture. The character of these ingredients was a reason why our Lord refused the wine mixed with myrrh or gall which was offered him by the Roman soldiers. The prescription given by Columella for making wormwood wine, and others of the same character, shows that they could