was good for the people in the true and proper sense of the word good. "Good wine" here meant an innocent, wholesome wine; and not, as our moderation friends insinuate, a wine poisoned with alcohol, or rendered destructive by some pernicious drug, and therefore, in reality a "bad wine."

The narrative also demonstrates what I have elsewhere asserted, that μεok does not mean intoxication in the modern conventional acceptation of the word. The people at the marriage of Cana, were drunk without being intoxicated; and Joseph's brethren were "yiskaroo, merry with him," literally "drunk with him," and yet they were not poisoned with alcohol, nor stupefied with drugs.

Paul's recommendation of wine for the diseased stomach of Timothy, is almost in every one's mouth as affording an irrefragable argument why men, who have no disease at all, should drink alcoholic liquors daily. The case here is a medical one, and therefore can afford no rule to regulate the conduct of persons in health. What if epsom salts had then been in existence, and the apostle had directed Timothy to take a dose now and then? I think the very tender consciences of our modern lovers of strong drink would not have been pained, although science and history had announced that total abstinence from that medicine was much the best thing for persons in health. If because remedies for the sick are mentioned in Scripture, therefore persons who are not sick are placed under a sacred obligation to use them daily, then ought we not merely to adopt the wine recommended to Timothy, but all the other remedies prescribed in Holy Writ. As a plaster of figs was commended to Hezekiah, we ought every one of us to wear the same external application; and as, in exact accordance with the ancient medical advice of Celsus, St. James recommends the sick to be anointed with oil, then ought we every day of our lives to rub our bodies with that ingredient, and instead of adopting the doctrine of "extreme unction," we surely ought to teach and enforce the great duty of "daily unction," as a practice enjoined in Scripture, because James directed this remedy for the sick! Indeed, oil is very frequently spoken of in the Bible in the highest terms, and certainly placed on a par with wine; and yet

I do not find any persons whose consciences are afflicted because they do not make a greater use of oil, or who consider that they are bound to employ it, although their doing so should destroy thousands annually.

But those who plead the apostle's commendation to Timothy, would do well to consider what wine it was which St. Paul prescribed. There then existed in the Roman empire, through which Timothy had to travel, hundreds of different sorts of wine, and the character of very many of them the very opposite to each other-will our opponents tell us which of these it was that Timothy was to drink? Aristotle, Pliny, Columella, Philo, and others, some of them contemporary with St. Paul, affirm that many of the wines of that day produced “head-aches, dropsy, madness, dysentery, and stomach complaints:"-did the Holy Spirit recommend these? The same writers tell us that wines destitute of all strength were exceedingly wholesome and useful to the body, "salubre corpori:"-did he recommend these? Pliny and Columella give us various recipes for making medicinal wines, and some of these are particularly commended for a diseased stomach, “ad imbecillem stomachum,” and for general debility. Such was myrtle wine, squill wine, &c. :were these prescribed? Surely the apostle did not recommend to "his own spiritual son, whom he tenderly loved in the gospel," those wines which would increase the complaint in his stomach and his general debility. It could not be port, or sherry, or beer, or cider, that he prescribed, because these did not then exist; and if they had, as they would have produced as many ulcers on the weak stomach of Timothy in the a. D. 50, as they did on the healthy stomach of St. Martin in 1826, they could not have been commended by the Holy Ghost. What a bad cause that must be, which requires for its support that we should convert the holy apostle into an empyric who poisoned his patient by prescribing for his diseased stomach a liquor that increased his maladies! Is it not more rational to conclude that it was an innocent or a medicinal wine which Timothy was directed to use. 'Tis true, the wine is not named, because the common sense of the patient in this case, would induce him to take as a medicine, medicinal wine.

"The wine put out into new bottles," is spoken of as an illustration, and therefore contains no commendation of any wine whatever. You might as well say, that because we are to take the helmet of salvation, and the breast-plate of righteousness, therefore every real Christian ought to dress himself in ancient armor, as to argue that because our Lord borrows an illustration of his discourse from wines, therefore we all ought to drink alcoholic drinks. But independent of the incoherence of this absurd agument, it can be shown that the reference in the text is to an unfermented wine. If the wine had already fermented, then it would not have fermented again to such a degree as to have burst the vessels: if it had been intended to allow it to ferment, the mouth of the vessel would not have been closed, the carbonic acid would have been permitted to escape, and consequently would not have burst an old bottle. No man who wished his beer to work would bung up the cask; and no person who wished wine to ferment would be so foolish as to tie up the mouth of the bottle. Fermentation, if confined, would burst the strongest cask, but if left open for the carbonic acid to escape, an old vessel would not be endangered.

The art required was, to keep the new wine from fermenting, not to keep the bottles from bursting. The new bottle was not stronger than an old one; probably not quite so strong; besides, fermentation, Job tells us, would burst "new bottles." The difference between the new bottles and the old consisted not in the relative proportion of their strength, but arose solely from the fact that the new bottles had in them no fermentable matter. The wine would naturally soak into a skin bottle, and when it was poured out, the oxygen of the atmosphere would render the inner coat of the skin fermentable, and new wine put into such a bottle would certainly ferment and burst the vessel. Mr. Beardsall, of Manchester, who has succeeded in making unfermented wine, happened to put some into old ginger-beer jars, but, to his astonishment, the bottles began to burst, and, on examining them, he found that they had not been washed clean; some yeast, used in making the ginger-beer, remained on the inside of the bottle, and this caused the wine to ferment. So the old skin bottle was fermentable, and therefore would cause the

new wine to work. The new wine in the new jars of Mr. Beardsall kept very well, but that in the old jars fermented and was lost. A new bottle or skin also would be less porous than an old one, and therefore more effectually exclude the air; the oxygen of the atmosphere is essential to the vinous fermentation of grape juice; if excluded, the wine cannot ferment, and a new skin would more effectually shut it out than an old one. Further, wool and hair are bad conductors of heat. Hay, hair, or wool, are the best things to preserve ice in, if we wish to keep it from melting. The wool and hair of new skins would be more perfect non-conductors of heat than of old ones, just as a new garment is a better non-conductor than an old one; and in this respect a new skin was preferable to an old one to prevent fermentation. This exposition exactly accords with the design of the illustration.

The duties which the Pharisees wished to impose upon the disciples were like new wine; and the hearts of the disciples were like old bottles, which have in them fermentable matter, and are ill adapted to resist and exclude heat and air; our Lord, therefore, very wisely objects to the admission of new wine into such imperfect vessels. Contrary to nature, these spiritual bottles would get pure and unfermentable in time, and then be able to contain new wine, and preserve it without fermenting. We must not then forget that our Lord alludes to bottles that would entirely preserve the wine from fermenting, rather than to those which could bear the fermentation of wine without breaking. I have seen the strongest bottles shattered by the vincus fermentation of small-beer; I have known the strongest casks burst by the fermentation of cider in consequence of its having been bunged up before the liquor had done working; and a new skin bottle would have been rent by the fermentation of new wine. The vessel they required was not one that could bear fermentation without breaking, but one which would effectually preserve the wines from fermenting; and, therefore, the text alludes to the custom of preserving wines from fermentation, which both Pliny and Columella inform us was common at that very period when the Savior uttered these words.

It is worthy of observation that our Lord speaks of new skins

as adapted to preserve wine from working, and Columella, in giving the recipe for making unfermented wine, especially directs that it should be put into new amphoras, and to render them more proof against the air, orders them to be plastered with pitch, lime, or gypsum. I have noticed that when preserves have undergone the acetous fermentation, it has always been in consequence of the porous character of the pots in which they were put, or the admission of air through the covering. Need I say how exactly this interpretation agrees with the idea which our Lord's discourse is intended to convey. That religion, or those principles, which are weak, are easily agitated and put into a state of spiritual fermentation; they are fermentable, and readily penetrated and agitated by every wind of doctrine; but those which are firm, strong, and mature, are like new, pure, imporous bottles, and therefore preserve the heart from needless agitation.

I just now hinted a passage in the book of Job, which alludes to the custom of preserving wines from fermentation: "Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent, it is ready to burst like new bottles." Job, xxxii. 19. This text shows that wine, in a state of fermentation, would burst even " new bottles." In such a case, all the care necessary to prevent fermentation had not been taken. Perhaps the bottle was not quite full, or may not have been closed immediately, or may have been put into a very warm place, or the juice may not have been properly filtered; and, in either case, the admission of heat and air would have set the wine to work. But it is evident that the design was to keep the liquor from fermenting. Else why close the bottle? All the wine asked for was a vent for the carbonic acid; it was, therefore, only to untie the bottle, and all would have been saved. Besides, if they had wished to have a fermented wine, they would not have closed the vessel until the working was over; but, in their anxiety to keep the liquor from working, they often risked their bottles, and sometimes even new bottles" were rent. This fact most unquestionably proves that there was a custom, both in the days of Job and of Christ, of endeavoring to preserve the juice of the grape from fermentation, and our Lord's remarks show that the attempt was gene

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