ART. VIII.—WAS JESUS A WINE-BIBBER ?

[FIRST ARTICLE.]

A Calm View of the Temperance Question. By Chancellor HOWARD CROSBY, D.D., LL.D. Delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, January 10, 1881, and published in the New York "Independent," January 20, 1881.

The Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1881. Art. III, "The Biblical Sanction for Wine." By Rev. HORACE BUMSTEAD, Atlanta, Ga.

The Presbyterian Review, January, 1881. Art. IV, "The Bible Wine Question." By Rev. DUNLOP MOORE, D.D.

I. THE QUESTION STATED AND ITS IMPORTANCE NOTED. MORE than eighteen hundred years ago it was said of Jesus Christ, "Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." (Matt. xi, 19; Luke vii, 34.) One particular of that accusation men have continued to repeat until this day. They have said, and they have not ceased to say, Jesus was a drinking man. His enemies have insisted upon it, that they might cast disgrace upon his character and discredit upon his cause. Lovers of strong drink have affirmed it, that they might shelter themselves under the cover of his example. Some of his most candid and conscientious followers have felt themselves compelled to admit the charge, and, without pleading his practice as a precedent, have attempted his defense. Others, perhaps no less conscientious or candid, have frankly avowed that no defense is demanded, but that his course as a moderate drinker is to be copied. It would seem as if this latter class had of late entered into a conspiracy to strengthen their own position by a determined attack on the lines of their opponents. For, at the opening of the present year, and almost simultaneously, Chancellor Crosby on the platform of the Monday Lectureship, Dr. Moore in the pages of the "Presbyterian Review," and Prof. Bumstead in the pages of the "Bibliotheca Sacra," made vigorous onslaught on those who hold that the Bible does not lend its sanction to the use of intoxicating beverages, and, in particular, on all who quote the example of Christ in favor of total abstinence. "No unbiased reader," Chancellor Crosby declares,* "can for a moment doubt that wine as referred to in the Bible passim is an intoxicating drink, and that such wine was drunk by our Saviour and the early "A Calm View of the Temperance Question."

FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXIV.—8

Christians." And again, "It is impossible to condemn all drinking of wine as either sinful or improper without bringing reproach upon the Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles. There has been an immense amount of wriggling by Christian writers on this subject to get away from this alternative, but there it stands impregnable, Jesus did use wine."* Dr. Moore affirms,† "Christ himself drank wine, the wine from which John the Baptist abstained, the wine which is classed with sikera, (Luke i, 15.). . . Jesus himself drank the common wine of Palestine. . . . He did discriminate between an excessive and a temperate use of wine that could intoxicate." Prof. Bumstead asserts, "The Bible sanctions the use of wine by the example of Christ. The sanction is undeniable and emphatic." And again,§"The example of Christ is utterly irreconcilable with the theory of those who plead for total abstinence."

These are very serious charges. If they can be substantiated they will prove exceedingly damaging, if not utterly fatal, to the claims of total abstinence. The example of Christ must be regarded as determinative in this matter. If abstinence was his practice it is our duty. If moderation was his rule it may be our custom. To this extent we are in perfect accord with the authors just quoted. If their premises are correct their conclusion is inevitable. It is idle to deny this as many do. It will not do to say that Christ's indulgence in intoxicat ing drink would not concern us any more than his going barefoot, riding on an ass, or remaining unmarried. For this comparison holds good only in case the former like the latter belongs to the category of things indifferent; that is, such as may, cæteris paribus, be innocently done or left undone. To that sphere many who discountenance their use relegate alcoholic beverages. They regard the question of their use as purely "prudential," and decide it solely on grounds of expediency. But is their procedure valid, or their classification correct? Does the question belong to morals? Is wine-drinking under any circumstances right, or is it a sin per se? We believe

*"A Calm View of the Temperance Question." "Presbyterian Review," January, 1881, p. 88. "Bibliotheca Sacra," Jan., 1881, p. 86.

§ Ibid., p. 109.

Wendell Phillips' Reply to Dr. Crosby in "Moderation vs. Total Abstinence," p. 43.

no better answer can be given than that of Tayler Lewis: * "There is one evil state of soul condemned throughout the Bible. It is that state to which we give the name intoxication, or inebriation. . . . It is the act of a person in health, voluntarily, and without any other motive or reason than the pleas urable 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." And we believe this all the more strongly, because the tendency of modern scientific investigation is to demonstrate the use of alcohol in any form or quantity in health to be a sin against one's own nature. And on this point we would be willing to abide by the decision of Prof. Bumstead, who devotes over thirteen pages of the "Bibliotheca Sacra" (48-61) to a discussion of the physiological action of alcohol. In summing up the results of "the latest and best science" in this regard, he says, "There is a practically unanimous verdict from all authorities that alcohol is not needed, and is likely to do harm, in a state of perfect health." How accurately this states the situation will appear from such unimpeachable testimony as follows. Sir Henry Thompson, in his recent letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury,+ says, "The habitual use of fermented liquors to an extent far short of what is necessary to produce that condition, [drunkenness,] and such as is quite common in all ranks of society, injures the body and diminishes the mental power to an extent which, I think, few people are aware of." Sir William Gull, in his testimony before a select committee of the House of Lords, § said: "The constant use of alcohol, even in moderate measure, may injure the nerve tissues and be deleterious to health; and one of the commonest things in society is, that people are injured by drink without being drunkards. It goes on so quietly that it is difficult to observe, even though it leads to degeneration of the tissues * American preface to the "Temperance Bible Commentary," pp. xii, xiii. "Bibliotheca Sacra," January, 1881, p. 60.

Quoted in Judge Pitman's "Alcohol and the State," p. 38.

§ Reprinted and reiterated in "The Alcohol Question," a series of papers which originally appeared in the "Contemporary Review."

*

and spoils the health and the intellect. Short of drunkenness, I should say from my experience, that alcohol is the most destructive agent we are aware of in this country." Prof. Binz, of Bonn, who, with Dr. Anstie, of England, has been chiefly quoted in support of the food value of alcohol, says, "While I thus share in the views of the late Dr. Anstie, so ably upheld in England, I do not hesitate, on the other hand, to declare with respect to the healthy organism, that I consider the use of alcohol in health as entirely superfluous." Dr. Parkes, of the British Army Medical School, arrives at these conclusions with reference to the use of spirits in the army, † which are equally applicable to all men under every circumstance: "Looking back to the evidence, it may be asked: Are there any circumstances of the soldier's life in which the issue of spirits is advisable, and if the question at any time lies between the issue of spirits and total abstinence, which is best? To me there seems but one answer. If spirits neither give strength to the body nor sustain it against disease, are not protective against cold and wet, and aggravate rather than mitigate the effects of heat-if their use, even in moderation, increases crime, injures discipline, and impairs hope and cheerfulness-if the severest trials of war have been not merely borne, but most easily borne, without them-if there is no evidence that they are protective against malaria or other diseases-then I conceive that the medical officer will not be justified in sanctioning their use under any circumstances." Dr. Henry Maudsley, the leading English authority on mental diseases, declares, "If men took careful thought of the best use which they could make of their bodies, they would probably never take alcohol, except as they would take a dose of medicine, to serve some special purpose." Dr. B. W. Richardson says, § "Thus by two tests science tries the comparison between alcohol and man. She finds in the body no structure made from alcohol; she finds in the healthy body no alcohol; she finds in those who have taken alcohol changes of the structure, and these are changes of disease. By all these proofs she declares

"American Journal of the Medical Sciences," July, 1876, p. 262. "Manual of Practical Hygiene." (1873,) p. 284.

"Responsibility in Mental Disease,” p. 285.

"Moderate Drinking, For and Against, from Scientific Points of View," (1878,) p. 20.

alcohol to be entirely alien to the structure of man. It does not build up the body; it undermines and destroys the building." Dr. W. H. Dickinson of St. George's Hospital, England, after recounting, with accuracy, the structural changes which alcohol initiates, and the structural changes and consequent derangement and suspension of vital functions which it involves, aptly terms it "THE GENIUS OF DEGENERATION."* Dr. T. M. Coan, who aims to show that the latest science gives its sanction to moderate drinking, yet confesses,† "In robust and perfect health they (fermented liquors) are entirely superfluous; and they are sometimes injurious by promoting too much assimilation, making too much blood." Prof. William James, M.D., in a lecture delivered before the students of Harvard College, (May, 1881,) teaches that the effects of alcohol, even in moderate quantities, are, "on the whole, likely to be injurious," and that its use "is not consistent with a state of perfect health." Dr. Markham, F.R.S., in reviewing the latest scientific utterances in regard to alcohol, well says, "It is scarcely possible to read fairly the works of distinguished physiologists who have discussed the question, without feeling that they have been, in spite of themselves, as it were, driven, by the legiti mate consequences following from their premises, to the conclusion that alcohol is unnecessary and injurious to the human body."

An effort is made to escape the force of this evidence by an attempted discrimination between alcohol and beverages containing it, and between distilled and fermented liquors. But the only distinction which exists is one of degree. Alcohol is always one and the same thing in kind, in whatever form or under whatever disguise we find it. It is "alcohol that gives type" to fermented as well as to distilled liquors, "and allies them too closely" to call for discrimination. "So far as our chemistry tells us, the form of the alcohol is just the same, only (in wines and beer) the flavoring and addition of actual food is different. We do not recognize this as 'the alembic in which

* E. M. Hunt, M.D., in "Alcohol as a Food and Medicine," p. 43, quoting from "The Lancet," 1872.

The "State of the Alcohol Question," "Harper's Monthly," October, 1879. "Boston Daily Advertiser," May 19, 1881.

§ Quoted in Hunt's "Alcohol as a Food and Medicine," p. 59.

"A Calm View," etc. "Bibliotheca Sacra," January, 1881, p. 486.