THE BOOK OF GENESIS. CHAPTER I. VERSE 29. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. EVERY HERB] Hebrew, kal asev. Asev, as full-grown herbage (including grain of all kinds), is distinguished from desheh, young and tender grass, and from khatzir, ripe grass, fit for mowing. The Lxx, renders asev by chorton, green plants of every species; but Aquila has chloee, young green corn or grass. The Vulgate reads herbam. EVERY TREE] Hebrew, kol hah-atz, i. e. every plant of woody fibre, in distinction from flexible sprouting plants. So the LXX., pan xulon, every kind of wood or timber; and the V. universa ligna, all sorts of wood-growth. TO YOU IT SHALL BE FOR MEAT] Lahkem yihyeh lěahkělah, "to you it shall be for eating" that which is to be eaten. = With this agrees the Targum of Onkelos, -lě-maikal. The Lxx., Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, all read eis brōsin, -for eating. The V. has in escam,--for food. This Divine saying is a Charter at once concise and all-comprehensive. Whatever produce of the earth is fit for food, it places at man's disposal. From dust was the human body formed, and out of the dust comes its sustenance. He who fashioned and animated the one, freely bestows the other. The animals that are eaten derive from the vegetable world all that renders their flesh nutritious. Men are not bound to eat everything that grows, but they can eat and assimilate nothing which has not first grown up under the power of the Highest. In regard to the food so bountifully provided, man's duty comprehends-1, Thankfulness to his Divine Benefactor, which involves devotion; 2, Co-operation with the laws of Providence for the increase of this food, which involves industry; 3, Appropriation of this food to the end designed, the health and vigour of man, which involves frugality and temperance. All waste of food is condemnable; and waste occurs when more food is consumed than can be made use of in the body:hence the glutton abuses both his body and the material fitted to nourish it. Waste equally accrues when food is deprived of any of its nutritious properties; still more palpably, when food becomes transformed into any substance charged with evil to mankind. Such waste is always and inevitably connected with the vinous fermentation which converts grape-sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid. Sugar, the good creature of God, and a real food, is destroyed, and, by new chemical affinities, its elements are broken up, and fresh substances formed, of which it cannot be truly said, "they shall be to you for food." The assertion that alcohol is in sugar, or in any unfermented saccharine substance, can only be made in utter ignorance of the alphabet of chemical science.* This waste of food has become all the greater since-in order to produce intoxicating liquors in larger quantities than the fermented juice of grapes could yield-grain, to the extent of about fifty million bushels yearly, is employed in the United Kingdom alone for brewing and distillation. By the malting process the starch of corn is converted into sugar, and this again by fermentation into alcohol and carbonic acid. Distillation draws off the alcohol thus formed, and the spirit so educed (not produced), being mixed with less water, more readily exerts its specific effects. The solid food thus wasted would supply a fair amount of aliment to some millions of persons every day all the year round. The plea that the alcoholic fermentation is ‘a natural process' cannot avail in extenuation of this waste, since it is no more natural than those other processes of decay against which food is assiduously guarded, nor would alcoholic liquors come 'naturally' into existence at all, were they not designedly manufactured by man himself. "God made man upright; but he found out many inventions." As the sole end sought by this waste of food is the production of an alcoholic beverage, it devolves upon those who sanction the transformation to show that some compensating advantage is thereby secured. (1) That alcohol is itself a food is an hypothesis destitute of all scientific support; for being destitute of nitrogen, it cannot make blood or help to repair bodily waste. The theory at one time generally received, that its combustion produces animal heat, is now abandoned as being proofless, while a series of careful experiments by distinguished men of science in France and England have furnished evidence that alcohol is in course of ejection, unchanged, thirty hours after being swallowed. (2) Another theory, that alcohol serves as an equivalent for food by diminishing the metamorphosis of tissue, is without weight, for experiments have not justified the theory; and were it otherwise, the use of alcohol to diminish the normal waste of tissue would be open to censure, as a mischievous interference with one of the vital processes on which the renewal of corporeal strength depends. (3) Could it be shown that alcohol, when imbibed, is neutral as to any sensible effect, its manufacture at the expense of the staff of life would be a vast economic crime; but the probability is that its operation on the healthy organism is always in some degree deleterious, the measure of injury varying with the quantity, strength, and frequency of the amount imbibed. In all works on toxicology alcohol is classed among narcotico-acrid poisons, and like other poisons, its action when not fatal, is yet demonstrably pernicious. Some of its evil effects, though apparently trivial or even insensible at the moment-as, for example, in impairing the redness of the blood-globules and the structure of the blood-vessels-assume a serious importance when regarded as cumulative during a succession of years. (4) No dispute, indeed, can arise on the point that, as ordinarily consumed (for its exciting property), alcohol occasions a large amount of disease and premature death, apart altogether from the sin and misery of intoxication. (5) Along with these physical consequences due account should be taken of its influence on the moral, social, and religious life of the countries where it is com *The old chemical formula of sugar is oxygen 3, hydrogen 3, carbon 3; the new is oxygen 3, hydrogen 6, carbon 3; but in the decomposition of sugar these elements recombine so as to generate alcohol and carbonic acid; thus, OH C 2 • 2 I 3 3 3 OH C 2 3 6 3 Not only is the sugar of grain and fruit thus destroyed, but their albumen becomes converted into yeast, and thus ceases to be food. monly consumed; and were this done, the stupendous folly of converting a nation's food into such an insinuating article would not fail to be recognized, deplored, and denounced by the Christian world. (6) The assertion that man has a natural predisposition or instinct for intoxicating articles, because he has always and everywhere been known to use them, is untrue from first to last. (a) The reason is not a correct statement of the facts, since many tribes have been discovered who were ignorant of all intoxicants, and others have made systematic regulations for their exclusion. (b) Any argument in favour of intoxicating drinks from their prevalent use would be equally available in favour of war, slavery, drunkenness itself, and vice of every description. (c) Natural instinct, so called, might be depraved instinct, the transmitted result of parental transgression of natural law. (d) But, in reality, natural instinct (save where the drunkard's appetite runs in the blood) is universally repugnant to the use of alcohol until it becomes perverted by persistent consumption of alcoholic compounds. (7) The final conclusion is, that the manufacture and use of alcoholic beverages are opposed to the Divine charter which assigns the produce of the earth to man for food. By the destruction of the saccharine and albuminous constituents of fruit and grain, ignorant or ungrateful man virtually declares, "To me they shall not be for meat," thus seeking to nullify and reverse the benevolent designs of his heavenly Father. CHAPTER II. VERSES 16, 17. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. It has been contended that the Divine procedure in creating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and permitting access to it by our first parents, is reason for allowing the use of intoxicating liquors and the traffic in them as beverages. Virtue, it is argued, is strengthened by exposure to temptation and resistance of it. But the danger of such reasoning is apparent on reflection, for under the pretence of proving virtue and piety, and invigorating them by the opposition evoked, the darkest spirits of evil may claim to be recognized as angels of light and benefactors of our race. In like manner, the progress of holiness, both in the individual and in humanity, may be exhibited as a misfortune, because diminishing the number and intensity of these trials of fidelity! What we are sure of as regards the Divine economy, in the Edenic as in every after age, is that God has never put His creatures to any proof involving an inducement to evil doing, and that He has never needlessly exposed them to moral danger. "He cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth He any man;" but "His tender mercies are over all His works." Whatever is to be understood by the tree of knowledge, and whatever construction, literal or allegorical, is put upon the Mosaic narrative, we know that some external tests of men's spiritual obedience were unavoidable, and that in the period of his innocence these tests did not address themselves to any depraved proclivity or bias. To infer from thence that men may now tempt themselves by using articles that originate a diseased appetite, and that they may tempt others by engaging in a traffic in such articles, is surely a lamentable wresting of the Divine Word. Temptation is unavoidable under the present constitution of society, and when resisted, is, by Divine grace, converted into a means of holiness; but so far from therefore encouraging temptation, and occasions of it, we are taught to pray, "Lead us not into temptation ;" and we are warned that though 'offences'-causes of stumbling-must needs come, through human wickedness, woe is it to the man by whom they purposely come; and we are solemnly warned against putting an occasion of falling in a brother's way. Even were there any reality in the analogy suggested, it would only lead to this conclusion that strong drink may be manufactured and houses for its sale set up, but that all indulgence and traffic in it must be prohibited-the virtue of men being put to the proof in resisting the temptation to use and traffic in the prohibited liquor. Would those who descant on the value of temptation care to have drink and drinking-houses exhibited while all connection with them was put under moral and legal ban? Yet this is the only analogy to be gathered from this passage; the tree of knowledge of good and evil was, indeed, planted and placed within reach, but the command given was not to eat of it, and the recompence of disobedience was death! CHAPTER III. VERSE 6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. This verse sententiously describes the 'great transgression'; voluntarily committed, indeed, but occasioned, in no small measure, by the circumstances preceding it. Eve was standing on dangerous ground, near to the forbidden tree, which she should have avoided; she was found in dangerous company, that of the subtle serpent, which she should have shunned; and she was engaged in dangerous exercises which she should have disallowed, lending an ear to deceptive counsel, and fixing an eye on a seductive substance. Is it strange that, so situated and employed, she should have fallen? Would that her progeny had taken warning from her want of true wisdom!* How impressive the lessonthat, whenever possible, both the sphere and occasions of evil, as well as its actual operations, ought to be dreaded and excluded! Those who see no sin in using a little drink, or in occasional visits to the tavern, argue as Eve might have done the moment before "she took of the fruit, and did eat." Though Adam's apparently ready compliance with Eve's invitation to share the unhallowed feast is a mystery, it is certain that he was powerfully influenced by affection for his spouse; and thus his act becomes an example of the influence for good or evil, which women exercise on the other sex, and through them on the destiny of the world. When that influence is directed against the fashionable and fatal dietetic use of intoxicating drinks, it will bless mankind beyond measure. Much ingenious but useless speculation has been wasted on curious questions arising out of this text; such as the period which elapsed between Adam's creation and Eve's formation, and between their conjugal union and their common * The leading journal of Britain has said, that if our Temperance doctrines are correct, "Paradise was wrongly constructed"; but a calm review of the case will demonstrate the contrary. Eve fell, not because evil was prohibited, but because she wilfully tampered with duty, and courted temptation. The fall was the result of the wickedness of the Tempter, and the weak self-confidence of the Tempted, teaching that we should not desire to be 'led into temptation,' much less place ourselves within its charmed circle. "Circumstance, that unspiritual God And miscreator, makes and helps along Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod."-Childe Harold, Canto iv. |