A lecture on the harmony of teetotalism, with the divine word : as expressed in the authorized version of the Bible (with answers to several objectors) / abridged from the works of Dr. Lees, and printed for general circulation.

  • Frederic Richard Lees
Date:
[between 1850 and 1859]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the harmony of teetotalism, with the divine word : as expressed in the authorized version of the Bible (with answers to several objectors) / abridged from the works of Dr. Lees, and printed for general circulation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/36 (page 12)
    Proverbs xxiii. 30-3, II or «eye. ’ II Not one of Solomon’s proverbs. History teaches that ■wine is seduc¬ tive. Case of Noah. Gen. ix. 23. Pall of Lo Gen. xix. 12 and on pouring it out, globules of fixed-air rise up and sparkle in the cup, giving that appearance of self-movement which is characteristic of champagne, and other effervescing fluids. Of such wine, what says the Bible ? “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red—■ “ When it giveth its bubble|| in the cup— “ When it moveth itself straightly *— “ At the last it biteth like a serpent, “And stingeth like an adder. “ Thine eyes will look upon strange women, “ And thy heart will utter perverse things.” The Church Homily on ‘ Intemperance ’ (A.D. 1623) gives a brief and sensible comment:—“ Solomon ,] forbiddeth the very sight of wine. Certainly that must needs be very hurtful which biteth and infecteth like a poisonous serpent, whereby men are brought to filthy fornication, which causeth the heart to devise mischief.” 11 3. The Bible, as a book of History, which is ‘ Philosophy teaching by Example,3 represents the use of strong-drink as being seductive in its nature and corrupting in its consequences. It does this, in the first place, by its Biographic Notices; and, in the second, by the National Annals vrhich it contains. .From the one class of instances we may derive special instruction for our personal guidance,—from the other, lessons of great social and national moment. And how impressive is the earliest scriptural instance of drunken¬ ness! Noah—the second father of our race—the righteous man— the favored prophet—the patriarchal priest—the monument of divine mercy—placed too in the most solemn and peculiar circumstances—■ the first recorded victim to the seductive influence of wine! Not long since, there appeared in the Paris ‘Illustrated News/ an engraving of the vintage. What, think you, was the history it represented? In the background was a view of Ararat, with the ark reposing on its summit—in the foreground an Oriental Patriarch, seen thro the opened curtains of his tent, prostrate and disarrayed, ‘ overcome of wine/ Yet from such premisses men infer that wine is good ! It is safe to the profane people, because it has been seductive to the pious patriarchs! “No doubt/’ says the good Dr. Haweis, in his Evangeli¬ cal Expositor,—“ when Noah began to drink wine, he never intended to be drunk with it.” Wine proved fa mocker’ and a curse to Noah —can it be a friend and blessing to us ? The ancients—and probably Noah himself; for we have no account of his subsequently using wine —drew a very different inference from the fact of the Patriarch’s failure. Savary, the learned Prench writer, has this observation :— “ Whence the oriental aversion to wine originated would be difficult to say, but exist it did; which probably suggested the prohibition of wine by Mahomed. We should perhaps look for the reason of this aversion to the gase of Noah.33 0 The second example of intemperance is like unto the first. The hitherto pure and ‘just Lot’—pure and just amidst abounding * A writer before referred to, thinks this line should be translated “ When it goeth-down sweetlyWell, let it be supposed to refer to the pleasure of the drinker’s taste; how docs that alter our argument? He will have hard work to convert the redness and effervescence of wine in a cup, into a description of a man in his cups!