for the devout student of God's Word to decide which mode of interpretation seems to him the one more consistent with the spirit breathed throughout the teaching of the Sacred Records, and the more consonant with the general tenour of the life and character of Christ.

PART II.

WINE: ECCLESIASTICAL.

CHAPTER XIX.

INTOXICATING WINE UNSAFE FOR REFORMED DRUNKARDS.

INTEMPERANCE A PHYSICAL AS WELL AS MORAL EVIL.

We now leave the region of exegetical and philological speculation, and emerge from the open battle-field of doubtful disputation on the solid ground of ascertained truth. Here I am on my own territory of medicine. The footing is firm. My back is to the rock of truth, and—

"Come one, come all! This rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I."

Over and above the moral and spiritual aspect of

intemperance, there is the physical aspect. Beside drunkenness the sin, there is drunkenness the disease. The soul of the inebriate may be regenerate, his spirit may be born again, and the moral disease cured by the unerring skill of the Great Physician, but not unseldom,

"The senses still are in the bonds, although
Bleeding, the soul hath freed itself."

The physical footprints of alcohol on the body and brain of man can be effaced by no moral or religious agency. Perverted nutrition and altered structure can no more thus be restored to their normal condition, than can conversion replace a tooth which has been knocked out, or an arm which has been cut off. With reference to the narcotic which "biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder," it may truly be said of the tissues of the dipsomaniac that "the trail of the serpent is over them all."

RELAPSE OF REFORMED DRUNKARDS THROUGH

INTOXICATING COMMUNION WINE.

Some of the rescued from the bondage of strong drink have little or no craving after the first few days. With more, the craving either gradually

subsides or is overcome by moral and religious influences. But with many the craving is ever latent, and the old unhallowed fire ready to be rekindled by the smallest sip of the weakest form of an intoxicating liquor. The sore of intemperance but too often leaves a scar, which needs but a slight application of the old stimulant to break out afresh in all its pristine virulence. Not a few victims saved through abstinence from this vice, and crime and sin have, after manfully resisting the temptations of the world for years, been tempted again to ruin by partaking of alcoholic wine at the Holy Communion, in which they had with difficulty been persuaded to join by an uncnlightened, though zealous, Christian minister. Of the victims who have met so sad a fate, we may indeed say, in the words of the poet, that they

were

"Hearts that the world in vain had tried,

And sorrow but more closely tied ;

That stood the storm when waves were rough,

Then in a sunny hour fell off,

Like ships that have gone down at sea,

When heaven was all tranquility."

A Christian worker A., not believing in the danger of alcoholic wine at the sacrament to those who have ever fallen under the power of drink,

often remonstrated with a fellow Christian worker B. on the latter's persistent absence from the Communion. A. knew the reason, which was that B. had once been a slave to drinking, and, though rescued from its thraldom and power, dreaded exposure to the old temptation by partaking of ever so small a quantity of intoxicating liquor. B. had been appointed, by those who knew him well, and had perfect confidence in his sobriety and conversion, to the responsible post of Scripture reader to St.'s Church. B. was closely allied with A. in all Church-fellowship except the Communion. A. repeatedly urged B. "to trust to the grace of God," reproaching the latter with want of faith in God's power to uphold him. A. further urged strongly the inconsistency of B. absenting himself from an ordinance, at which, in his public position, he ought rather to advocate attendance. At length A. invited B. to spend a Sunday at the former's house, suggesting that if they together received the sacrament and returned home there could be no danger. So the matter was settled. Immediately after Communion A., being called, crossed the church, was engaged only for a minute, and returned to the pew to find his friend B. gone! A. searched up and down for a long time with dreadful misgiving, and, late at night, found B. mad with