The Deceitfulness of Strong Drink
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” — xx. 1.
FROM our point of view it seems strange that in the Proverbs we should not have met with a specific warning regarding the dangers of strong drink until now. The book is eminently practical. It was a book for the times: it rebuked impartially the vices and follies of every class. Covetousness, anger, falsehood, dishonesty — all the more common vices that infest society have, in the preceding portion of the book, been repeatedly exposed and reproved; but hitherto drunkenness has not found a place in the discourses of this ancient Hebrew preacher. I cannot account for this, except by the supposition that the vice was comparatively rare.
If Solomon had lived among us, and written a volume of lessons on life in the same style as the Book of Proverbs, he could not have reached the twentieth chapter without a word on drunkenness. This vice, with its causes and consequences, would have crossed his path in every movement, and forced itself upon his notice every day. It would have claimed a place at an earlier stage, and continued to protrude through almost every paragraph. If such a book in our day and land should proceed as far ere any allusion to strong drink appeared, it would indicate a bias in the writer’s mind, and undermine the authority of all his teaching. Ah, it would be a blessed day for our poor beloved fatherland, if it were possible here honestly to compose such a sermon for the times, introducing intemperance at a late period, and saying little about it even then! Although the sin existed and produced its appropriate sorrows in those ancient days and those Eastern lands, it could bear no comparison with our experience, either as to its absolute extent or its proportion to other kindred ills. W 26
In regard to the whole subject of intemperance, it is of the utmost importance to observe and remember the difference between wine -growing countries in ancient times and our own northern land now. The main points of distinction are these two: — 1. The chief agent of intoxication among us is not wine at all, but a much more potent draught, which was entirely unknown to antiquity. 2. Even the wines which we use, partly imported from abroad, and partly manufactured at home, are, by admixture of spirits and other materials, much more powerful as intoxicants than the wines ordinarily used of old on the soil which produced them. I adjure all, as they fear God and regard man — as they would save themselves and their brethren, not to overlook these distinctions. I entertain a sorrowful and solemn conviction, which I have often spoken before, and speak now again weeping, that many among us wrest to their own destruction those scriptures which commend the use of wine. To quote these expressions and apply them, without abatement, to the liquors now ordinarily used in this country, is logically incorrect, and practically most dangerous. It is quite true that wines capable of producing intoxication were made and used in those days: it is also quite true that there were both drunkards and isolated acts of inebriation in those days: yet it is neither just nor safe to assume that what is said in the Scriptures of wine is applicable, without restriction, to our intoxicants. As to the measure of the difference, exact knowledge is probably not attainable, and it does not become any one to dogmatize; but if all were induced to acknowledge that there is a difference, and stirred up to seek direction for themselves, from Him who gives the word, as to how far a scriptural commendation of the weaker may be transferred also to the stronger stimulant, our object would be obtained; for they who seek shall find: the meek He will guide.
It would be out of place to agitate here the questions regarding the nature of ancient wines, and the meaning of the several different Hebrew and Greek words indiscriminately translated “wine” in the vernacular version of the Scriptures. I deem it my duty, however, to record at this place the indisputable facts: 1. That some of the wines of antiquity possessed the intoxicating property in various degrees, and some of them did not possess it at all. 2. That several terms, totally distinct from each other in etymology, are in the original Scriptures applied to the manufactured juice of the grape, and, as a general rule, rendered in our version indiscriminately by the term “wine.” I take this opportunity further of expressing, sorrowfully and solemnly, my conviction that the questions arising out of these facts in our day, are in themselves as interesting, and in their bearing as important, as any questions of history or philology can possibly be. It may be that the unwise, attempting to solve them, fall into dangerous mistakes, and that the wisest cannot solve them fully but the questions are grave and worthy of the most serious consideration. To ignore them as impertinent or trifling, and quote from the English Bible a text about ancient Judean wine in support of modern Scottish whisky, is not right, and cannot long be successful.
Avoiding the examination of particulars, as being, on account of its necessary length, unsuitable for these pages, I submit a general proposition, which I believe all my readers will feel to be safe and moderate: The expressions in Scripture which commend wine and strong drink are LESS applicable to the liquors in ordinary use among us, and the expressions which denounce them, MORE. How much less, and how much more, it is difficult precisely to tell. Each must judge for himself; as for me, I shall, God helping me, endeavour, in the difficulty, to lean to the safer side.
The characteristic of strong drink which this text singles out is its deceitfulness. In the illustration of it I shall exclusively regard our own day and our own circumstances. The warnings of Scripture may be intensified manifold when brought to bear on the power of our intoxicants to “mock” their victims. If the fruit of his own vine sometimes chastised the unwary Israelite with whips, the fiery products of our distilleries chastise the nation with scorpions. The little finger of strong drink hi modern times is thicker than the loins of its father and representative in Solomon’s day. The deceits which our enemy practises are legion; and legion too are the unwise “who are deceived thereby.” I shall now enumerate a few of these lying devices.
1. A great quantity of precious food is destroyed in this country that strong drink may be extracted from the rubbish. Barley, the principal material, is a wholesome grain, and if it be uusuited to the taste of the community in the form of food, others might be cultivated in its stead. The fruit of the earth, therefore, which is fit for the food of man, is destroyed by man’s own hand, to supply him with drink. As to the quantity so consumed, exact statistics are not necessary for our purpose; we can afford to leave a margin wide enough for all contingencies. On an average of ten years the quantity of barley converted into malt in the United Kingdom has been nearly six millions of quarters annually When you add to this the unmalted grain consumed in the distillation of spirits in Ireland, you have an aggregate sufficient to feed between four and five millions of people throughout the year.
When I see cart-loads of dirty, brown, reeking rubbish passing along the streets, food for pigs and cattle, I gaze with melancholy interest on the repulsive object. The sight, though few would count it poetical, is more suggestive to my imagination than shady groves at noon, or moonlight on a rippling lake. I think of the yellow waving harvest field which reproduced its seed a hundredfold — of the labourers who tilled it going home with heavy hearts to their half-fed children — of the amen that rose from many a cushioned pew when the prayer for daily bread was addressed to “our Father in heaven.” If the question, “Where is the bread which I have given you 1” should now peal in thunder from the throne, this nation must stand speechless, between those bounteous harvest fields on the one hand, and these steaming, fetid heaps of husks which the swine do eat, on the other.
So much we destroy of that which God commands the earth to bring forth for the life of man; and what do we obtain in return 1 A large quantity of malt liquors and distilled spirits. And is the gain not equivalent, or nearly equivalent, to the loss, in the material means of supporting life 1 Here lies another deceit:
2. The curative and strengthening properties of our strong drinks, which are so much vaunted, are in reality next to nothing. We except, of course, the infinitesimal proportion of them that is used as medicine. We speak of the ordinary use of these articles as a beverage by the people. A vague but influential notion is abroad that there is a good deal of nourishment in ale and spirits. The evidence of science is distinct and decisive on the other side; but it is not potential on the mind and conduct of the community. Ardent spirits contain no nourishment at all. If they contribute at any time to the quantity of force exerted by man, it corresponds not to the corn which you give to your horse, but to the whipping. A master who has hired you only for a day, and desires to make the most of his bargain, may possibly find it his interest to bring more out of your bones and sinews by such a stimulus; but you certainly have no interest in lashing an additional effort out of yourself to-day, and lying in lethargy to-morrow. The ardent spirits put nothing in; whatever therefore they take out, is taken from your body. The inevitable consequence is, permanent feebleness and shortened days. Whatever gain it may be to the master, every atom of exertion drawn forth by the stimulant is a dead loss to the man. As to malt liquors the case is different, but the difference is small. When you go down among infinitesimals the calculation is difficult. Our strong drink is eminently a mocker. It successfully deceives the people as to the quantity and the kind of nourishment which it contains. How many gallons of porter an Englishman must drink ere he get into his stomach a quantity of food equal to a loaf of bread, I do not remember, and I fear readers would be incredulous if the figures were set down. Liebig has a pleasant notion about balancing on the point of a pen-knife, like a pinch of snuff, all the nourishment that the most capacious German swallows with his beer in a day; and it is chemistry that he is giving us, not poetry or wit. He is submitting the results of a scientific analysis. But people don’t believe the chemists, — at least not with that kind of belief which compels a man to thwart his own appetite. We believe them when they detect by their analysis a few grains of arsenic in an exhumed body, and on the faith of their evidence we hang a man for murder; but we do not believe them when they tell us how little sustenance and how much poison is in our beer. Why 1 Because we like our beer. It takes a great deal of evidence to convince us, when our appetite is on the other side. Draymen may be seen in London, belonging to the breweries, living, as it were, at the fountain-head of drink, and showing an imposing bulk of body. If we judge men by the standard applied to fat cattle, they will bear away the prize. But apart from all moral considerations, and looking to the men as machines for doing work, the bulk damages the article. It will not last; — see the tables of mortality. It is not sound; if the skin is scratched, it cannot be healed again. How much better bodies these might have been, — how much better working machines, — if they had eaten as bread the grain which has been destroyed to supply them with porter! How much tougher bodies — how much brighter souls!
3. Strong drink deceives the nation by the vast amount of revenue that it pours into the public treasury. It is a true and wise economy to tax the articles heavily for behoof of the community, as far and as long as they are sold and used; but it is a false and foolish economy to encourage the consumption of the article for the sake of the revenue which it produces. Drink generates pauperism, and pauperism is costly. Drink generates crime, and crime is costly. If the national appetite for stimulants should suddenly cease, and the stream of taxation which constitutes one-third of the imperial revenue should consequently be dried up, a smaller amount of money, no doubt, would pass through the treasury; but we would find it easier to pay our way. A comfortable balance is a healthier thing for a mercantile firm, or an imperial treasury, than mere magnitude of transactions, where the expenditure is continually threatening to rise above the income. They who are deceived into the belief that strong drink enriches the nation “are not wise.”
There is a huge living creature with as many limbs as a Hindu idol, and these limbs intertwined with each other in equally admired confusion. The creature having life must be fed, and being large must have a great deal of food for its sustenance. One day, having got rather short allowance, it was rolling its heavy head among its many limbs, and felt something warm and fleshy. Being hungry, it made an incision with its teeth, laid its lips to the spot, and sucked. Warm blood came freely: the creature sucked its fill, and, gorged, lay down to sleep. Next day it supplemented its short rations in the same way. Every day the creature drank from that opening, and as this rich draught made up about one-third of its whole sustenance, the wonder grew, why it was becoming weaker under the process from day to day. Some one at last bethought him of turning over the animal’s intermingled limbs, and found that all this time it had been sucking its own blood! The discoverer proposed to bandage the spot, and not permit the continuance of the unnatural operation. The financiers cried out, “A third of the animal’s sustenance comes from that opening; if you stop it, he will die!” Behold the wise politicians who imagine that the body politic would die of inanition if it were deprived of the revenue which it sucks from its own veins, in the shape of taxes on intoxicating drinks!
4. In as far as human friendship is, in any case, dependent on artificial stimulant for the degree of its fervency, it is a worthless counterfeit. No man who entertains a proper respect for himself will accept the spurious coin in the interchange of social affections. There is another sphere on which the deceiver sometimes operates, — a sphere so high, that I am afraid to follow him thither and contend with him there. I am in a strait betwixt two. I dare not speak it out, lest the very mention of it should offend God’s little ones; and I dare not pass it in silence, lest some unwise brother should stumble into the snare for want of the timely warning. The priests of Israel were expressly prohibited from tasting wine or strong drink before they approached the altar (Lev. x. 9). When the redeemed of the Lord — a spiritual priesthood all — enter into the Holiest through the blood of Christ, no spark of strange fire should be permitted in any degree to add intensity to the flame of their emotions.
5. Perhaps, after all, the chief deception practised by strong drink on the community lies in the silent, stealthy advances which it makes upon the unsuspecting taster, followed, when the secret approaches have been carried to a certain point, by the sure spring and relentless death-gripe of the raging lion who goes about amongst us seeking whom he may devour. All are not so deceived into drunkenness: the majority are not so deceived. If they were, the vessel of the State would soon go down bodily. Even as it is, the drunkards, a sweltering inert mass of brutalized humanity, lie so heavy in her hold, that a practised eye may observe a sickly stagger as she yet boldly breasts the wave. How came all these into that condition of shame and wretchedness? Ask these many thousands of mindless, pithless, hopeless, inebrirates — ask them one by one; they will all tell, and tell truly, that they did not intend to sink into that condition, but sank into it beyond recovery ere they were aware of danger. You are strong; you feel your footing firm: so did they. “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” This Bible warns you that wine is a mocker. The warning applies with greatly augmented force to us. I implore the reader to observe that the caution to the sober, to beware of the deceiving, insnaring power of strong drink, is not the alarm of an enthusiast, but the word of God.
A deceiver is in the midst of us. He has many strongholds in our streets: he has free access to our homes. His victims are many; and his treatment of them is merciless. Like the old serpent, he fastens his chains always by guile, never by violence. His professions are friendly, and his approaches slow. He touches the taste, and pleases it: he is therefore invited to return. Every time he is admitted to the tongue he sends along the nerves to the brain an influence, as secret as the electric current along the wire, and as sure. The effect is distinctly felt each time, but it seems to go off soon: it does not all go off, however. Something remains, invisible, it may be, as the effects of light at first on the photographer’s plate, but real, and ready to come out with awful distinctness at a succeeding stage. When the brain is frequently exposed to the comings and goings of these impressions, silent and secret as rays of light penetrating the camera, it acquires imperceptibly the susceptibility which an accident any day may develop into an incurable disease. Considering the power of this deceiver, — considering the number around us who are deceived thereby, — considering the wondrous delicacy and susceptibility of the human brain, — considering that in this life the soul can neither learn nor act except through the brain, as its organ, — considering that strong drink goes by a secret postern direct into the presence-chamber of the soul, — considering the satanic malignity with which it holds the struggling victim, — considering how few of those who have fallen into this pit have ever risen again, and how tenderly God’s word warns us not to venture near its slippery brim, — surely it is the part of wisdom to lean hard over to the safer side. Brother! your immortal soul is embodied in flesh. You have in that body only one organ through which the soul can act, either in getting from God or serving him. That organ is refined and delicate beyond the power of words to express. If its eye is dimmed and its feeling blunted, your soul has lost its only avenue of access to the Saviour. As you hope to see God, beware of those mists that cloud the vision of the soul. As you hope to feel a Redeemer’s love softly embracing you in a dying hour, beware oi those drops that have turned so many hearts into stone.