The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

io S cr/:ix Adt ei 7II t': )(;iarz/c C/lailt'0.
mentators are equally disagreed. The Englishl translators
have supplied the words "wine on tihe," to give, as they
imagined, a suitable rendering. E ven retaining their
conception of the sense, there is nothing to support the
notion that the wine is eulogized because of an intoxicating quality. \Vine, well-refined from its albuminous particles, and so preserved from fermentation, would admirably fulfil the conditions of the text. Isaiah's invocationI (lv. I) may be compared with the passage in Canticles
(v. I). In Isaiah lxv. 8, the " new wine in the cluster" is
the vine-fruit in its ripening state clearly, it cannot be
wine after fermentation. In Amos ix. 13, the " sweet
wine " is a7s/s, which both the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate render by" sweetness "-the idea being that the rich
ripe grapes yield their sweet juice to the treader's foot.
In MIicah vi. I 5, the " sweet wine " of our version is not
ahszs, but tzros,7, and the real sense of the original can
only be perceived by rendering the entire verse-" Thou
shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the
olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and (thou
shalt tread) the vintage-fruit (lz'ros4), but shalt not drink
wine" (yayzn). In Zechariah ix. I7, the parallelism of
"Corn shall retake the young men cheerful, and new wine
[shall make cheerful] the maids," would lead the English
reader to regard the " new wine" (lzSros/h) as a solid, answering to "corn." This passage is also valuable as
showing that in Scripture "cheerfulness" is not related
to an intoxicating article. It is the " corn " that makes
the youths cheerful, and surely the maidens are not conceived as needing alcoholic wine to make them the same!
One Scotch divine is charged with having attempted to
restore what he regarded as the proper correspondence
by taking " corn" as a synonym for whiskey! The anecdote may be apocryphal, but will serve to point the
violation done to the true sense of Scripture by a proalcoholic exposition of its really temperance texts.