142 The Liquor Question. 



and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the 

 prophet have erred through strong drink; they err in vision, they 

 stumble in judgment." 



In the woes denounced on the people, by Joel, the class doubtless 

 esteemed by him the most guilty, he addressed: "Awake, ye drunk- 

 ards, and weep; howl all ye drinkers of wine." Habakkuk, foretel- 

 ling the ruin of Judea, by the Chaldeans, assigned as a reason that 

 Nebuchadnezzar, the king, " trangresseth by wine;" and exclaims, 

 "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy 

 bottle to him, and makest him drunken also." The Philistines, at a 

 great sacrifice unto Dagon, their god, made themselves drunken with 

 wine and had Samson brought out of his prison house for their 

 diversion. 



The Babylonians were inordinate drinkers. In Daniel we have an 

 account of the feast made by Belshazzar, the king, during which the 

 sacred vessels taken from the temple at Jerusalem were brought in for 

 the use of the king, his princes, his wives and his concubines, that 

 they might drink therein. And while they thus drank wine, the 

 handwriting on the wall appeared. During the night, Cyrus and the 

 Persian troops entered the city, and " in that night was Belshazzar, 

 the king of the Chaldeans, slain." In the Book of Esdras, the follow- 

 ing is attributed to one of the body-guard of Darius, king of the Medes 

 and Persians: " 0 ye men, how exceedingly strong is wine: it causeth 

 all men to err that drink it: it maketh the mind of the king, and of 

 the fatherless child to be all one: of the bondman and of the freeman, 

 of the poor man and of the rich: it turneth also every thought into 

 jollity and mirth, so that a man remembereth neither sorrow nor debt: 

 and it maketh every heart rich, so that a man remembereth neither 

 king nor governor, and it maketh to speak all things by talents; and 

 when they are in their cups they forget their love both to friends and 

 brethren, and a little after draw out swords; but when they are from 

 the wine, they remember not what they have done." 



In Germany, England, Russia, France and the other European 

 countries, intoxication, from the earliest times, has been an evil against 

 which the people have constantly struggled. It was not confined to 

 any particular class. Tacitus says: « The German thinks the soul is 

 never more open to sincerity, nor the heart more alive to deeds of 

 heroism, than under the influence of the bottle; for then, being natur- 

 ally free from artifice and disguise, they open the inmost recesses of 

 their minds; and the opinion which are thus broached they again 

 canvass the next day. There is safety and reason attached to both 



