144 The Liquor Question. 



ence nor wisdom of men has been able, np to the present time, to 

 devise any plan upon which all, or substantially all, temperance 

 people can unite and work with one accord to minimize its injurious 

 effects. It is written in Deuteronomy, xxi, 18: "If a man have a 

 stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his 

 father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chas- 

 tened him, will not harken unto them: * * * they shall say unto 

 the elders of his city, this our son is stubborn and rebellious, he 

 will not obey our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the 

 men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die; so shalt thou 

 put away evil from among you; and all Israel shall fear." In Leviti- 

 cus, x, 8-11, it is written: " The Lord spake unto Aaron, saying: Do 

 not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when 

 ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die. It shall be 

 a statute forever throughout your generations. And that ye may put 

 difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean. 

 And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which 

 the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses." 



The debauchery in ancient India, sanctioned by the religious sacri- 

 fices which necessitated inordinate drunkenness on the part of those 

 who participated in them, became so alarming as to imperil the life 

 of the nation. It was about the ninth century B. C, that Manu was 

 accepted as the religious and moral law-giver of the people, who placed 

 before them the Institutes or Hindoo Law. A few extracts will 

 suffice to show how severely this ancient lawgiver dealt with the ven- 

 dors and partakers of intoxicants: "Never let a priest eat part of a 

 sacrifice performed by those who sell fermented liquor." "Money 

 due for spirituous liquors, the son of the debtor shall not be obliged 

 to pay." " A contract made by a person intoxicated is utterly null." 

 " A wife who drinks any may at all times be superseded by another 

 wife." Sellers of spirituous liquors are classed with gamesters, revil- 

 ers of scripture, etc., and shall be instantly banished from the town. 

 "Those wretches," it is said, "lurking like unseen thieves in the 

 dominion of a prince, continually harass his good subjects with their 

 vicious conduct." 



" For drinking spirits, let the mark of a vinter's flag be impressed 

 on the forehead with a hot iron. With none to eat with them, with 

 none to sacrifice with them, with none to read with them, with none 

 to be allied by marriage with them, abject and excluded from all 

 social duties, let them wander over this earth; branded with indelible 

 marks, they shall be deserted by their paternal and maternal relations, 



