Why, then, does the status of the liquor traffic present such marked contrasts in different municipalities? Ideals are not everywhere the same, to be sure, but human nature is. The bottom cause might be sought in the divergent regulative means and measures employed. The League has set itself the large task of finding out about these things, convinced that much needed information can be extracted by a patient study of them. How far it may succeed depends, in the first instance, upon the kind of support accorded the undertaking.

Competent men are already at work upon this problem; but if the results of their inquiry are to command the approval of intelligent and unbiased citizens in every State, if they are worthily to supplement and complete the labors of the Committee of Fifty, these results must be formulated and tested by men who make such work the business of their lives, their labors must be adequately supported, the expenses paid and the investigators compensated.

The burden of the foregoing article is that the liquor problem is now mainly a problem of municipal government; that it cries for solution and that it can be solved.

(From the National Municipal Review, October, 1913).

action. The hope will be that ultimately, through sound legislation as nearly uniform in character as possible, the liquor traffic may be divorced from politics, graft and the social evil. That this is possible, the success of efforts in a few localities gives strong reason for hope.

Recognizing that this will take much time and that it is advisable to concentrate the initial enquiry upon one important phase of the problem, it decided, upon the report of a committee appointed to outline the scope of the work, to confine the activities of the League in the first instance to one definite, particular thing; namely, the licensing question, who should issue liquor licenses, what should be their powers and what legislative restrictions should govern their actions.

So far no far-reaching authoritative study has been made of the licensing question. Yet the whole history of license regulation shows it to be the crux of the situation. A careful study of the practical workings of each of the various methods will, it is hoped, find the better way. The general adoption of the best system of granting licenses will be a long step toward the solution of the whole problem.-EDITOR.

IT

THE OLD TESTAMENT AND DRINK.

F the English version of the Old Testament represents the original Hebrew correctly, then wine and strong drink are, in these Scriptures, sometimes approved and sometimes condemned. Isaiah thinks well of wine when he prophesies (Is. 25.6), "In this mountain will Jehovah of hosts make unto all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." He would no more have written thus of wine, if he had thought ill of it, than a white ribboner of to-day would hold forth an abundance of superior whiskey as a charm of the millennium.

Very different are the words of Proverbs (20.1) about these beverages: "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler."

Other passages could be cited for both these sentiments. There are three possible explanations of this seeming discord. First, the sacred writers really disagreed about wine and strong drink. Second, where they seem to disagree, they are, in fact, talking of different things. Third, they are talking of the same thing, but the one is speaking of its proper use and the other of its misuse. The first supposition-that the sacred writers contradict each other-will be rejected by all who believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and need not be examined. The second supposition that where one praises and the other censures wine they are speaking of two entirely different beverages, clearly distinguished in the Hebrew, but confused under one head in our English translation has been vigorously maintained, and will now be examined in some detail. Let not the reader be frightened off from this examination by its statistical and monotonous appearance, for it is important. Besides, it will be easy and interesting, if you really care to go into the subject.

The English word wine, in the Old Testament, represents eleven Hebrew words; or, if we use the Revised Version, either English or American, eight Hebrew words. The term strong drink always represents the same Hebrew word. Of the words for wine two are very common, and it is admitted by all that these two are decisive as to the issue in hand. To them, therefore, we shall confine ourselves. These words are yayin and tirosh. It is contended

that yayin stands for fermented wine, and tirosh for unfermented grape juice, the one alcoholic and the other non-alcoholic; and that the wine which is praised in the Old Testament is tirosh, whereas yayin is condemned and forbidden. If this is so, the Old Testament enjoins total abstinence, and its saints and seers practiced it. If this is so, too, the translators of the Bible, not only into English, but into all other languages, ancient and modern, have been guilty of grievous ignorance in failing to make this vital distinction as clear in their translations as it was in the original. They have thus confused light and darkness, good and evil, to the peril of their souls. It must have happened in numberless instances that the supposed word of God, in place of a guide to salvation, became thus a lure to destruction.

Yayin. This word occurs in the Old Testament nearly 150 times. The following passages prove that it was intoxicating, if taken immoderately:

And Noah . . . drank of the yayin, and was drunken.-Gen. 9.20-21.

The two daughters of Lot "made their father drink yayin" till he did not know what he was doing.-Gen. 19.32-35.

Eli (1 Sam. 1.14), mistaking Hannah's excitement, "said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy yayin from thee." To this she replied, "I have drunk neither yayin nor strong drink." This passage shows that "strong drink" also could intoxicate.

"Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore Abigail (his wife) told him nothing less or more, until the morning light. And it came to pass in the morning, when the yayin was gone out of Nabal, that his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone."-1 Sam. 25.36-37.

The Psalmist declares (Ps. 60.3):

Thou hast showed thy people hard things: Thou hast made us to drink the yayin of staggering.

And Proverbs.

Yayin is a mocker, strong drink a brawler.-Pro. 20.1.

Who hath woe?

Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath complaining? Who hath wounds without cause?

Who hath redness of eyes?

They that tarry long at the yayin;

They that go to seek out mixed wine.

Look not thou upon the yayin when it is red, when it sparkleth
in the cup, When it goeth down smoothly:

At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder-
Pro. 23.29-32.

And here is one of the "oracles" that the mother of King Lemuel taught him-Pro. 31.4:

It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink yayin;
Nor for princes to say, Where is strong drink?

Isaiah adds his witness: "Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till yayin inflame them.-Is. 5.11.

"Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley of them that are overcome with yayin."-Is. 28.1.

"And even these reel with yayin, and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed up of yayin, they stagger with strong drink."-Is. 28.7.

Jeremiah (23.9) compares himself to “a drunkard, and like a man whom yayin hath overcome.”

The same prophet is ordered by Jehovah to "take this cup of the yayin of wrath at my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send thee to drink of it. And they shall drink, and reel to and fro, and be mad."-Jer. 25.15-16.

By Jeremiah also Jehovah declares: "Babylon hath been a golden cup in Jehovah's hand, that made all the world drunken: the nations have drunk of her yayin; therefore the nations are mad.” -Jer. 51.7.

Hosea plainly asserts that "whoredom and yayin and new wine take away the understanding."-Hos. 4.11. And in 7.5 he tells how "the princes made themselves sick with the heat of yayin."

Joel taunts the drunkards because wine can no longer be had: "Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and wail, all ye drinkers of yayin, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.— Joel 1.5.

If the translation by the Revised Version of Habbakuk 2.5, be accepted, then "yayin is treacherous, a haughty man, that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as Sheol, and he is as

death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples."

Now it would be too preposterous to say of beverages like water or milk or fresh grape juice that they were "treacherous," to compare them to "a haughty man, that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as Shoel, and he is as death and cannot be satisfied," and to say the other terrible things about them that the passages quoted say about yayin. Yayin is something that can intoxicate. It is wine, just what people mean to-day and always have meant by wine, the wine that comes from the grape.

These passages show, too, that "strong drink" was different from this wine, but that it was alike liable to intoxicate. Scholars are not agreed as to what it was. Many think it was a wine made from dates, the same as is made to-day by Mohammedans, who have not the fear of their Prophet before them. Others think that strong drink was made from pomegranates; still others, that it was a beer, or ale, brewed from barley, such as was anciently made in Egypt. But, whatever it was, strong drink could intoxicate, and it stands or falls with yayin.

But this is not all the Old Testament has to say about yayin. It has much more and of quite a different tenor. With the dictum about the hostility of the Old Testament to yayin, it is puzzling to read (Gen. 14.18) that "Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and yayin: and he was priest of God Most High," and gave them to Abram and his followers. If yayin was forbidden, neither Melchizedek nor Abram knew it.

Of another worthy, the dying Isaac, Gen. 27.25 tells how Jacob "brought him yayin, and he drank."

Jacob, in his final blessing, prophesies for Judah (Gen. 49.12), "His eyes shall be red with yayin and his teeth white with milk." This means that Judah shall drink yayin even to the point of exhilaration; and yet there is not a hint of disapproval.

It might possibly be that Melchi;edek, "priest of God Most High," Abram, "the friend of God," Isaac, and Jacob used yayin without knowing that it was wrong. But what shall we say when we find that Jehovah himself requires yayin to be offered to him twice daily, as an ordinance forever, in the sacrifice? Here is a passage ordaining this as divine law: "Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar: the one lamb thou shalt offer