MR KNIGHT AND PROHIBITION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1290, 19 November 1896, Page 19

MR KNIGHT AND PROHIBITION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Time will not permit me to follow Mr Knight through his long letter and lengthy Scripture quotations. Suffice it to say that the majority of them appear tome

to be wide of the mark and to prove nothing. There are, however, two errors, towards the close of his letter, into which he has fallen. I refer, first, to the turning water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee. Mr Knight enquires, “ Wa3 the wine which Jesus made intoxicating or not ?” and he then goes on to say, “ Learned men differ on the subject.” Permit me to inform Mr Knight that there is not a shadow of doubt that the wine made by the Messiah on that ever memorable occasion was intoxicating. “ Good w'ine,” among the ancients, meant strong wine, and by a purity of reasoning the “ best wine ” meant the strongest wine, the wine being intoxicating in proportion to its strength. Permit me to state further, for Mr Knight’s information, that “ learned men ” do not differ and never have differed upon this matter. By “learned men” I mean Biblical and Oriental scholars. I think I can safely challenge Mr Knight to produce one such scholar who is prepared to affirm, or who lias in time past affirmed, that tho wine in question, or the wines of Scripture generally, were non-alcoholic. Further, Mr Knight completely gives himself away when he says innocently, “It was new wine,” Ac. Now we all know that new wine is more fiery than old, and the reason is clear. New wine is still undergoing the process of fermentation, hence its fiery nature. In old wine, on the other hand, the process is complete. Christ Himself makes this very clear when He says (I write from memory) “ No man putteth new wine into old bottles (skin bottles), or the bottles will burst and the wine be spilled. But new wine is put into new bottles, and both are preserved.” I fear Prohibitionists are striving to be “ wise above what is written.” The last remark to v* Inch I have time to refer is the use of unfermented wine at Communion services. I have long since been of opinion that the practice, [now adopted in many churches, of using socalled unfermented wine at the celebration of the Holy Communion is unscriptural, contrary to the practice of the Church in all ages, and totally unjustifiable, —1 am, Ac.,

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