WINE AT WEDDINGS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21362, 16 June 1931, Page 11

WINE AT WEDDINGS

TO THE EDITOE. Sib, —Infinite harm is done to the cause of temperance through the ignorance and intemperance of its advocates. Why do the leaders of the W.C.T.U., the educated women of the union, not express their disapproval of such a letter as appears in this morning’s issue of the Otago .Daily Times over the signature of Lilian Ritchie, secretary of the Young People’s Branch of the union? This lady states that “ m Scripture two wines are mentioned, the pure juice of the grape, which was the customary beverage of the people, and the fermented wine against which there are so many warnings.” I would ask her three questions:—(l) Will she inform us and the young people whom she “ instructs ” what the people drank during the nine or ten months of the year when there were no ripe grapes in Palestine from which to gather the “ pure juice”? (2) What'sort of wine was used at the first communion service instituted by our Lord Himself —a service held at the Easter season in springtime, when the vines were not even in flower? ■ (3) Has she the most rudimentary knowledge of the laws of fermentation? Really such appalling ignorance is discreditable to anyone claiming any sort of education nowadays, especially to one who essays to teach young people.—l am, etc., A Temperance Advocate.' Dunedin, June 15. MR NEILSON’S QUOTATIONS TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —Mr Neilson. quotes the instance of the early Christians holding all things in common as an argument in favour of Communism. This has been often used, but is quite unsound, because Communism, as practised and preached by the Communistic school of thought, involves the confiscation of private property by compulsion. The ideal behind the early Christian experiment was rested entirely on the voluntary spirit. It arose from a total disregard ox earthly goods, but it fully recognised the right of private property—see Acts v, 4, when ■ Ananias and Sapphira were asked, “ While it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold was it not in thine own power? ” In other words, these two people were punished because they told lies, not because they did not give up their goods. Communism, as preached by Marx and modern Communists, would have forcibly confiscated the goods and never admitted that they were “thine own.”—We are, etc., June 13. N.Z. Welfare League.