Good Wine and Bad Wine
By Editor
A FEW religious journals, following the lead of the Independent, have fully decided that the man who claims that two kinds of wine—one intoxicating and the other harmless—are spoken of in the Bible, is an ignoramus. Those papers scout the idea that there ever could be such a thing as unfermented wine. Nothing is wine, say they, unless it is fermented. And yet the very men whose "scholarship" demands this concession to the cause of intemperance will speak of the recently expressed juice of apples as "sweet cider," and of that which has fermented as "hard cider." Now if it is not wrong to call apple juice cider before it is fermented, why may we not call grape juice wine before it has fermented? The idea that we may not is absurd. The simple fact is this: The juice of apples is cider; if preserved in just the condition it was in when first pressed out, it is harmless and as wholesome as the juice of any other fruit. Otherwise it is grossly intoxicating and unfit to be used by man. In like manner the juice of grapes is wine; when first expressed, it is sweet wine, and is wholesome and good. By proper care it may be preserved in that condition for an indefinite time, and is a pleasing and healthful drink. But when it becomes fermented, there is nothing which will more surely turn a man into a brute. There is good wine and bad wine; some folks will have it that it cannot be called wine until it becomes bad.