appeals to a book which refers plainly to the eating of flesh and drinking of wine as not only permissible and customary, but ordained and imperative under circumstances of special solemnity.

It is difficult, by the way, to appreciate the position of those total abstainers who permit the use of wine in the reception of the Holy Communion. If an act is wrong in itself, one would think the doing of it to be most indefensible at a moment of supreme expressed devotion to the will or law of God. A Roman Catholic might say that the element had been changed, and was no longer wine, but the Anglican has no such miraculous escape from the paradoxical reflection that in seeking communion with God he has partaken of that which he denounces as a social poison.

Moreover, the divine use of this at the first Lord's Supper indicates no choice of a special liquor 'permissible' on such an occasion, but recognises it as the most widely accepted drink, as bread was the commonest food. Their legitimate combination, indeed, is (at least by the Church of England) assumed to be still in force, since it is so referred to in the catechism, where it is admitted that our bodies are strengthened by 'bread and wine.' The position of those Hindoo Christians who are said to have administered the Holy Communion with rice and water (their usual food) is much more logically in accordance with its original institution than that of those who prohibit the use of wine as pernicious at an ordinary meal, and then accept it as a divine representative of strengthening drink, worthy of consecration at a sacred feast.

An unbiassed reader of the Bible, however, can have no doubt that it recognises the use of alcohol, not as exceptional, but as a factor in the common drink of the 'people of God,' about whom it speaks, and thus moderate drinkers keenly resent the misuse of a book whence they claim to draw much in support of their position. They are well advised, however, not to lay too much stress upon a miraculous changing of water into wine, since the advanced scientific prohibitionist' is little affected by that which claims to be supernatural evidence. The witness of the Scriptures to the use of fermented liquor by the 'people of God' is of another sort. Look at that from the Old Testament. When the Hebrews came out of Egypt, they left a nation familiar with the use of wine for a land of vineyards. And while on the way they received a minute code of sanitary and sumptuary laws, many of which concerned their diet. They were forbidden to touch certain meats eaten in the country they had left and in that to which they were going. But nothing whatever was said about what they should 'drink,' save in reference to two exceptionally situated classes of people-namely, priests, when about to officiate, and 'Nazarites,' who took peculiar vows.

In the case of these sectaries we read (Numbers vi. 2, 3, 4): 'When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow

of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the Lord: he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink; neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes or dried. All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree, from the kernel even to the husk.' Thus it would seem that when these were ended, he was at liberty to return to the use of its fruit, for meat or drink.

The other prohibition applies to the priests while officiating, and runs thus (Leviticus x. 8, 9): 'And 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.'

From this it appears that, except under special circumstances, the priest and the people were at liberty to drink 'the vinegar of wine, and the vinegar of strong drink,' as it suited their convenience or taste.

It

It is notable, moreover, that when the Hebrews were first about to enter Canaan, those who went to spy the land brought back great bunches of grapes as acceptable specimens of its fertility. abounded with vineyards, which were not (then or subsequently) planted for the produce of fresh fruit alone, since the building of a 'wine-press' is repeatedly associated with their use. And the assumption that this was employed for the purpose of getting grapejuice, to be drunk unfermented, is disposed of by the well-known august illustration which appealed to a general custom : man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred; but new wine must be put into new bottles.' To this is added, in another record of the saying, ' and both are preserved.'

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Arguments for the prohibition of intoxicating liquor, or for total abstinence from it as essentially righteous, should be made to rest on social and sanitary considerations which have arisen in later days. Appeals to the Scriptures really tend to weaken the position of teetotallers. At the same time it is ungracious to murmur at those self-denying men who, in part, follow Scriptural examples, and call themselves modern Rechabites or Nazarites. I say pointedly, ' in part,' since, as I have remarked, it was only during the days of his separation' that the ancient Nazarite abstained from the 'liquor of grapes;' and the full obligation of the old Rechabite was neither to build houses to dwell in, neither to have vineyard, nor field, nor seed.' It should be remembered, however, that the vows taken by these separatists involved no condemnation of wine as essentially injurious, and, in the case of the Rechabites, pointed to a paternally exceptional test of obedience, rather than to such an example of total abstinence as invited general imitation.

But whatever abstainers' choose to call themselves now, the

self-denial and devotion of their leaders (who need no special safeguard against intemperance) have come to be recognised as some of the most powerful among distinctly organised efforts in promoting temperance, for it is felt that very few drunkards can be reclaimed except by their being obliged or induced to give up the use of any intoxicating liquor altogether. It is almost hopeless to preach 'temperance' to them. Their sole chance of recovery, with most, lies in total abstinence,' and (though dipsomaniacs might well be more subjected to coercion) the modern formulated protests against intemperance certainly owe their chief immediate force to the influence of the 'total abstainer.'

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Meanwhile the moderate drinker' looks on 'temperance' as man's true aim in the conduct of life, and as more agreeable to his full development than 'total abstinence,' since it involves a greater exercise of elevating self-control. Seeing, too, that the Bible denounces the drunkard while it does not forbid the moderate use of 'strong drink,' he appeals to it not only as directly supporting his attitude, but on Scriptural grounds he resents the drinking of wine being classed with customs which disappear in the fuller light of Christianity. Under the Gospel there was a notably emphatic relaxation for believers in the matter of diet. The eating of certain meats was no longer forbidden to the Christian, and no drink was freshly prohibited. Indeed, not only was the vine (repudiated by the Nazarite and Rechabite) chosen as a symbol of excellence by Christ Himself, but when He was called a wine-bibber,' in contrast to the Baptist, He said, 'Wisdom is justified of all her children,' and thus left to the world an emphatic example of temperance rather than of total abstinence as best fitted to the doctrine and practice of the new dispensation.

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While, therefore, the temperate Christian deplores excess as much as any one, and urges the weak, who cannot command themselves, to abstain altogether from strong drink, he looks on an example' in temperance as, rather than total abstinence, the most Christian that can be set, and relies upon the social and religious growth of selfrespect for the mitigation of intemperance rather than upon the introduction of a peremptory law (condemning the use of alcohol) which neither the Church nor the Bible has enjoined, though 'excess' in using it is not new, and is denounced by both.

And he does this the more readily because he sees that one class of society has notably changed its drinking habits without the assistance of fresh prohibitory 'vows,' and because he cannot examine Christianity without perceiving that its drift is to lessen the number of imperative commandments ('all the law and the prophets' being said by Christ to 'hang upon' two), and to place the individual recognition of high principles above the multiplication of restrictive ceremonies and rules.

Moreover, apart from the special influence of religion, the 'temperate' man perceives that the Divine economy, seen in Nature itself, is marked throughout by compromise,' and the balance of one law against another. Without affecting any claim to minute scientific perception he can see that there are powers and influences operating in the conduct of the world, any one of which, if uncontrolled, would be fatal to human life. And yet this does not prohibit the Creator from employing them in providing for the right condition of man. Thus temperance' in using and controlling those factors of mortal existence which are hurtful if unlimited in application, would seem to be a nearer approach to divine procedure than a complete rejection of them lest they should do mischief.

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In taking this line the temperate' man does not admit that he is anywise less sincere in his abhorrence of drunkenness than the total abstainer, nor that his method and hopes are less radically promising and sound. He bases them upon the great laws of life which cannot be broken without significant suffering, and he believes that the gradual recognition of these is sure to help and test not only the true progress of science and religion, but the conduct of individual life.

HARRY JONES.

1896

THE WORLD BENEATH THE OCEAN

THE book which Dr. Nansen is writing for Archibald Constable & Co. descriptive of his recent expedition will be eagerly awaited by all who are interested in the study of oceanography. In the somewhat discursive and, to all appearance, hastily written papers which appeared in the Daily Chronicle the Norwegian explorer only touched lightly on the observations which he had made in connection with this subject. We learn, however, that he took a large number of soundings, and concluded, from the remarkable absence of organic life in the samples brought up from the bottom, that the existing views as to the nature of ocean-bed deposits will have to be modified. No doubt the majority of these soundings were taken with reliable sounding machinery, and not by a line running over a block and recovered by hand, as represented in the sketch accompanying his paper. A word will be said later in this article with regard to the depths and temperatures which he gives.

All observations that add to our knowledge of ocean depths and deposits are of special interest at the present time, when a conference is being held at the Colonial Office concerning the laying of a Pacific cable in depths which will exceed those of the deepest cable already laid, and in deposits of which no practical experience has been gained. It is only since surveys of the sea bottom were first undertaken for the purposes of submarine telegraphy that any knowledge has been gained of the world beneath the ocean. A certain acquaintance, it is true, with marine animals in shallow waters has long existed, and Aristotle, who mentions 180 species in the Ægean Sea, is familiar to the student of natural history in connection with the masticatory organ of the Echinus, or sea-hedgehog, called after the great philosopher' Aristotle's Lantern.' Some four hundred years later Pliny the Elder enumerates 176 species, which, although four less than Aristotle's list, seemed to afford the gossipy old naturalist very lively satisfaction. 'One must allow,' he says, 'that it is quite impossible to comprise every species of terrestrial animal in one general view for the information of mankind, and yet, by Hercules! in the sea and VOL. XL-No. 238 881 3 N