Why the North American Indians-total abstainers from any kind of intoxicating liquors and unmolested in their own country of unlimited resources, until the sixteenth century-had not become the most progressive, the highest developed, physically and mentally, and the most enlightened people of the earth; has been a matter of speculation in very recent years.

Distillation-the process by which the strong, ardent liquors are produced—seems to have been understood and practiced by the ancient Chinese thousands of years ago. A Chinese tradition declares that distilled liquor was first made by a cook in the household of Yu, who reigned in the twenty-third century B. C. To the rest of the world distillation was unknown until the art was gradually introduced from Arabia, where it was discovered in the eleventh century A. D., by Albucasis, a chemist.

Two facts well known by students of the subject, but little discussed in recent years, are: First. When alcoholic beverages are first introduced to a people who have never used them before, they, as a class, drink them to great excess and remain in drunken stupor while the supply lasts. Second. Throughout the history of mankind, other causes being equal, the people of those countries who are without the progressive spirit, who are in a low state of civilization, with but little culture, refinement or moral training, who have little or no ambition to improve their condition; are the people who are the most addicted to the excessive use of intoxicating beverages. "There can be no doubt," says Robert Macnish, in his Anatomy of Drunkenness, page 2, “that drunkenness prevails more in a rude than in a civilized state of society. This is so much the case, that as men get more refined, the vice will gradually be found to soften down, and assume a less revolting character."

This is exemplified by the deplorable drunkenness that prevailed in Asia and northern Africa in ancient times, for the drunken debauches of the American Indians when intoxicating beverages were furnished them, for the desire of many of the negroes of the Southern States of the Union, both before and after slavery was abolished, for great quantities of intoxicating beverages.

On the 27th day of August, A. D. 570, a babe was born at Mecca who, after growing to manhood, has exerted more influence over people of the earth than any man born five hundred years before or five hundred years after, if not a wider influence than any other man that history mentions. He founded and established a religion and lived to see it spread and embraced by the people over a vast territory. He is

known as Mohamet or Mohammed, and the religion, among its followers as Islamism, or the religion of entire resignation to the will of God. Its adherents are known as Mussulmans or Moslems. With us the religion is commonly known as Mohammedism and its adherents as Mohammedans.

In a comparatively short time the religion of Mohamet reached westward across Egypt, where it still holds its grasp; eastward into China, where it is said to have thirty million adherents; it obtained a foothold in southern Europe that it still maintains, and it has dominated the Empire of Turkey for thirteen centuries. Its devotees are numbered by hundreds of millions.

Mohamet proclaimed twelve "Capital Sins," two more than the Ten Commandments of the Hebrew Scriptures. Among the Capital Sins was "the use of wine," that being the common intoxicating beverage in his country in his time. But the writings of Mohamet clearly show that all kinds of inebriating liquors are included and forbidden.

There is no creed nor sect whose adherents follow more closely its tenets and dogmas, its doctrine and teachings, than the Moslems follow the teachings and doctrines of Mohamet. Rev. Edwin Grosvenor, A.A.M., Professor of European History, Amherst College, and formerly Professor of History, Robert College, Constantinople, Turkey, in a signed article in the Universal Encyclopedia, published in 1900, states: "The Mussulman who does not make his purifications, who eats pork or indulges in wine, who does not scrupulously keep the fast and, if wealthy, give his alms, is the rare exception.”

Remember, that at the time Mohamet appeared inebrity and drunkenness from the extravagant use of wine was common with the people among whom he lived. They belonged to a class who had lost, if they ever had, the spirit of progress, and sought comfort in drunken stupor. Mohamet was always faithful in his efforts to improve the condition of the people. He was not content with one simple statement inhibiting the use of wine by his followers. George Sale, translator of the Koran, says: "The drinking of wine, under which name all sorts of strong and inebriating liquors are comprehended, is forbidden in the Koran in more places than one. The reasons given for forbidding the use of wine is as follows, 'Because the ill-effects of that liquor surpasses its good ones, the common effects thereof being quarrels and disturbances in company, and neglect or at least indecencies in the performance of religious duties'." Again, from the Koran: "O true believers, surely wine and lots and images and divining arrows are an abomination of the work of Satan; therefore, avoid them that yea may prosper. Satan

seeketh to sow dissensions among you by wine and lots, and to diverting you from remembering God and from prayer; will you not, therefore, abstain from them?"

Although eventually clothed with almost absolute power, both military and civil, Mohamet never attempted by law or force to prevent anyone from using wine or other alcoholic beverage in either moderate or excessive quantities. Yet such is the faith of the Moslems that, with very rare exceptions, so rare that it is almost negligible, they are total abstainers from the use of all kinds of alcoholic liquors. There is wine and other alcoholic drinking in the Europenized sections of Turkey, but this is not by the native Turks who embrace Mohammedism. Rev. Dr. William E. Griffis, in a signed article entitled Mohammedans in the Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition— Funk & Waynalls, 1891, states:

"It may be broadly affirmed that the law of the Koran concerning abstinence from wine is very generally obeyed, and that drunkenness in Mohammedan society is exceptional. In comparison with a certain phase of the so-called Christian civilization, Moslems have in this regard cause for congratulation and pride. The abundant testimony of many travelers in many centuries is nearly unanimous as to the general habit of abstinence from intoxicating liquors among the vast majority of good Moslems."

The tenets of their religion have been scrupulously observed by these people for thirteen hundred years.

The sacred works of both the Brahmin and the Buddhist religion (the latter having the greatest number of adherents of any religion on earth) enjoin abstinence from the use of alcoholic beverages and it has been quite generally observed by their adherents, although not so scrupulously as by the Mohammedans.

The people of northern Europe and the British Isles were much later in developing civilization than those of the tropics in Asia and northern Africa. As they were emerging from a barbaric state they very largely adopted a different religion than that of their southern neighbors. Their sacred books, being written by many authors, varied in their moral precepts. A few of the writers of the Jewish Scriptures thought it best to abstain from wine and strong drink, but the matter was not mentioned in the Ten Commandments as it was in the Twelve Capital Sins of the Koran. From reading the 104th Psalm one would not be impressed that wine is a necessary evil, it being placed in the same category as bread:

He watereth the hills from his chambers; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.

He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;

And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.

And when it is remembered that the first miracle attributed to Jesus was "the water that was made wine," for beverage at a marriage feast, there is a tendency to follow the example by making and using wine in the natural way. A number of passages of the New Testament denounces the excessive use of wine and drunkenness, but nowhere does it denounce the moderate or temperate us of wine. Paul rebuked the Corinthian Christians for their drunkenness at the Lord's Supper, said to the Ephesians, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess", and to Timothy: "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities."

In recent years the advocates of total abstinence have invented a "two-wine" theory for Bible wines, one intoxicating, the other not. This contention, being at variance with all Biblical scholars of eminence, both ancient and modern, merits no further reply than a few quotations from Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby, pastor Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City, and author of no less than six works on the Old and New Testament. In a signed article in the Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, pages 48-50, Dr. Crosby states:

"No one in reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation,
without prejudice, would imagine that there were two kinds of
wine, intoxicating and non-intoxicating, mentioned in the holy
book. * * * There have been plenty of twisted quotations
unfairly used, but not one honestly quoted with its context
that sustains the two-wine theory. *
* The two-wine

*

*

theory is a modern affair. It began in our own century with
a few excellent men who longed to meet the intemperance
of the day with a new argument, and who said that the ordi-
nary interpretation of the word 'wine' in the Bible was an ob-
stacle to the theory and practice of total abstinence.
The temperance literature at once gave wide circulation to
this error, and now there are thousands and tens of thousands
who firmly believe that both the Bible and the ancient writers
generally recognized two kinds of wine, one intoxicating and
the other unintoxicating; one to be condemned and the other

to be praised. A mighty stream of sentiment has flowed from
this little beginning, and its prevalence tends to substantiate it.
Many sound and strong minds, who have not personally ex-
amined the question, give their adherence to the utterly
unfounded theory. This is the way of an error that becomes
inveterate. We hazard nothing in saying that the present
scholarship of the world repudiates the theory in toto.
Etymologically, historically and scientifically, the theory is
condemned by every scholar who has given his thought and
study to it in late years. We have examined scores of books
that advocate the theory, and have yet to find the first evidence
of its truth. It is purely an invention, honestly prompted in
minds to which the wish was father to the thought, and natur-
ally grasped by the earnest advocates of total abstinence.

* * If we are to make steady progress we must adhere
to truth, and declare wine an evil only in its excessive use;
and standing by and with God's word, and by and with human
conscience, too, denounce and hinder excess in every legitimate
way."

There was little drunkenness in northern and western Europe until sometime after the breaking-up of the Feudal System; that is, until after the kingly prerogatives were re-established with strong, centralized governments in the various nations.