"Then that is the very point upon which I need enlightenment," answered Mr. Ryan, with a good-humored laugh. "Won't you please proceed?"
"I presume you grant, sir, that it is not superstition but certainty that there were two kinds of wine in those days," said Theodore.
"Oh yes. I'll accept that as fact."
"Well, then, as I am not a Greek nor Hebrew scholar, and I understand that you are, I will simply remind you of the very satisfactory and generally accepted statements of learned men concerning the two words used in those languages to express two distinct kinds of liquid, which words were not, I am told, used interchangeably. Then I should like to pass at once to simpler, and, for unlearned people like myself, more practical arguments. Do you lawyers allow your authors to interpret themselves, sir?"
"Certainly."
"Which is precisely what we do with the Bible. In a sense, the same Jesus who made wine of water at the marriage feast, is the author of the Bible, and if he is divine there must be no discrepancy in its pages. Now I find that this same Bible says, 'Wine is a mocker,' 'Look not upon the wine when it is red,' 'Woe to him that giveth his neighbor drink,' and a long array of similar and more emphatic expressions. Now how am I to avoid thinking either that Jesus of Nazareth was a mere man, and a very inconsistent one at that, or else that the wine at the marriage supper was not the wine with which we are acquainted, and which we will not use at all until 'it giveth its color in the cup and moveth itself aright?'"
Mr. Ryan laughed still good-humoredly, and said:
"Have you committed to memory the entire Bible as well as Habakkuk, Mallery? But I can quote Scripture, too. Doesn't your Bible read, 'Give wine to those that be of heavy hearts?'"
"Yes, sir; and, according to our translation, the same article is used as a symbol of God's wrath: 'For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand.' Does that look probable or reasonable? It talks, moreover, about 'wine that maketh glad the heart of man,' and I leave it to your judgment whether we know anything about any such wine as that?"
"But, Mallery," interposed Mr. Stephens, "I want to question you now myself. I am a genuine temperance man I have always supposed. I accord with everything that you have said on the subject, and still I don't believe I see the connection between wine drinking and using the article as a condiment, or in my cakes and jellies."