“[Deut. 28 : 39]: ‘Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but thou shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them.’
“Verse 51 of the same chapter tells the people that their cattle and wine and oil shall be taken from them if they disobey God’s commands. This is the famous ‘cursing chapter’ of the Bible, and is just the reading calculated to make a man believe that God was the first pope of Rome.
“Deuteronomy is a very good book for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and I suggest that it hold a special meeting to pray for the evidently ‘rum’-loving god who wrote it. There is much other matter in it that helps to make it an admirable work for use in the schools.
“[Judges 9 : 13]: ‘And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?’
“Ah! so it appears that God, the ‘original prohibitionist,’ according to the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union drinks wine, else how could it cheer him?
“Second Sam. 6 : 19: ‘And he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to every one a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine.’
“Query: What would the Christian temperance ladies have done with that wine had they been present when David, the man after God’s own heart, dealt it out to all, men as well as women?
“Second Sam. 16 : 2: ‘And Ziba said, The asses be for the king’s household to ride on; and the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat; and the wine that such as faint in the wilderness may drink.’
“In Kansas and Iowa many get ‘faint in the wilderness,’ judging by the business of the drugstores. No doubt they have all seen this prescription given by God.
“Second Chron. 2 : 10: ‘And behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.’