“One more in the long list of passages wherein it is said that God punished his chosen people by cutting off their vintage. What God regards as a real deprivation to lose must be good to have and to keep, in his opinion, whatever the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union people may think about it. Verse 9 says: ‘They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.’ Verse 11: ‘There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened; the mirth of the land is gone.’
“God thus punished them by taking away their wine, on the same principle that he punishes us by killing our children, as Christians say that he does. Will they contend that children are inherently an evil? They must if they follow the same line of reasoning that they do in interpreting these texts.
“[Isa. 27 : 2, 3]: ‘In that day sing ye unto her, a vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.’
“Figurative, doubtless! So is the next, but all the influence of these passages is on the side of intemperance, necessarily, for the simple reason that the great mass of the people will take them literally, and for the further reason that the constant association of wine with ‘good news’ and symbols of religion familiarize the mind with it and serve to give it something of a sacred character. This last mentioned fact helps to explain why the church so long opposed the modern temperance movement. But here is the passage above indicated, [Isa. 55 : 1]: ‘Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat: yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.’
“[Isa. 62 : 8]: ‘The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast labored.’
“Rev. Stevenson should suggest to the Lord that, whereas wine is an evil thing, and the Bible a ‘great text book of morals,’ and the palladium of temperance, essential in the proper training of our children, therefore, he, the Lord, should have clearly shown that he meant that the enemies of his chosen people should take from them their wine that through such deprivation they should be better and happier. But, no! he ranks wine with corn, and registers a mighty oath that the people shall have them both.
“[Isa. 65 : 8]: ‘Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it, so I will do for my servants’ sake, that I may not destroy them all.’
“[Jer. 31 : 12]: ‘Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil,’ etc.
“[Jer. 40 : 10]: ‘But ye, gather ye wine, and summer fruits, and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in the cities that ye have taken.’
“Probably ‘wine’ here means grapes, though it is used in the same construction as ‘oil.’