Asiatic Reform in Wine-Drinking.

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made them an overmatch for their wine-drinking foes (Cyrop. vii. 5). The lesson is manifest. Herodotus farther states that Cyrus by strategy overcame the fierce Massagetae; enticing the young prince and his officers, at a banquet given them, to drink deeply, while he and his generals only pretended to drink; and then attacking their army while their officers were intoxicated. This unworthy act led the queen-mother to remonstrate with Cyrus to this effect: "When you yourself are overcome with wine, what follies do you not commit ! By penetrating your bodies it makes your language more insulting. By this poison you have conquered my son; and not by your skill or your bravery."

The culmination of this same vice in these three successive empires, that of the Persian reaching its climax in Xerxes the Great, demonstrated the need of reform; and doubtless stimulated the zeal of reformers in Central Asia, as it had the Hebrew prophets in Western Asia. Indeed, in the midst of this era, about B.C. 713, Nahum wrote "the burden of Nineveh;" and gave this historic fact in the form of a prophetic warning: "While they are drugged with boiled wine (sobeh) they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry" (Nahum i. 10).

THE AGE OF ASIATIC REFORM IN WINE-DRINKING.

Du Perron, the French explorer, who devoted his life to seeking throughout India for the writings of Zoroaster, called attention a century ago to the fact that the age of Zoroaster, or Zerdusht, in Persia, was the age of Confucius, or Confutsee, in China, of Daniel at Babylon, and of Phericydes, the Greek instructor of Pythagoras. This historic coincidence is certainly indicative of a wide spread and deeply-felt Asiatic need; suggesting to many the personal association or correspondence of these great reformers; suggestive certainly of a principle all the deeper in human nature, if there were no association between. them.

Zoroaster, of Brahminic origin, after a vain effort to resist the degeneracy of his own caste, left his home, went north to Persia, and there exerted an influence which the Persians have felt to this day. He sought especially to bring that people back to the abstemious life of their own ancestry and of his caste. A leading maxim with him was, "Temperance is the strength of the mind; man is dead in the intoxication of wine."

Phericydes, the teacher of Pythagoras, educated at this era, in the East and in Egypt, sought to secure in Greece a reform in habits of luxury.

Roman Abstinence from Wine. ΙΟΙ

His effort became effective in his pupil; who in the same school learned the law of abstinence and transferred it to Italy, where he established his school. Numa,, the moral legislator, whose influence ruled the early Romans, and was revived and perpetuated in the Republic, was, as Plutarch says, called a Pythagorean, though his age preceded that of Pythagoras at least a century. Of this age, Pliny (Nat. Hist., B. XIV. c. 13-21) speaks in strong commendation. He quotes Numa's law, that "wine should not be used in libations to the one spiritual god, nor in sprink ling, as a religious act, the graves of ancestry." He states as a reason for this provision, "since it (abstinence from wine) is in keeping with (constat) a religious life, to offer wine to gods was held impious." Hence he adds: "The Romans for a long time used wine sparingly;" and "It was forbidden to woman." Again he adds: "The wines of the early ages were employed as medicine;" and again, " wine began to be authorized in the six-hundredth year of the city (about B. C. 153)." To this have been opposed Plutarch's two statements in the life of Numa. "His sacrifices, also, were like the Pythagorean. consisting chiefly of flour, libations of wine and other very simple and inexpensive things;" and the corresponding mention, "some of Numa's precepts have a concealed meaning; as, not to

offer the gods wine proceeding from a vine unpruned; nor to sacrifice without meal." Statements in immediate connection indicate a harmony between Plutarch and Pliny, and confirm the wondrous effort of reform attempted by Numa. The Romans proper were like the Brahmins in India, a small but ruling caste. The Romans at Numa's day, like the Brahmins, had no other deity than the one spiritual god; and Numa's law forbade, as a matter of religious consistency, the use of wine as a beverage or as a libation. For the idolatrous and somewhat independent tribes held in subjection by the Romans, who worshiped other deities, his law required simple" offerings; especially the simplest product of the vineyard and of the wheat-field.

In the midst of these efforts at moral reform, extending from China in Eastern Asia to Rome in Southern Europe, the Hebrew people, forced into Babylonia as exiles, exerted, at least through their prophets, a new and wide-spread influence. During this age three out of four of the prophets styled "greater," and six out of twelve of the "minor" prophets wrote; while, moreover, the histories and chronicles of the nation, extending from Saul, the first king, to Nehemiah, a governor living a century after their return from captivity, were all written. During this age the intoxicating wine, yayin, is always mentioned with con

Later Hebrew Abstinence.

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demnation; the unfermented tirosh is frequently mentioned, and with commendation; while two other products of the vine, as before mentioned, are brought to notice.

The condemnation of wine by the leading prophets is universal. Jeremiah pictures "the man whom wine hath overcome” (xxiii. 9), and "nations drunk with wine" (li. 7). Ezekiel reproduces the law "neither shall any priest drink wine" (xliv. 21). Zechariah declares that the Israelites in their moral abandonment at Christ's coming would be like men "drinking" to drown sensibility, who "make a noise through wine (ix. 15). In the histories then written, Jeremiah, the compiler of the books called Samuel and the Kings, rehearses the record as to David, his sons, and the future monarchs already quoted; and Daniel pictures the abandonment of the Assyrian kings through wine. Nehemiah, cupbearer at the Persian court, a century after the day of Cyrus, speaks without comment of the wine of the Persian court; he alludes to the "wines of all sorts," especially mentioning the sweet juice of the grape as among the free-will offerings sent to him; but he declares his refusal to receive this perquisite of "wine" as governor (ii. 1; v. 15, 18; viii. 10; xiii. 15). The writer of the Book of Esther, alluding apparently to the voluptuous Xerxes, pictures the sensuality and