Wine measurably taken, and in season, bringeth gladness and cheerfulness of mind; but drinking with excess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings and scoldings.’  How true are these words!  How well worthy of a constant place in our memories!  Yet, what pains have been taken to apologise for a life contrary to these precepts!  And, good God! what punishment can be too great, what mark of infamy sufficiently signal, for those pernicious villains of talent, who have employed that talent in the composition of Bacchanalian songs; that is to say, pieces of fine and captivating writing in praise of one of the most odious and destructive vices in the black catalogue of human depravity!

29.  In the passage which I have just quoted from chap. xxxi. of ECCLESIASTICUS, it is said, that ’wine, measurably taken, and in season,’ is a proper thing.  This, and other such passages of the Old Testament, have given a handle to drunkards, and to extravagant people, to insist, that God intended that wine should be commonly drunk.  No doubt of that.  But, then, he could intend this only in countries in which he had given wine, and to which he had given no cheaper drink except water.  If it be said, as it truly may, that, by the means of the sea and the winds, he has given wine to all countries, I answer that this gift is of no use to us now, because our government steps in between the sea and the winds and us. Formerly, indeed, the case was different; and, here I am about to give you, incidentally, a piece of historical knowledge, which you will not have acquired from HUME, GOLDSMITH, or any other of the romancers called historians.  Before that unfortunate event, the Protestant Reformation, as it is called, took place, the price of RED WINE, in England, was fourpence a gallon, Winchester measure; and of WHITE WINE, sixpence a gallon.  At the same time the pay of a labouring man per day, as fixed by law, was fourpence.  Now, when a labouring man could earn four quarts of good wine in a day, it was, doubtless, allowable, even in England, for people in the middle rank of life to drink wine rather commonly; and, therefore, in those happy days of England, these passages of Scripture were applicable enough.  But, now, when we have got a Protestant government, which by the taxes which it makes people pay to it, causes the eighth part of a gallon of wine to cost more than the pay of a labouring man for a day; now, this passage of Scripture is not applicable to us.  There is no ‘season’ in which we can take wine without ruining ourselves, however ‘measurably’ we may take it; and I beg you to regard, as perverters of Scripture and as seducers of youth, all those who cite passages like that above cited, in justification of, or as an apology for, the practice of wine-drinking in England.