schools, theaters, hospitals, post offices, city hall, court house, parks, airports, police and fire departments.” Amazing, isn’t it? What can be done? It’s a long road back to some semblance of sanity in this whole picture but there are some encouraging signs. Little by little sections of the country are voting dry. Perhaps, under the stimulus of sensible education and certainly with a definite reliance upon God for His wis dom and guidance, this monster evil may be pulled down. At any rate, here is something to add to your prayer list. Was the ''W ine" that Jesus Made Intoxicating? By JOHN LINDSAY I cannot believe that the “wine” made by our Lord Jesus for use at the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee was fermented and intoxicating, as some claim. It is well known that two kinds of wine were used in Palestine and such Eastern countries, one of these being the fresh juice of the grape as drawn from the wine-press. This fresh grape juice is invigorating and stimulating, but is not intoxicating. A noted traveler in such countries tells us that the juice of grapes, used fresh, or after being boiled down, is in common use there, and he found that this sweet, non intoxicating wine was esteemed as being the best wine. The other kind of wine is made from grape juice that has been exposed to the air for a time, and has fermented and become intoxicating. It is unthinkable that our Lord would make intoxicating wine in the face of the interdictions concerning it in the Bible. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1). “ Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright [ferments], at last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder” (Proverbs 23:31,32). Jesus could never be a party to risk turning a wedding feast into a drunken carousal. Little wonder it was said to be the “ good” (or best) wine, for it was the freshest and purest and best ever made, because of Him who made it. Was Jesus at all likely to use pure water to make a fermented and intoxicating drink ? The priests were forbidden to use fermented wines when they entered the Holy Place in the old tabernacle (Leviti cus 10:9), (Ezekiel 44:21), and the use (Continued on Page 27)
churches and their maintenance, and more than 10 times the amount spent for libraries. It is 17 times as much as was spent for federal security, old age, nurse’s training, and vocational agen cies, eight times as much as was spent on veterans’ pensions, 70 times what was spent on the Red Cross, and more than 100 times the amount used for fighting diseases such as polio and can cer. It was 23 times the amount sent for aid to Greece and Turkey. All this for booze in a single year in Christian America! “ Ask the average person, as I did a young lady in my office, ‘Could you count a billion dollars if I gave it to you in one-dollar bills, or carry it home in silver dollars?’ “ ‘Oh, yes,’ she replied, ‘I could get some wheelbarrows, carts and bags and eventually lug it home.’ “Well, she could carry about one car load in one year and would be more than 10.000 years on the job! “ Let us further imagine our huge liquor bill in one-dollar bills. A bank clerk, 20 years old, working eight hours a day, 300 days a year and doing nothing but counting the money at the rate of 120 bills a minute would, at the age of 70, have counted only 864 million dollars. In 555 years he would have the pile of money counted. So, don’t let any body tell you he can count a billion dollars in a lifetime. He can’t. “ Let us pave an imaginary road around the world with dollar bills. Laid end to end they would reach a total of 912.000 miles or 36 times around the earth, in a road 8 feet wide. “ What Liquor Money Would Have Bought “ Now, let us imagine just a few of the useful things which our huge liquor bill would have purchased. Any one of the following items. “With a world-wide housing shortage today, we could have bought or built 1.606.000 small family cottages at $6,000 each; or 192,800 small-town school- houses costing $50,000 each; or 96,400 churches at $100,000 each; or 48,200 small hospitals at $200,000 each; or 6.400.000 automobiles at $1,500 each; or 385,600,000 suits of clothes or dresses at $25 each. We could have placed 4.800.000 missionaries in fields all over the world at a salary of $2,000 each; yes, and we could place a new copy of the Bible, God’s Holy Word, costing $4.50 each in the hands of every man, woman, and child on earth. “ This sum also would have purchased 96 billion loaves of bread for the starving millions all over the world. And amazing as it may seem, we actually could have built 20 modern cities of 100,000 popula tion each fully equipped with huge office buildings, modern homes equipped with water, gas and electric services, sew age, railroad and terminal equipment, bus and streetcar stations, stores,
went to be with the Lord after a life of forty years of tireless spiritual serv ice. Another outstanding man of prayer, Dr. McQuilkin will be best remembered through his association with Columbia Bible College, Columbia, S. C. Rev. Archie McNeill, very well known for his conference work on the Pacific Coast, went to be with the Lord follow ing an automobile accident near Port land, Oregon. Word has just reached us concerning the home-going of Dr. Frank Norris, energetic, militant pastor of the First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, and until very recently also the pastor of Temple Baptist Church of Detroit, Michigan. And so it is that the roll of God’s servants is called. They are told to come up higher and our prayer should always be that God will raise up additional men who will become giants in the study and in the presentation of the Word of God in order that the will and work of God may go forward without interrup tion until our Lord returns. How Big is $9,000,000,000 A N article appearing recently in the factual People’s Magazine sets forth some figures we believe ought to be studied by every thinking American. The figures used in this article show the extent of America’s bill for intoxi cating liquor in a recent year. These are dreadful enough but it is far worse to know that they are still climbing. We have become so accustomed to using the terms “millions” and “billions” that we have little or no conception of what they really mean. “ Let us imagine having this enormous sum of money in silver dollars. The dollar weighs one ounce, is one and a half inches in diameter and one-eighth of an inch thick. An ordinary railroad box car holds 30 tons or 60,000 pounds. This means that in order to transport our huge pile of liquor money, it would require 10,041 box cars, or 201 locomo tives each pulling 50 cars. The line would be 76 miles long and would re quire more than two and a half hours traveling 30 miles an hour, to pass a given point. Now let us lay these silver dollars flat on the ground edge to edge. They would form a line 228,000 miles long, encircling the earth nine times! “ It has been little more than a billion minutes since the birth of Christ, over 1900 years ago. Think of it. The people of this so-called Christian nation spent at the rate of $9 a minute since the birth of our Saviour—for this accursed poison —in a single year! “ All This for Booze “ This is also about three times the amount spent for all kinds of public and private education, more than nine times the sum spent by all religious bodies for
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