"Hos. 2 : 8, 9: 'For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal. Therefore I will return and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.' "Of course, if these passages and very many of like import, are any argument against wine, they are of equal weight in the scale against corn, wool, and many other useful and necessary articles. The authors of such verses, wherever found, unquestionably looked upon wine as one of God's good gifts to his children, but which he was compelled to sometimes deprive them of because of their disobedience. "Hos. 9 : 2: 'The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.' "That is, Israel shall be punished for her transgressions by the destruction of the fertility of the soil. "Evidently the perfume of wine was pleasing unto the Lord, for he says, in promising his blessing to the repentant people (Hos. 14 : 7): 'They shall revive as the corn, and grow as the wine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.' "Joel 1 : 5: 'Awake, ye drunkards, and howl, all ye drinkers of wine.' "This, taken by itself, would be an unqualified condemnation of intoxicants, but such was not the prophet's meaning. The verse concludes: 'Because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouths.' "In the vision of the prophet he sees the great evils that have come upon his country; the palmer-worm, and the locust, and the canker-worm have destroyed the crops. 'The meat-offering and the drink-offering is cut off from the house of the Lord, ... the corn is wasted, the oil languisheth,' etc. While in the verse quoted the drinkers are mildly requested to howl, in verse thirteen we have, 'Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests; howl ye ministers of the altar.' No temperance admonition or lesson here, that is plain. "Joel 3 : 18: 'And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with water,' etc.