“Drunken debauches pass as permitted amongst us, so that people turn them into solemn feasts, to honour the memory of the martyrs; and that not only on those days which are particularly consecrated to them (which would be a deplorable abuse to those who look at those things with other eyes than those of the flesh), but on every day of the year.” St. Cyprian, in a treatise attributed to him, says much the same thing:— “Drunkenness is so common with us in Africa that it scarce passes for a crime. And do we not see Christians forcing one another to get drunk, to celebrate the memory of the martyrs?” Cardinal du Perron told his contemporaries “that the Manichæans said that the Catholicks were people much given to wine, but that they {10} never drank any,” which sounds paradoxical. Against this charge St. Augustine only defends them by recrimination. He answers, “that it was true, but that they (the Manichæans) drank the juice of apples, which was more delicious than all the wines and liquors in the world.” And so does Tertullian, who said the liquor press’d from apples was most strong and vinous. His words are: “Succum ex pomis vinosissimum.” I trust that in quoting all those things I am not becoming wearisome, at the very commencement of my work; the main object being to show that all the drinking in the world is not done by the present generation of vipers. But the Early Christians were excused for their habits of soaking, by Paulinus, on the grounds of the “excellence of their intentions”; which naturally reminds us of the celebrated excuse of the late Monsieur Thiers, on a much later occasion. The words of Paulinus are, when translated and adapted:— But yet that mirth in little feasts enjoy’d I think should ready absolution find; Slight peccadillo of an erring mind, Artless and rude, of all disguises void, Their simple hearts too easy to believe (Conscious of nothing ill) that saints in tombs Enshrin’d should any happiness perceive From quaffing cups, and wines’ ascending fumes, Must be excus’d, since what they did they meant With piety ill plac’d, yet good intent. Similar pleas are occasionally urged by roysterers nowadays, yet they are but seldom credited in their own parishes. {11} CHAPTER II MORE FRIGHTFUL EXAMPLES