And now let us turn to the New Testament. There, too, we find wine spoken of without disfavour if not taken in excess, drunkenness denounced, and in one or two cases total abstinence commended. John the Baptist was an ascetic and a total abstainer from all the luxuries of life. Jesus Christ was neither one nor the other of these; He lived and moved freely in society, participated in its enjoyments, and encouraged that which He regarded as innocent in its customs. He drank wine Himself and gave it to others. Of John it was predicted before his birth, “He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink;” and he lived upon locusts and honey.[126] On the other hand, comparing himself with John, Jesus said, “For John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking wine, and ye say he hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold, a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.”[127] The evidence that Christ favoured the use of wine is found in the first and the last public acts of His life as narrated in Scripture. According to one of His historians, His first miracle was the conversion, at a wedding feast, of six large pots of water into wine.[128] The account of this miracle has been criticised by temperance advocates with a view to show that the wine was not intoxicating, but we confess that we are unconvinced by their reasoning.[129] The governor of the feast said to the bridegroom, “Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now.” From this it is clear that one of the customs of Rome (as we shall find when we come to consider the scarcity of wine in the earlier days of that empire) was also followed in Judea, and that as men became less able to distinguish between good and bad wine, the latter was introduced. As we have heard, by the way, this is still done by dishonest landlords even in our day. To reconcile this act of Christ with the views of temperance advocates is not our duty. We have only to state the fact, and to explain, so far as we are able, its plain meaning. Almost the last recorded injunction of Jesus to His disciples was to drink wine in remembrance of Him—an act which has grown into a religious observance practised by nearly all professing Christians of the present day, whatever may be their theological views concerning His true nature. It is obvious, therefore, that Jesus cannot have had any conscientious scruples about drinking wine Himself, or recommending its use to His companions.