THE NERARY WINE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 1817- BY HENRY GIBBONS, M. D. San Francisco: H. H. BANCROFT & COMPANY. 1867. The following pages have been written out from the notes of a lecture, which was prepared without any view to publication. They are addressed to the understanding, the heart and the conscience of the people of California. There are three classes of men for whom they are not intended: 1st. Those who estimate the welfare of society by the standard of dollars and cents. 2d. Those who acknowledge no obligation to their fellow men in the way of labor or sacrifice. 3d. Those who live to eat and drink. WINE CULTURE. FORTY years ago, a few individuals, under the divine inspiration of love for their fellow men, assembled in the city of Boston, to take counsel one of another and to devise some plan of arresting the desolating flood of intemperance. Tracing drunkenness to tippling, the excessive to the moderate use of liquor, and perceiving how difficult it is to cure the habit when once established, they adopted a new mode of warfare, consisting of prevention rather than cure. They directed their labors mainly to the temperate portion of society, in the hope that by inducing them to abstain entirely from ardent spirits, and by training up the rising generation in the same course, intemperance would finally die out. Leading the way by example, and praying for the aid of the Heavenly Father, they formed associations having the pledge of abstinence from distilled liquors as the bond of union. Agents were employed to collect and disseminate information, and the pulpit and the press were enlisted. Temperance Societies, so called, sprang up in all directions, bearing a rich harvest of fruits, and inspiring hopeful and sanguine hearts with the joyful prospect that they would prove the harbinger of the millenium. Such was the origin of the great Temperance Reformation, which in a few years spread its vivifying influence from the new to the old world, everywhere dispensing rich blessings, and everywhere hailed as a precious gift of God to man. But the good work soon came to a stand. Drunkards who had been redeemed began to slide back into the fiery tide from which they had been rescued; and another crop of drinkers and drunkards began to appear in the rising generation. Wise heads traced the failure to the continued use of fermented drinks, which had not been considered dangerous. The notion had prevailed that ardent spirit was the great enemythat distillation created the poison-that the worm of the still was the serpent of intemperance. To substitute wine and beer for stronger drinks, had been the key-note of reform. Train up the youth to indulge moderately in these beverages, and you will banish intemperance! And now was sounded the tocsin for a war which was destined to revolutionize public sentiment. That the habit of intemperance once formed could not be cured by anything short of abstinence from all intoxicating beverages, was a truth, plain, palpable, undeniable. Equally beyond all controversy was the proposition that the moderate use of any kind of intoxicating drink tended to the immoderate use. The radical cham pions of temperance determined to enforce these truths by example and precept. They took counsel of an ancient hero, who had proclaimed the duty of abstaining from all indulgences through which his brother was made weak and caused to stumble. They saw their brethren stumbling and staggering through wine; and they nobly pledged themselves before man and before God to drink no wine while the world should stand. The battle was joined. Legions of the old temperance men, faint hearted, thirsty or mammon-struck, left the ranks and deserted to the enemy. The advocates of total abstinence were denounced as ultraists and fanatics: even as infidels, who trampled under foot the Word of God. Ministers of the Gospel transformed themselves into priests of Bacchus, and invested the luring bowl with the hallowing associations of religion. The Bible, with reckless resolve, was thrust forward to cover the sparkling cup; and the broad way to indulgence and drunkenness, was kept open in the name of religion. The weapons of one party were furnished by the heart and the conscience; of the other, by the stomach and the purse-by the world, the flesh and the devil. In that great struggle was witnessed what the history of human progress has more than once. revealed that faith and devotedness and unwavering perseverance were on the side of the radical reformers and that the victory too was theirs. In a few short years they had exclusive and un |