Wine and Wine | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 22, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 37.

Wine and Wine.

The editor of the Western Watchman (Roman Catholic) confesses in his issue of August 19 that he, as well as the greater part of Catholics in the United States, has been deceived over the wine used for sacramental purposes. Dr. Wylie, the Government chemist, shows that only the first pressing of the grape is true wine; that the second pressing is water and sugar, flavored by the mixture of the red pulp, and to give it strength, a little alcohol is added; and that in white wine there is very great deception. The Watchman declares that they have been using the second pressing of wine for years, supposing that to be the true article, and now the editor finds that he has been saying mass with “sugar, water, a dash of alcohol, and a flavor of beer. The thought staggers us.” We should think it would, and we should think it wouldn’t. If it is wine that he is using as a symbol of the pure offering of our blessed Lord, we should think it would stagger him. If he has the power to change that wine into the very blood of Christ, we do not see why he should be staggered at all. It would certainly look as if he were in some doubt of the re-creation or the transmutation. If he were using the pure juice of the grape, unfermented, uncorrupted, as the Christian religion ought to be, there would be no difficulty at all. That is always easily obtained, and one may know that it is pure.