Page:The Genius of America (1923).pdf/57

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

young people to throw the opprobrium of the present drought upon the Puritans. These iron men, one might infer from reading the discourses, for example, of Mr. Mencken, banished Wine as a liquor inconsistent with Calvinistic theology, though, to be sure, Calvin himself placed it among 'matters indifferent.' The Puritans, as a matter of fact, used both wine and tobacco—both men and women. If Puritanism means reaction in favor of obsolete standards, our contemporary Puritans will repeal the obnoxious amendment; and all who are thirsty should circulate the Puritan literature of the seventeenth century. Read your Pilgrim's Progress, and you will find that Christian's wife, on the way to salvation, sent her child back after her bottle of liquor. Read Winthrop's letters, and you will find that Winthrop's wife writes to him to thank him for the tobacco that he has sent to her mother. Read Mather's diary, and you will find that he suggests pious thoughts to be meditated upon by the members of his household while they are engaged in home brewing. Read the records of the first Boston church, and you will find that one of the first teachers was a wine seller. Read the essays of John Robinson, first pastor of the Pilgrims, and you will find that he ridicules