Note 17 — THE IRISH SETTLERS OF SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE.

As an instance of this evolution may be mentioned the efforts of a very estimable lady of our town in 1896 at a church meeting, called for the purpose, who proposed the substitution of water for wine in the church service; the question was solemnly and prayerfully discussed, was not voted down, but the motion was laid on the table, where it still remains for future determination; the matter was not decided then; possibly their progressiveness had not sufficiently advanced. But less important questions have been the foundation of some modern church doctrines. Who will say that this theory, advanced, as then alleged, in the interest of temperance, may not find favor in some new church of, so called, advanced ideas, which will profoundly urge—as is already urged by individuals—that the wine mentioned in the Bible was not in fact wine at all, nothing more or less than water?

A strange spectacle indeed, ten persons of only ordinary intelligence and scholarship—who came together after a few hours’ notice—essaying to make a corrected interpretation of the Bible and radically changing one of the most important church dogmas which has received the consideration and approval of the great theologians of the past; absurd you may say, but it is in a very similar manner that many of the churches composing the present religious medley came into existence. Oh shades of old Presbyterianism, could your ancient devotees but see the wanderings of their progeny in the groping for the true path!