y Jacob (Gen. 31:54; 46:1)--it is silent concerning
the divine origin of sacrifice as a propitiatory requirement prefiguring
the atoning death of Jesus Christ. The difficulty of determining time
and circumstance, under which the offering of symbolical sacrifices
originated amongst mankind, is recognized by all investigators save
those who admit the validity of modern revelation. The necessity of
assuming early instruction from God to man on the subject has been
asserted by many Bible scholars. Thus, the writer of the article
"Sacrifice" in the Cassell _Bible Dictionary_ says: "The idea of
sacrifice is prominent throughout the scriptures, and one of the most
ancient and widely recognized in the rites of religion throughout the
world. There is also a remarkable similarity in the developments and
applications of the idea. On these and other accounts it has been
judiciously inferred that sacrifice formed an element in the primeval
worship of man; and that its universality is not merely an indirect
argument for the unity of the human race, but an illustration and
confirmation of the first inspired pages of the world's history. The
notion of sacrifice can hardly be viewed as a product of unassisted
human nature, and must therefore be traced to a higher source and viewed
as a divine revelation to primitive man."

Smith's _Dic. of the Bible_ presents the following: "In tracing the
history of sacrifice from its first beginning to its perfect development
in the Mosaic ritual, we are at once met by the long-disputed question
as to the origin of sacrifice, whether it arose from a natural instinct
of man, sanctioned and guided by God, or was the subject of some
distinct primeval revelation. There can be no doubt that sacrifice was
sanctioned by God's Law, with a special, typical reference to the
Atonement of Christ; its universal prevalence, independent of, and often
opposed to, man's natural reasonings on his relation to God, shows it to
have been primeval, and deeply rooted in the instincts of humanity.
Whether it was first enjoined by an external command, or was based on
that sense of sin and lost communion with God, which is stamped by His
hand on the heart of man--is an historical question, perhaps insoluble."

The difficulty vanishes, and the "historical question" as to the origin
of sacrifice is definitely solved by the revelations of God in the
current dispensation, whereby parts of the record of Moses--not
contained in the