ONIC COUNCIL.

SACRIFICE, anything of value given away to secure the possession of
something of still higher value, and which is the greater and more
meritorious the costlier the gift.

SACRING-BELL, or SANCTUS-BELL, the bell which rings when the
Host is elevated at the celebration of High Mass.

SACY, ANTOINE ISAAC, BARON SILVESTRE DE, the greatest of modern
Orientalists, born at Paris; by twenty-three was a master of classic,
Oriental, and modern European languages; was appointed in 1795 professor
of Arabic in the School of Oriental Languages, and in 1806 of Persian in
the College de France, besides which he held various other appointments;
founded the Asiatic Society in 1822; was created a baron by Napoleon
Bonaparte, and entered the Chamber of Peers in 1832; published
"Biographies of Persian Poets," a standard Arabic grammar, &c.; his
writings gave a stimulus to Oriental research throughout Europe
(1758-1838).

SADDA, the name given to a Persian epitome of the Zend-Avesta.

SADDUCEES, a sect of the Jews of high priestly origin that first
came into prominence by their opposition to the Pharisees, being the
party in power when Pharisaism arose in protestation against their policy
as tending to the secularisation of the Jewish faith, or the prostitution
of it to mere secular ends. They represented the Tory or Conservative
party among the Jews, as the Pharisees did the High Church party among
us. The antagonism which thus arose on political grounds gradually
extended to religious matters. In regard to religion they were the old
orthodox party, and acknowledged the obligation of only the written law,
and refused to accept tradition at the hands of the Scribes. They denied
the immortality of the soul, the separate existence of spirits, and this
they did on strictly Old Testament grounds, but this not from any real
respect for the authority of Scripture, only as in accord with the main
article of their creed, which attached importance only to what bears upon
this present life, and which in modern times goes under the name of
secularism. They were at bottom a purely political party, and they went
out of sight and disappeared from Jewish history with the fall of the
Jewish State, only the Pharisaic party surviving in witness of what
Judaism is.

SADE, DONATIEN ALPHONSE FRANCOIS, MARQUIS DE, French novelist, who,
after fighting in the Seven Years' War, was sentenced to death for odious
crimes, effected his