6.]

In Grecian mythology there was a very distinct recognition of the power
of conscience, and a reference of its authority to the Divinity,
together with the idea of retribution. Nemesis was regarded as the
impersonation of the upbraidings of conscience, of the natural dread of
punishment that springs up in the human heart after the commission of
sin. And as the feeling of remorse may be considered as the consequence
of the displeasure and vengeance of an offended God, Nemesis came to be
regarded as the goddess of retribution, relentlessly pursuing the guilty
until she has driven them into irretrievable woe and ruin. The Erinyes
or Eumenides are the deities whose business it is to punish, in hades,
the crimes committed upon earth. When an aggravated crime has excited
their displeasure they manifest their greatest power in the disquietude
of conscience.

Along with this deep consciousness of guilt, and this fear of
retribution which haunts the guilty mind, there has also rested upon the
heart of universal humanity a deep and abiding conviction that
_something must be done to expiate the guilt of sin_--some restitution
must be made, some suffering must be endured,[135] some sacrifice
offered to atone for past misdeeds. Hence it is that men in all ages
have had recourse to penances and prayers, to self-inflicted tortures
and costly sacrifices to appease a righteous anger which their sins had
excited, and avert an impending punishment. That sacrifice to atone for
sin has prevailed universally--that it has been practised "_sem-per,
ubique, et ab omnibus,_" always, in all places, and by all men--will not
be denied by the candid and competent inquirer. The evidence which has
been collected from ancient history by Grotius and Magee, and the
additional evidence from contemporaneous history, which is being now
furnished by the researches of ethnologists and Christian missionaries,
is conclusive. No intelligent man can doubt the fact. Sacrificial
offerings have prevailed in every nation and in every age. "Almost the
entire worship of the pagan nations consisted in rites of deprecation.
Fear of the Divine displeasure seems to have been the leading feature of
their religious impressions; and in the diversity, the costliness, the
cruelty of their sacrifices they sought to appease gods to whose wrath
they felt themselves exposed, from a consciousness of sin, unrelieved by
any information as to the means of escaping its effects."[13