f his
power, and he who wished to enquire of that god had to go there. It
might happen that the god manifested his power at another spot to one
of his dependents on a journey, as Jehovah did to Jacob at Bethel
(Genesis xxviii.). Then that spot also was recognised as a holy one
where communication could be had with the deity, and the apparatus of
worship was erected there so that the intercourse might be suitably
carried on, as Jacob is reported to have done. In time also it came
to be thought that each god had his land which belonged to him, on
which alone his worship was possible, and so the earth was parcelled
out among a number of deities; and Naaman, who wishes to worship
Jehovah in his Syrian home, carries off two mules' burden of
Jehovah's soil, to make in the midst of Syria a little piece of the
land of the God of Israel (2 Kings v.).

[Footnote 3: The late Professor Ives Curtius in a paper read to the
Basel Congress (1905, _Verhandlungen_, p. 154), on "Traces of Early
Semitic Religion in Syria," gives details of local sanctuaries still
resorted to in that country.]

One circumstance remains to be mentioned which constitutes a marked
difference between the Semitic and the Aryan religions. Aryan
religion has its centre in the household; the hearth is its altar,
and the gods of the domestic cult are the departed ancestors of the
family. Semitic religion is without this cult; the hearth is not an
altar; the religious community is not the family but the clan. The
worship of ancestors, if, as there is reason to believe, it had once
been practised by the Semites (the Arabs tied a camel to the grave of
the dead chief), lost at a very early period all practical
importance. While the early Semites believed in the continued
existence of the departed, they thought of them as beings quite
destitute of energy, as "shades laid in the ground," and did not
worship them. The other world occupied, therefore, a very small space
in Semitic thought. Religion confined itself to this life; after
death, it was held, even religion came to an end. A man must enjoy
the society of his god in this life; after death he could take part
in no sacrifice, and could render to his god no thanks nor service.

From what has been said the character of sacrifice among the Semites
is readily understood. Sacrifice is not domestic but takes place at
the spot where the god is thought to reside, or where the symbol
stands which represents him. Usually t