the first sacrifice was a meal eaten together; and just as, for
example, to-day you see a remnant of this idea when a man eats with an
Arab, although the Arab may discover five minutes after that it was his
bitterest foe, he finds himself at least during a little time bound to
amity and peace by the fact that they have shared this sacred meal
together, so in the act of sacrifice it was believed that the
worshipper consecrated himself in loyalty to his God, and that the God
consecrated himself in faithfulness to his worshippers as their
guardian and protector. Here is given the central significance of
sacrifices that have made so large a part of the religious ceremonial
of the world.

These are not peculiar to what we call pagan people. Do you remember
the story of how, after the flood, Noah offers a sacrifice, and God up
in heaven is represented as smelling the flavor of the burning meat and
as rejoicing in it, accepting the offering, and pledging himself to
guard and care for his worshippers? Do you remember, also, that story
of Jacob, how, when he is on his journey, he falls asleep, and has his
wonderful dream, and sees the ladder starting at his feet and ending at
the throne of God, up and down which the angels are passing? When he
wakes in the morning, he says, "Surely, this is holy ground"; and he
takes the stone on which he slept, and sets it up as an altar, and
pours out the sacred oil as an offering to his God.

All the way through the Old Testament, in the history of the Hebrew
people, you trace these same ideas that you find in the life of almost
all the other nations of the world. It was only a step beyond this to
the idea of presenting gifts to God, no matter what the nature of that
gift might be. And, as men came to make him these sacred offerings,
they came also to believe and in the most natural way in the world
that, the more costly the gift, the more likely it was to be accepted
on the part of its sublime recipient.

So human sacrifices arose; for there could be no more sacred gift than
for a man to offer his own child or his own wife to God. The gods were
looked upon as sometimes demanding these tremendous sacrifices as the
conditions of their mercy or their care. I refer you for illustration
to one of the most striking and touching of Tennyson's poems. I think
it is entitled "The Victim." There had been famine in the land, and the
priests have announced that they have learned that the gods demand a