s
an offering that which is most sacred and most dear to the heart of the
king; and the question is as to whether it is his son, his boy, or his
wife. They think it must be the boy, because he was the one that would
continue the kingly line; but the wife detects the gladness of her
husband when he sees that the boy is to be selected, and knows by that
sense of relief that passes over his face that the priests have made a
mistake, and that she herself is to be the victim. And so, in her love
for him and for the people, she rushes upon the sacrificial knife.

All these ideas, you see, are perfectly natural in certain stages of
human development, logically reasoned out in view of their thought of
the gods and of their relations to them and of what these gods must
desire at their hands. It is not only among the very early beliefs that
you find these ideas controlling the thought and action of men. Study
the ancient classical times as they are reflected in the Iliad, in the
Odyssey, or in Virgil's Aeneid, and you will find that the gods were
very human in all their feelings, their thoughts, their passions. As,
in the Old Testament, Yahweh is reported to have been a jealous God,
not willing that respect should be paid to anybody but himself, so you
find the old Greek and Roman deities very jealous as to what were
regarded as their rights, as to what the people must pay to them; and,
if they are angry, they can be appeased if an offering rare and costly
enough be brought by the worshipper. You can buy their favor; you can
ward off their anger, if only you can offer them something which is
precious enough so that they are ready to accept it at the worshipper's
hands.

These are not merely Old Testament ideas, nor only pagan ideas. Some
years ago, when I was in Rome, I visited among others one of the many
churches dedicated to Mary under one name or another; and there was a
statue of the Virgin by the altar, and it impressed me very much to see
that it was loaded down with gifts. Every place on the statue itself to
which anything could be attached, anything on the altar around it, was
weighted down with gold chains, with jewels, with precious gifts of
every kind. These had been brought as thank-offerings, expressions of
worship, or pledges connected with a petition, because I have brought
thee this gift, have mercy, do this for me which I need.

So these old ideas are vital still, and live on in the modern world.
And yet mode