70 QUAKER ASPECTS OF TRUTH 



to meet, and their attitude towards each other would 

 naturally be an attitude of intense suspicion and distrust* 

 For in those early days the stranger was always an enemy 

 until he proved himself to be a friend ♦ Even the 

 etymology of our own language bears somewhat striking 

 testimony to this fact* To fare was to fear* The two 

 words are identical* The way-faring man was the 

 way-fearing man, who went about in constant dread of 

 the unknown* But as these two wild Arabs get to know 

 each other better, their attitude of suspicion and distrust 

 gives place to an attitude of mutual respect and sympathy, 

 and they determine to cement their newly-found friend- 

 ship by means of a sacrament* And a very striking 

 sacrament it is* Each opens a vein in his arm and they 

 drink one another's blood in token of eternal unity* 

 From this time forth the same blood flows in the veins 

 of both of them* In short, they are akin* And neither 

 would any more think of injuring the other than he 

 would dream of injuring himself* 



This ancient Arabian blood-bond not improbably 

 represents the earliest idea associated with the Sacra- 

 mental shedding of blood* But ere long another idea 

 entered in. The thought of God. 



Probably long before Jehovah was worshipped, and 

 even before there were any children of Israel to worship 

 Jehovah, it was customary for Arab tribes to offer sacrifice 

 to Baal* Every town and village and every fertile tract 

 of land had each its own Baal, or Lord, who was 

 worshipped at a sacred pillar, or stone* Now the baal 

 was supposed to be the giver of fertility, and, in a physical 

 sense, the original father of the tribe, the earth being 

 its mother* You all, no doubt, at times speak of 

 ** mother earth,'' little thinking that this is an interesting 

 survival of this ancient Semitic myth, that the baal is 

 the original father, and the earth the original mother, of 

 us all* 



