THE SCAPEGOAT 71 



It is a mean impulse at its best ; but the whole history 

 of Animal Symbolism proves the tendency of man, first to 

 symbolise virtue by something not-man, then to sacrifice to 

 his god the incarnate virtue in order to cover his own lack. 

 of it, and finally to transfer his own vices to the scapegoat. 

 Even in Architectural Symbolism it may be noted how — as 

 a great authority says — " the beasts which gained entry 

 to our churches as mysteries or dogmas, remained often 

 as parodies of man's vices or caricatures of the sacred 

 rites. 



It is so easy to find a substitute when that substitute 

 lives in the Great Silence of Truth. 



Quaint, unutterably quaint are we, with our deaf adder 

 ears, our self-blinded eyes, our irrepressible inward intuitions 

 of the reality of that from which we shrink. 



" As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened 

 not His mouth." 



That is our testimony to the Great Substitute : His 

 silence. 



It is the silence also of the whole brute creation on 

 which man has laid almost the whole burden of his material 

 prosperity. As for his spiritual welfare ? Is not half the 

 charity of the world practically a scapegoat ; something, 

 that is, which shall bear away from us the sense of sin ? 



For all this, and many another influence in our lives, 

 Azazel stands symbol " in the land which is not in- 

 habited." 



