TITHE-GIVING AMONGST ANCIENT i-AGAN NATIONS. 137 



proportion? Does not the universality of this pro- 

 portion among- early Pagan nations point to a time 

 when the ancestors of those nations lived together, 

 and so derived the custom from a common source ? 



I have purposely confined my inquiries to what we under- 

 stood by heathen testimony, from which we have seen that 

 the practice of tithe-giving was usually, or at all events 

 frequently, connected with the payment of first-fruits ; with 

 a priesthood ; and with the presenting of sacrifice to a Divine 

 being ; all which things point to a religious or divine rather 

 than a human origin. 



If then we are disposed to allow that sacrifice was not a 

 human invention devised by the wit of man, but rather of 

 divine origin, is it not reasonable to argue that when the 

 Deity appointed, as acceptable to Himself, certain things 

 that were clean, and others not so. He also appointed the 

 quantity or proportion in which such things should be 

 offered, the overwhelming probability being, in the face of 

 the facts before us, that the proportion so appointed \\ as a 

 tenth ? 



The Chairman (Commander Heath, R.N.). — I am sure all 

 ■will join in according their thanks for this paper. 



Mr. T. W. E. Htggens. — The author speaks of payment of 

 tithes in connection (amongst other things) with the priesthood. 

 I notice that Dr. Robertson Smith in his work on the Religion of 

 the Semites, says that the " jjayment of tithes " was rather a 

 modern than an ancient custom ; but it appears to me, from this 

 paper, that tithes were not entirely connected with the priesthood. 



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