537 
of Edinburgh, Session 1874-75. 
sacrifices fairly in the balance, we shall find it not so strong as that 
which could be adduced to prove that the early Christians killed 
infants, drank their blood, and indulged in indiscriminate sexual 
intercourse. And yet no one now believes these accusations 
against the Christians. 
In fact, the G-reeks were strangers to the idea of sin until the 
introduction of Stoicism, as Sir Alexander Grant has well shown in 
his Aristotle, and it is likely that the idea was not present to the 
minds of the earlier Stoics. There is therefore, as it seems to me, 
no analogy between the sacrifices of the G-reeks and the sacrifice of 
G-olgotha. The sacrifice of Christ is, as Dr Crawford has admir- 
ably brought out in his “ Mysteries of Christianity,” p. 230, 
“ exceptional and unique.” But in the deeper meaning of sacrifice, 
the essence of which is self-renunciation, there is a striking 
parallelism between most of the G-reek mythical sacrifices, includ- 
ing also the more or less historical voluntary deaths of Codrus and 
Leonidas, and the sacrifice of Christ. The oracle decrees that what 
is noblest, and most beautiful, and most fair must perish. The 
noblest and the fairest offer themselves up for their country, and 
present to their country the most beautiful sacrifice that can be 
offered — a pure human soul. And in like manner the sacrifice of 
Christ, not indeed devoted, like the Grreek sacrifices, to a single 
land, but offered up for the whole world, is an act of obedience to 
the will of G-od, and an infinitely grand exemplification of that 
self-renunciation which constitutes the essence of all true religion. 
2. The Placenta in Ruminants. — a Deciduate Placenta. 
By Professor Turner. 
All zoologists, who have accepted the placental system of classifi- 
cation of the Mammalia, agree in placing the Ruminantia amongst 
the Indeciduata. 
As is well known, the foetal portion of the placenta in Ruminants 
consists of a number of distinct cotyledons. Each cotyledon is 
composed of numerous branched villi, which fit into pits or depres- 
sions situated in mound-like elevations of the wall of the uterus, 
called the maternal cotyledons. It is generally believed, that in 
the process of parturition in these animals, the foetal villi are 
