347 
solemn and mystical sacrifices, and the meaning involved in 
them, but it is impossible to close one's eyes to the great fact 
that even the deification of such an ancestor as I have portrayed, 
and the holding his acts as sacred and worthy of imitation, could 
only have led to the authorization of human sacrifice when the 
victim was an enemy or rival, real or supposed; and that the 
institution of the propitiatory sacrifice by parents of their own 
children * is almost absolute proof of a tradition, from the very 
first, of the amelioration of the condition of the human race, and 
the reconciliation with an offended deity by some such process. 
May we suggest on their parts a voluntary offer of submission to 
the author of that flaming sword— which, whatever may be the 
meaning of the expression, would after a time be taken literally 
—which was said to intervene between them and immortal life. 
Hence those so devoted to the gods were deemed supremely 
blest, as having passed that barrier. This idea was forcibly 
portrayed by the Egyptians, who represented Paradise as sur- 
rounded by streams of fire, issuing from the mouths of sacred 
ursei {i.e seraphs, fiery serpents), one of which guarded each 
corner ; the fire so breathed out being intended, as Mr. W. P. 
Co S e mi Ilf ? rm J S us ' t0 destr °y an y invading or unjustified soul.’ 
40. 1 fie fundamental question of reconciliation is not within the 
scope of this paper, though it materially aids the conclusion. I will 
therefore confine myself to less important but still very interest- 
ing customs practised in common by the Hebrews and idolatrous 
and pagan nations. 
41. Fire was an emblem of the Deity with both; the seven 
spirits of God were also so represented, and the branched 
candlestick was an emblem. We are told likewise of the fire that 
was to be kept burning the whole night, f i. e. during the time 
the sun was invisible, a specification quite distinct from that 
tor its perpetual burning. On the pagan side we find in all 
countries, including Britain, that not only was fire to be kept per- 
petually burning, but that in some it was to be each year mira- 
culously renewed : the hearth-fires were extinguished in Britain 
on one particular night, only to be rekindled J with the sacred 
fire given out by the priests, a custom still kept up in Jerusalem 
by means of lighting tapers, and still observed amongst the 
Guebres of India and Persia. § 
introduction iT- H® a S ® an lmmense deal of force by the 
“Ste Zd tbeVTV T “ , tb J S ® P ] u ?P int ’ and its equivalents in the 
Cain ' TW, * En ? llsh translations of Eve’s expression on the birth of 
Cain. Here we must go back to the Hebrew nw -fix wjp (i.e.) I 
the V mrZ e fVv“ an S® Jeh0Va ^ ; pro ™g that 80 deeply impressed upon 
diatd^on the t • Ilf ?® P TV s ® d reconciliation, that she concluded, imme- 
t Lev vi Q ut l °I S, .i t a 8 cllt °f reconciliation had arrived. 
T Lev. vl 9. J Godfrey Higgins, p. 158. § Dr. Hyde and others. 
