All the way through the Old Testament, in the history of the Hebrew
people, you trace these same ideas that you find in the life of almost
all the other nations of the world. It was only a step beyond this to
the idea of presenting gifts to God, no matter what the nature of that
gift might be. And, as men came to make him these sacred offerings,
they came also to believe and in the most natural way in the world
that, the more costly the gift, the more likely it was to be accepted
on the part of its sublime recipient.
So human sacrifices arose; for there could be no more sacred gift than
for a man to offer his own child or his own wife to God. The gods were
looked upon as sometimes demanding these tremendous sacrifices as the
conditions of their mercy or their care. I refer you for illustration
to one of the most striking and touching of Tennyson's poems. I think
it is entitled "The Victim." There had been famine in the land, and the
priests have announced that they have learned that the gods demand as
an offering that which is most sacred and most dear to the heart of the
king; and the question is as to whether it is his son, his boy, or his
wife. They think it must be the boy, because he was the one that would
continue the kingly line; but the wife detects the gladness of her
husband when he sees that the boy is to be selected, and knows by that
sense of relief that passes over his face that the priests have made a
mistake, and that she herself is to be the victim.
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