Part 6 (2/2)

As Dr E B Tylor says in that great storehouse of savage beliefs, _Priet an oracular response fro out of a medium's stomach, for a fee of about twopence-halfpenny”

Some make out, because Saul at first asked the woman what she saw, that, as at host, and Saul only kneho it was through her, else why should he have asked her what form Samuel had?--which elicited the not very detailed reply of ”an old man cometh up; and he is covered with a host of aBut it says ”Saul perceived it was Samuel,” and prostrated himself, which he would hardly have done at a description Indeed, the whole narrative is inconsistent with the modern theory of imposture on the part of the witch Had this been the explanation, the writer should have said so plainly He should have said her terror was pretended, that the apparition was unreal, and that Saul trembled at the woman's words, whereas it is plainly declared that ”he was sore afraid because of the words of Samuel” Moreover, and this is decisive, the spirit utters a prophecy--not an encouraging, but a gloomy one--which was exactly fulfilled

All this shows the writer was saturated in supernaturalishost of a doubt of the ghost Hewas deceit He does not, for he believed in witchcraft like the priests who ordered ”Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” One little circumstance shows his sy e belief that spirits should not be disturbed Here was Sa his comfortable nap, may be for millenniums in Sheol, when the old worave and transport hieance to Saul and to his sons, ”because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord nor executedest his fierce wrath upon Amalek”

Matthew Henry and other commentators think that the person who presented hi his appearance Those who believe in Satan, and that he can transforht (2 Cor xi 14), cannot refuse to credit the possibility of this

Folks with that co To sensible people it is scarcely necessary to say there is nothing about Satan in the narrative, nor any conceivable reason why he should be credited with a true prophecy The words uttered are declared to be the words of Samuel

The seventeenth verse stupidly reads, ”The Lord hath done to hiate more sensibly reads to thee

Much is said of Saul's wickedness, but the only wickedness attributed to hi God's fierce wrath If it icked to seek the old worant the object he was seeking, by raising up one of his own holy servants Why did the Lord e necromancy

And further, if a spirit returned froo to Sheol--where Samuel was, for he says ”to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be _with me_”--why should not spirits now return to tell us we are immortal? If the witch of Endor could raise spirits, why not Lottie Fowler or Mr Eglinton? Such are the arguments of the spiritists

We venture to think they cannot be answered by the orthodox To us, however, the fact that the beliefs of the spiritists find their countenance in the beliefs of savages like the early Jews is their sufficient refutation Spiritise animism

SACRIFICES

No sacrifice to heaven, no help froh all the faiths of all the world

--Tennyson--Harold

The origin andof sacrifices constitute a central problehold of orthodox Christianity--its doctrine of the Atonees When we hear of the Lamb slain for sinners, the very phrase takes us back to the time when sins were formally placed upon the heads of unconscious aniht be held accursed instead of man; and to the yet older notion of hu to the Gods

Sacrifices were primarily meals offered to the spirits of the dead It is not hard to understand how they arose The Hindoos who placed upon the grave of an English officer the brandy and cheroots which he loved in life in order to propitiate his spirit illustrated a proifts, usually of substances which eneral for in the shape of what the Americans call a squarea portion aside for the Lares and Penates Professor Sives abundant evidence that the early sacrifices of the Semitic people were animals offered at a meal partaken by the worshi+ppers The sacrifice, he holds, was originally a nourishi+ng of the common life of the kindred and their God by a common meal The primary communion with deity was communion of food Thisand drinking together were prins of fraternity Only to his own kin did early man own duty, and his God was always of his own kin

Jehovah was, as we are often told, the God of Abraha When Ruth said to Naomi, ”Thy people shall be my people, and thy Godup new kindred involved a change of worshi+p Professor Sly insisted on that the idea of kinshi+p between Gods and inally taken in a purely physical sense”

The modern Christian's explanations of biblical anthropomorphisms may be dismissed as unfounded assu with the daughters of men is one of the remnants of early myths unexplained by later editors

The Bible God, as any careful reader will perceive, was very partial to roast meat One of the earliest items recorded of hietables, while to Abel who brought his of his flock, and of the fat thereof, he had respect He much prefered mutton to turnips When Noah offered a sacrifice, we are told ”He smelt a sweet savor” (Gen vii 21) But the Lord was by no e hecatohtered, and the choicest portions set aside as the Lord's The Lord God seems to have been extremely fond of fat, especially that about the rump As the richest part of the animal, it was reserved with ”the two kidneys and the fat that is upon them” especially for the Lord (Lev iii 9-11) Let it be noticed that the Lord God required no sacrifices except of eatable aniard for, and of birds only turtle doves and pigeons were his favorite dishes Wine and oil he took to wash them down, but never mentioned water Like hisas his own the firstlings of the flock Froinally given to ”long pig,” but in the case of Abraham's son, he took a ram instead He was, however, so partial to blood that he interdicted the sacred fluid to his worshi+ppers, but demanded that it should be poured out upon his altar (Deut xii) Even the early Christians made it a fundamental rule of the Church that disciples should abstain froled (Acts xv 20) The blood was supposed to be especially the Lord's

To ”eat the fat” seems, as in Neh viii 10, to have been a biblical expression for good living

Let not the serious reader suppose we are jesting Hear what Prof

Robertson Smith says

”All sacrifices laid upon the altar were taken by the ancients as being literally the food of the Gods The Homeric deities 'feast on hecatonating theoat-eater, the ram-eater, the bull-eater, even 'cannibal,'

with allusion to hu the Hebrews the conception that Jehovah eats the flesh of bulls and drinks the blood of goats, against which the author of Psally, was never elie of the priestly ritual, in which the sacrifices are called _lecheion of the Sees where this phrase occurs (Lev xxi 8, 17, 21, 22; Nu, but like the phrase ”hich cheereth God and es ix 13), it takes us back to the time when Gods were supposed, like men, to eat, drink, and be refreshed

It was a fundamental rule of the Jewish faith that no one should appear before the Lord e was as ireat man without some present A sacrifice was as i in the church plate When God made a call on Abraham, with Eastern hospitality the patriarch procured water to wash his feet and killed a calf for the entertainetarian but a stout kreophagist In Numbers (xxix

13) he orders as a sacrifice ”of a sweet savor unto the Lord, thirteen young bullocks, two rams and fourteen lambs of the first year”

From the frequent inal idea of the God partaking of the food, developed into that of his taking only the essence of the food As God got less anthropomorphic he lost his teeth and had, poor spirit, to be content with the sather from Lev vii 6 that the kidneys, fat and other delicacies really fell to the lot of the priests, and some people have found a sufficient reason for the sacrifices to God in the fact that the priests liked mutton