1>f an initial institution. Thus the very form and character of the tabernacle itself, and after it of the temple of Solomon, were precisely the same as we now find in many Hindu temples. We cannot think that the Hindus copied at any time the form of the tabernacle in the wilderness or of the temple on Mount Moriah. Rather we must suppose that the Hindus still perpetuate what was the most primitive form of a temple for Divine worship, the Cane with its two rooms and the surrounding court; and thai that form was reinstituted under Mount Sinai. Nor was there anything new in the Aaronic priesthood: Melchizedek was a 1XJhen; Jethro was a rohen. Then, again, as to the sacrifices, the minchah is still the daily offering in the Hindu temple; food is offered before the idol in the inner room of the fane, a handful is consumed on the sacrificial fire, and the meal is eaten by the priests. The same kind of food offering was made both by Greeks and Romans. The sacrifice of food animals has also been perpetuated by various other nations. Such were the principal sacrifices among the Greeks and Romans, and among the Hindus there is still the sacrifice of the lamb. Some even of the minutim too of the more ancient rites evidently remained intact for ages; as, for instance, compare Numb. xix. 2, "They shall bring thee a red heifer • , . upon which never came yoke," with Ovid (' Fasti,' iii 375, 376)- "Tollit humo munus Clllsa priua ille juvenca, Qua, dedera.t nulli colla premenda. jugo." We cannot account for these things by supposing that the heathen nations learned the rules of sacrifice from the Jews. The only rational mpposition is that they retailled many of the externals of primitive worship, while the worship of the Jews was truly the primitive worship divinely restored. Heathen religious rites and sacri- fices are fossils of the old-world Church history, the e:tuviai of dead faiths. Incrustech illdeed, they are with superstitions many and grievous, petrified, the true primitive life long sillce crushed out of them; but yet unmistakably the remains of an ancient garden of the Lord's, of a primitive sacrificial and sacramental worship, the analogue of that which was agaiD seen in the days of Moses, David, and Solomon. If such be the case, we cannot hesitate to conclude that the whole system of heathen sacrifice, however degraded and distorted in its present application, bears ample witness to a Diville origin. The theory that sacrifice is an outcome of human nature does not bear examination. The fact that man will cling to the externals of religion while losing its spirit, is attested by all history. The very existence, therefore, of priest and sacrifice as worldwide facts would seem to poillt back infallibly to a day of pure religion and a God-appoillted worship.
II. Is there a sacrifice, a priesthood, and an altar in the Christian Church? This question is so suggestive, and related to so much that is collateral, that only salient poillts must here be touched upon, and such as have reference to what has gon~ before, or this essay would very soon exceed its dne limits. First, perhaps, it is well to guard one's self against an idea too co=only expressed, that the Mosaic dispensation was "imperfect." The thought has arisen around the expression in the Epistle to the Hebrews of the "greater and more perfect tabernacle.''" The Mosaio dlspensa•..ion was imperfect, as all human things must be, even when of Piville appointment, when compared with Christ; but it was not imperfect as a dis- pensation. No ordi.r.ance from God's hands can be imperfect. The sacrificial system must have been the very best method of teaching the ways of God to man, or it would not have been instituted. We must not, therefore, approach the words, " sacrifice,,., Kii AN ESSA'Y ON SACRIFICE.