As Fridthjof gave this pledge to Ingeborg, he said:

And the subsequent story of that covenanting arm-ring, fills thrilling pages in Norseland lore.[130]

Yet again, in the German cycle of the “Nibelungen Lied,” Gotelind, the wife of Sir Rudeger, gives bracelets to the warrior-bard Folker, to bind him as her knightly champion in the court of King Etzel, to which he goes. Her jewel casket is brought to her.

And when the fight waxed sore at the court of Etzel, the daring and dying Folker called on Sir Rudeger, to bear witness to his bracelet-bound fidelity:

It would, indeed, seem, that from this root-idea of the binding force of an endless covenant, symbolized in the form, and in the primitive name, of the bracelet, the armlet, the ring,—there has come down to us the use of the wedding-ring, or the wedding-bracelet, and of the signet-ring as the seal of the most sacred covenants. The signet-ring appears in earliest history. When Pharaoh would exalt Joseph over all the land of Egypt, “Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand.”[132] Similarly with Ahasuerus and Haman: “The king took his ring from his hand, and gave it unto Haman;” and the irrevocable decrees when written were “sealed with the king’s ring.” When again Haman was deposed and Mordecai was exalted, “the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto Mordecai.”[133] The re-instatement of the prodigal son, in the parable, was by putting “a ring on his hand.”[134] And these illustrations out of ancient Egypt, Persia, and Syria, indicate a world-wide custom, so far. One’s signet-ring stood for his very self, and represented, thus, his blood, as his life.

The use of rings, or bracelets, or armlets, in the covenant of betrothal, or of marriage, is from of old, and it is of wide-spread acceptance.[135] References to it are cited from Pliny, Tertullian, Juvenal, Isidore; and traces of it are found, earlier or later, among the peoples of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Islands of the Sea. In Iceland, the covenanting-ring was large enough for the palm of the hand to be passed through; so, in betrothal “the bridegroom passed four fingers and his palm through one of these rings, and in this manner he received the hand of the bride.” In Ireland, long ago, “a usual gift from a woman to her betrothed husband was a pair of bracelets made of her own hair”; as if a portion of her very self—as in the case of one’s blood—entered into the covenant rite. Again in Ireland, as also among the old Romans, the wedding-ring was in the form of two hands clasped (called a “fede”) in token of union and fidelity.

Sometimes, in England, the wedding-ring was worn upon the thumb, as extant portraits illustrate; and as suggested in Butler’s Hudibras:

In Southern’s “Maid’s Last Prayer,” the heroine says: “Marry him I must, and wear my wedding-ring upon my thumb too, that I’m resolved.”[136] These thumb-weddings were said to be introduced from the East[137]; and Chardin reports a form of marriage in Ceylon, by the binding together of the thumbs of the contracting parties;[138] as, according to the classics, the thumbs were bound together in the rite of blood-covenanting.[139] Indeed, the selection of the ring-finger for the wedding-covenant has commonly been attributed to the relation of that finger to the heart as the blood-centre, and as the seat of life. “Aulus Gellius tells us, that Appianus asserts, in his Egyptian books, that a very delicate nerve runs from the fourth finger of the left hand to the heart, on which account this finger is used for the marriage-ring.” Macrobius says that in Roman espousals the woman put the covenant ring “on the third finger of her left hand [not counting the thumb], because it was believed that a nerve ran from that finger to the heart.” And as to the significance of this point, it has been said: “The fact [of the nerve connection with the heart] has nothing to do with the question: that the ancients believed it, is all we require to know.”[140]

Among the Copts of Egypt, both the blood and the ring have their part in the covenant of marriage. Two rings are employed, one for the bride and one for the bridegroom. At the door of the bridegroom’s house, as the bride approaches it, a lamb or a sheep is slaughtered; and the bride must have a care to step over the covenanting-blood as she enters the door, to join the bridegroom. It is after this ceremony, that the two contracting parties exchange the rings, which are as the tokens of the covenant of blood.[141] In Borneo, among the Tring Dayaks, the marriage ceremony includes the smearing with a bloody sword, the clasped hands of the bride and groom, in conjunction with an invoking of the protecting spirits.[142] In this case, the wedding-ring would seem to be a bond of blood.

Again, in Little Russia, the bride gives to the bridegroom a covenanting draught in “a cup of wine, in which a ring has been put”;[143] as if in that case the wine and the blood-bond of the covenant were commingled in a true assiratum.[144] That this latter custom is an ancient one, would seem to be indicated by the indirect reference to it in Sir Walter Scott’s ballad of “The Noble Moringer,” a mediæval lay; where the long absent knight returns from the Holy Land, just in time to be at the wedding-feast of his enticed wife. He appears unrecognized at the feast, as a poor palmer. A cup of wine is sent to him by the bride.

Clearly this was not the ring he gave at his bridal, but the one which he accepted, in the covenanting-cup, from his bride. The cup was carried back from the palmer to the bride, for her drinking.

To the present day, an important ceremony at the coronation of a sovereign of Great Britain, is the investiture of the sovereign per annulum, or “by the ring.” The ring is placed on the fourth finger of the sovereign’s right hand, by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and it is called “The Wedding Ring of England,” as it symbolizes the covenant union of the sovereign and his people. A similar practice prevails at the coronation of European sovereigns generally. It also runs back to the days of the early Roman emperors, and of Alexander the Great.[145]

That a ring, or a circlet, worn around a thumb, or a finger, or an arm, in token of an endless covenant between its giver and receiver, has been looked upon, in all ages, as the symbol of an inter-union of the lives thereby brought together, is unmistakable; whether the covenanting life-blood be drawn for such inter-commingling, directly from the member so encircled, or not. The very covenant itself, or its binding force, has been sometimes thought to depend on the circlet representing it; as if the life which was pledged passed into the token of its pledging. Thus Lord Bacon says: “It is supposed [to be] a help to the continuance of love, to wear a ring or bracelet of the person beloved;”[146] and he suggests that “a trial should be made by two persons, of the effect of compact and agreement; that a ring should be put on for each other’s sake, to try whether, if one should break his promise the other would have any feeling of it in his absence.” In other words, that the test should be made, to see whether the inter-union of lives symbolized by the covenant-token be a reality. On this idea it is, that many persons are unwilling to remove the wedding-ring from the finger, while the compact holds.[147]

It is not improbable, indeed, that the armlets, or bracelets, which were found on the arms of Oriental kings, and of Oriental divinities as well, were intended to indicate, or to symbolize, the personal inter-union claimed to exist between those kings and divinities. Thus an armlet, worn by Thotmes III., is preserved in the museum at Leyden. It bears the cartouche of the King, having on it his sacred name, with its reference to his inter-union with his god. It was much the same in Nineveh.[148] Lane says, that upon the seal ring commonly worn by the modern Egyptian “is engraved the wearer’s name,” and that this name “is usually accompanied by the words ‘His servant’ (signifying ‘the servant, or worshiper of God’), and often by other words expressive of the person’s trust in God.”[149]

As the token of the blood-covenant is sometimes fastened about the arm, and sometimes about the neck; so the encircling necklace, as well as the encircling armlet, is sometimes counted the symbol of a covenant of very life. This is peculiarly the case in India; where the bracelet-brotherhood has been shown to be an apparent equivalent of the blood-brotherhood. Among the folk-lore stories of India, it is a common thing to hear of a necklace which holds the soul of the wearer. That necklace removed, the wearer dies. That necklace restored, the wearer lives again. “Sodewa Bai was born with a golden necklace about her neck, concerning which also her parents consulted astrologers, who said, ‘This is no common child; the necklace of gold about her neck contains your daughter’s soul; let it therefore be guarded with the utmost care; for if it were taken off, and worn by another person, she would die.’” On that necklace of life, the story hangs. The necklace was stolen by a servant, and Sodewa Bai died. Being placed in a canopied tomb, she revived, night by night, when the servant laid off the stolen necklace which contained the soul of Sodewa Bai. The loss was at last discovered by her husband; the necklace was restored to her, and she lived again.[150] And this is but one story of many.

In the Brahman marriage ceremony the bridegroom receives his bride by binding a covenanting necklace about her neck. “A small ornament of gold, called tahly, which is the sign of their being actually in the state of marriage, ... is fastened by a short string dyed yellow with saffron.”[151] And a Sanskrit word for “saffron” is also a word for “blood.”[152]

The importance of this symbolism of the token of the blood-covenant, in its bearing on the root-idea of an inter-union of natures by an inter-commingling of blood, will be more clearly shown, by and by.

8. THE RITE AND ITS TOKEN IN EGYPT.

Going back, now, to the world’s most ancient records, in the monuments of Egypt, we find evidence of the existence of the covenant of blood, in those early days. Even then, it seems to have been a custom to covenant by tasting the blood from another’s arm; and this inter-transference of blood was supposed to carry an inter-commingling, or an inter-merging, of natures. So far was this symbolic thought carried, that the ancient Egyptians spoke of the departed spirit, as having entered into the nature, and, indeed, into the very being, of the gods, by the rite of tasting blood from the divine arm.

“The Book of the Dead,” as it is commonly called, or “The Book of the Going Forth into Day,”—(“The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day,”[153])—is a group, or series, of ancient Egyptian writings, representing the state and the needs and the progress of the soul after death.[154] A copy of this Funereal Ritual, as it is sometimes called, “more or less complete, according to the fortune of the deceased, was deposited in the case of every mummy.”[155] “As the Book of the Dead is the most ancient, so it is undoubtedly the most important of the sacred books of the Egyptians;”[156] it is, in fact, “according to Egyptian notions, essentially an inspired work;”[157] hence its contents have an exceptional dogmatic value. In this Book of the Dead, there are several obvious references to the rite of blood-covenanting. Some of these are in a chapter of the Ritual which was found transcribed in a coffin of the Eleventh Dynasty; thus carrying it back to a period prior to the days of Abraham.[158]

“Give me your arm; I am made as ye,” says the departed soul, speaking to the gods.[159] Then, in explanation of this statement, the pre-historic gloss of the Ritual goes on to say: “The blood is that which proceeds from the member of the Sun, after he goes along cutting himself;”[160] the covenant blood which unites the soul and the god is drawn from the flesh of Rā, when he has cut himself in the rite of that covenant. By this covenant-cutting, the deceased becomes one with the covenanting gods. Again, the departed soul, speaking as Osiris,—or as the Osirian, which every mummy represents,[161]—says: “I am the soul in his two halves.” Once more there follows the explanation: “The soul in his two halves is the soul of the Sun [of Rā], and the soul of Osiris [of the deceased].” Here is substantially the proverb of friendship cited by Aristotle, “One soul in two bodies,” at least two thousand years before the days of the Greek philosopher. How much earlier it was recognized, does not yet appear.

Again, when the deceased comes to the gateway of light, he speaks of himself as linked with the great god Seb; as one “who loves his arm,”[162] and who is, therefore, sure of admittance to him, within the gates. By the covenant of the blood-giving arm, “the Osiris opens the turning door; he has opened the turning door.” Through oneness of blood, he has come into oneness of life, with the gods; there is no longer the barrier of a door between them. The separating veil is rent.

An added indication that the covenant of blood-friendship furnished the ancient Egyptians with their highest conception of a union with the divine nature through an interflowing of the divine blood—as the divine life—is found in the amulet of this covenant; corresponding with the token of the covenant of blood-friendship, which, as fastened to the arm, or about the neck, is deemed so sacred and so precious, in the primitive East to-day. The hieroglyphic word, tat, tet, or tot, (inline illustration) translated “arm,” is also translated “bracelet,” or “armlet,” (inline illustration)[163] as if in suggestion of the truth, already referred to,[164] that the blood-furnishing arm was represented by the token of the arm-encircling, or of the neck-encircling, bond, in the covenant of blood. Moreover, a “red talisman,” or red amulet, stained with “the blood of Isis,” and containing a record of the covenant, was placed at the neck of the mummy as an assurance of safety to his soul.[165] “When this book [this amulet-record] has been made,” says the Ritual, “it causes Isis to protect him [the Osirian], and Horus he rejoices to see him.” “If this book [this covenant-token] is known,” says Horus, “he [the deceased] is in the service of Osiris.... His name is like that of the gods.”

There are various other references to this rite, or other indications of its existence, than those already cited, in the Book of the Dead. “I have welcomed Thoth (or the king) with blood; taking the gore from the blessed of Seb,”[166] is one of these gleams. Again, there are incidental mentions of the tasting of blood, by gods and by men;[167] and of the proffering, or the uplifting, of the blood-filled arm, in covenant with the gods.[168]

On a recently deciphered stéle of the days of Rameses IV., of the Twentieth Dynasty, about twelve centuries before Christ, there is an apparent reference to this blood-covenanting, and to its amulet record. The inscription is a specimen of a funereal ritual, not unlike some portions of the Book of the Dead. The deceased is represented as saying, according to the translation of Piehl[169]: “I am become familiar with Thoth, by his writings, on the day when he spat upon his arm.” The Egyptian word, khenmes, here translated “familiar,” means “united with,” or “joined with.” The word here rendered “writings,” is hetepoo; which, in the singular, hetep, in the Book of Dead, stands for the record of the covenant on the blood-stained amulet.[170] The word peqas (inline illustration) rendered “spat,” by Piehl, is an obscure term, variously rendered “moistened,” “washed,” “wiped,” “healed.”[171] It is clear therefore that this passage may fairly be read: “I am become united with Thoth, by the covenant-record, on the day when he moistened, or healed his arm”; and if the arm were healed, it had been cut, and so moistened. Indeed it is quite probable that this word peqas has a root connection with peq, peqa, peqau, “a gap,” “an opening,” “to divide”; and even with penqu, (inline illustration) “to bleed.” Apparently, the unfamiliarity of Egyptologists with this rite of blood-covenanting, by the cutting of the arm, has hindered the recognition of the full force of many of the terms involved.

Ebers, in his “Uarda,” has incidentally given an illustration of the custom of blood-covenanting in ancient Egypt. It is when the surgeon Nebsecht has saved the life of Uarda, and her soldier-father, Kaschta, would show his gratitude, and would pledge his life-long fidelity in return.

“‘If at any time thou dost want help, call me, and I will protect thee against twenty enemies. Thou hast saved my child—good! Life for life. I sign myself thy blood-ally—there!’

“With these words he drew his poniard, out of his girdle. He scratched his arm, and let a few drops of his blood run down on a stone at the feet of Nebsecht.

“‘Look!’ he said. ‘There is my blood! Kaschta has signed himself thine; and thou canst dispose of my life as of thine own. What I have said, I have said.’”[172]

9. OTHER GLEAMS OF THE RITE.

For example, in a series of illustrations of Oriental manners, prepared under the direction of the French ambassador to Turkey, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, there appears a Turkish lover gashing his arm in the presence of his lady-love, as a proof of his loving attachment to her; and the accompanying statement is made, that the relative flow of blood thus devoted indicates the measure of affection—or of affectionate devotedness.[173]

A custom akin to this was found in Otaheite, when the South Sea Islands were first visited by English missionaries. The measure of love, in time of joy or in time of grief, was indicated by the measure of blood drawn from the person of the loving one. Particularly was this the case with the women; perhaps because they, in Otaheite as elsewhere, are more loving in their nature, and readier to give of their very life in love.

“When a woman takes a husband,” says a historian of the first missionary work in Otaheite, “she immediately provides herself with a shark’s tooth, which is fixed, with the bread-fruit gum, on an instrument that leaves about a quarter of an inch of the tooth bare, for the purpose of wounding the head, like a lancet. Some of these have two or three teeth, and struck forcibly they bring blood in copious streams; according to the love they bear the party, and the violence of their grief, the strokes are repeated on the head; and this has been known to bring on fever, and terminate in madness. If any accident happen to the husband, [to] his relations, or friends, or their child, the shark’s tooth goes to work; and even if the child only fall down and hurt itself, the blood and tears mingle together.... They have a very similar way of expressing their joy as well as sorrow; for whether a relation dies, or a dear friend returns from a journey, the shark’s tooth instrument ... is again employed, and the blood streams down.... When a person of eminence dies ... the relatives and friends ... repeat before it [the corpse] some of the tender scenes which happened during their life time, and wiping the blood which the shark’s teeth has drawn, deposit the cloth on the tupapow as the proof of their affection.”[174]

In illustration of this custom, the same writer says, in the course of his narrative: “When we had got within a short mile of the Isthmus, in passing a few houses, an aged woman, mother to the young man who carried my linen, met us, and to express her joy at seeing her son, struck herself several times on the head with a shark’s tooth, till the blood flowed plentifully down her breast and shoulders, whilst the son beheld it with entire insensibility [He saw in it only the common proof of his mother’s devoted love].... The son seeing that I was not pleased with what was done, observed coolly, that it was the custom of Otaheite.”[175]

This custom is again referred to by Mr. Ellis, as observed by him in the Georgian and the Society Islands, a generation later than the authority above cited. He speaks of the shark’s tooth blood-letter, as employed by men, as well as by women; although more commonly by the latter. He adds another illustration of the truth, that it is the blood itself, and not any suffering caused by its flowing, that is counted the proof of affection; by its representing the outpoured life, in pledge of covenant fidelity.

Describing the scenes of blood-giving grief, over the dead bodies of the mourned loved ones, he says: “The females on these occasions sometimes put on a kind of short apron, of a particular sort of cloth; which they held up with one hand, while they cut themselves with the other. In this apron they caught the blood that flowed from these grief-inflicted wounds, until it [the apron] was almost saturated. It was then dried in the sun, and given to the nearest surviving relatives, as a proof of the affection of the donor, and was preserved by the bereaved family as a token of the estimation in which the departed had been held.”[176] There is even more of vividness in this memorial, than in that suggested by the Psalmist, when he says:

There would seem to be a suggestion of this same idea in one of Grimm’s folk-lore fairy tales of the North. A queen’s daughter is going away from her home, attended by a single servant. Her loving mother would fain watch and guard her in her absence. Accordingly, “as soon as the hour of departure had arrived, the mother took her daughter into a chamber, and there, with a knife, she cut her [own] finger with it, so that it bled. Then, she held her napkin beneath, and let three drops of blood fall into it; which she gave to her daughter, saying: ‘Dear child, preserve this well, and it will help you out of trouble.’”[178] That blood represented the mother’s very life. It was accustomed to speak out in words of counsel and warning to the daughter. But by and by the napkin which held it was lost, and then the power of the young princess over her mother’s servant was gone, and the poor princess was alone in the wide world, at the mercy of strangers.

Acting on the symbolism of this covenanting with another by the loving proffer of one’s blood, men have reached out toward God, or toward the gods, in desire for a covenant of union, and in expression of fidelity of devotedness, by the giving of their blood God-ward. This, also, has been in the East and in the West, in ancient days and until to-day.

There was a gleam of this, in the Canaanitish worship of Baal, in the contest between his priests and the prophet Elijah, before King Ahab, at Mount Carmel. First, those priests shed the blood of the substitute bullock, at the altar of their god, and “called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal hear us! But there was no voice, nor any that answered.” Then they grew more earnest in their supplications, and more demonstrative in their proofs of devotedness. “They leaped [or, limped] about the altar which was made.... And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lances, till the blood gushed out upon them.”[179] Similar methods of showing love for God are in vogue among the natives of Armenia, to-day. Describing a scene of worship by religious devotees in that region, Dr. Van Lennep says: “One of them cuts his forehead with a sword, so that ‘the blood gushes out.’ He wears a sheet in front, to protect his clothes, and his face is covered with clots of blood.”[180] Clearly, in this case, as in many others elsewhere, it is not as a means of self-torture, but as a proof of self-devotedness, that the blood is poured out—the life is proffered—by the devotee, toward God.

Among the primitive peoples of North and of South America, it was the custom of priests and people, to draw blood from their own bodies, from their tongues, their ears, their noses, their limbs and members, when they went into their temples to worship, and to anoint with that blood the images of their gods.[181] The thorns of the maguey—a species of aloe—were, in many regions, kept ready at places of sacrifice, for convenient use in this covenant blood-letting.[182] A careful student of these early American customs has said of the obvious purpose of this yielding of one’s blood in worship, that it “might be regarded as an act of individual devotion, a gift made to the gods by the worshiper himself, out of his own very substance [of his very life, as in the blood-covenant].... The priests in particular owed it to their special character [in their covenant relation to the divinities], to draw their blood for the benefit of the gods [in renewed pledge to the gods]; and nothing could be stranger than the refined methods they adopted to accomplish this end. For instance, they would pass strings or splinters through their lips or ears, and so draw a little blood. But then a fresh string, or a fresh splinter, must be added every day, and so it might go on indefinitely; for the more there were, the more meritorious was the act;”[183] precisely as is the standard of love-showing by blood-letting among Turkish lovers and Otaheitan wives and mothers, in modern times.

A similar giving of blood, in proof of devotedness, and in outreaching for inter-communion with the gods through blood, is reported in India, in recent times. Bishop Caldwell, of Madras, referred to it, a generation ago, in his description of the “Devil Dance” among the Tinnevelly Shawars.[184] The devotee, in this dance, “cuts and lacerates himself till the blood flows, lashes himself with a huge whip, presses a burning torch to his breast, drinks the blood which flows from his own wounds, or drains the blood of the sacrifice; putting the throat of a decapitated goat to his mouth.” Hereby he has given of his own blood to the gods, or to the devils, and has drunk of the substitute blood of the divinities—in the consecrated sacrifice; as if in consummation of the blood-covenant with the supernal powers. “Then as if he had acquired new life [through inter-union with the object of his worship], he begins to brandish his staff of bells, and to dance with a quick but wild unsteady step. Suddenly the afflatus descends; there is no mistaking that glare or those frantic leaps. He snorts, he swears, he gyrates. The demon has now taken bodily possession of him. [The twain are one. The two natures are intermingled].... The devil-dancer is now worshiped as a present deity, and every bystander consults him respecting his diseases, his wants, the welfare of his absent relations, the offerings to be made for the accomplishments of his wishes, and in short everything for which superhuman knowledge is supposed to be available.” In this instance, the mutual covenant is represented; the devotee both giving and receiving blood, as a means of union.

On this idea of giving one’s self to another, by giving of one’s blood, it is, that the popular tradition was based, that witches and sorcerers covenanted with Satan by signing a compact in their own blood. And again it was in recognition of the idea that two natures were inter-united in such a covenant, that the compact was sometimes said to be signed in Satan’s blood.

Among the many women charged with witchcraft in England, by the famous Matthew Hopkins, the “witch-finder” in the middle of the Seventeenth century, was one, at Yarmouth, of whom it is reported, that her first temptation came to her when she went home from her place of employment, discouraged and exasperated by her trials. “That night when she was in bed, she heard a knock at the door, and going to her window, she saw (it being moonlight) a tall black man there: and asked what he would have? He told her that she was discontented, because she could not get work; and that he would put her into a way that she should never want anything. On this she let him in, and asked him what he had to say to her. He told her he must first see her hand; and taking out something like a penknife, he gave it a little scratch, so that a little blood followed; a scar being still visible when she told the story. Then he took some of the blood in a pen, and pulling a book out of his pocket, bid her write her name; and when she said she could not, he said he would guide her hand. When this was done, he bid her now ask what she would have.”[185] In signing with her own blood, she had pledged her very life to the “tall black man.”

Cotton Mather, in his “Wonders of the Invisible World,” cites a Swedish trial for witchcraft, where the possessed children, who were witnesses, said that the witches, at the trysting-place where they were observed, were compelled “to give themselves unto the devil, and vow that they would serve him. Hereupon they cut their fingers, and with blood writ their names in his book.” In some cases “the mark of the cut finger was [still] to be found.” Moreover the devil gave meat and drink both to the witches and to the children they brought with them. Again, Mather cites the testimony of a witness who had been invited to covenant with the Devil, by signing the Devil’s book. “Once, with the book, there was a pen offered him, and an inkhorn with liquor in it that looked like blood.”[186] Another New England writer on witchcraft says that “the witch as a slave binds herself by vow, to believe in the Devil, and to give him either body or soul, or both, under his handwriting, or some part of his blood.”[187]

It is, evidently, on this popular tradition, that Goethe’s Faust covenants in blood with Mephistopheles.

Even “within modern memory in Europe,” there have been traces of the primitive rite of covenanting with God by the proffer of one’s blood. In the Russian province of Esthonia, he who would observe this rite, “had to draw drops of blood from his fore finger,” and at the same time to pledge himself in solemn covenant with God. “I name thee [I invoke thee] with my blood, and [I] betroth thee [I entrust myself to thee] with my blood,”—was the form of his covenanting. Then he who had given of his blood in self-surrendering devotedness, made his confident supplications to God with whom he had thus covenanted; and his prayer in behalf of all his possessions was: “Let them be blessed through my blood and thy might.”[189]

Thus, in ancient Egypt, in ancient Canaan, in ancient Mexico, in modern Turkey, in modern Russia, in modern India, and in modern Otaheite; in Africa, in Asia, in America, in Europe, and in Oceanica: Blood-giving was life-giving. Life-giving was love-showing. Love-showing was a heart-yearning after union in love and in life and in blood and in very being. That was the primitive thought in the primitive religions of all the world.