O God thou wilt not despise." The Prophet Hosea represents Jehovah as saying "I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." So also in Jeremiah "I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them, in that day I brough them out of the Land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices: but this thing I commanded them saying, obey my voice and I will be your God and ye shall be my people; and walk ye in the ways that! have commanded you that it may be well with you." Here we inter that animal sacrifices were not of divine appointment; on the contrary, as a portion of the fruits of their wickedness and hostility, to the Divine Will, it is emphatically declared "I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgements by which they ought not to live." In other words he permitted these statues and rituals because of the hardness of their hearts.
Authority equally perspicuous is susceptible of being produced, in proof, that the Jews, during their faithfulness to the commandments of their God, did not sacrifice living animals in their worship,—did not imbrue their hands, nor stain their altars with the blood of innocent beasts. Let us simply consider the Bible account of the dedication of the Temple;—let us view the narrative, not according to our prejudices, but in the light of impartial reason, and after maturely reflecting on all the circumstances let us solemnly ask ourselves whether popular opinion on this subject can possibly be right? Who can tell us how one hundred and twenty thousand sheep, and twenty two thousand oxen, could possibly be butchered and burned in one day in the temple then just built by Solomon? Who can tell us how such a number of animals could all be consumed on an altar of small dimensions, made of wood, and overlaid, with thin plates of metal? Whence came all these sheep and oxen, and the fuel necessary for the con-
