Consecration differs from sacrifice, in that the objects of sacrifice are intended for the immediate gratification of the deity, those of consecration for his continued use. Hence, things sacrificed are consumed upon the spot; things consecrated are preserved as long as their nature permits of it. So strong is the sense of permanence attaching to consecration, that there are probably even now persons among us, who would regard it as a sort of crime for the State to assume the ownership of lands once devoted to religious purposes, or to divert the proceeds to some other employment. A like sentiment, no doubt, prevails with regard to the material and the furniture of places of worship. With regard to sacrifice the case is different. Animals, fruits, or other articles intended for sacrifice, are given to the god or his representative for the single occasion, and as a requisite in the performance of some momentary rite. If a homely comparison may be permitted on so sacred a subject, it might be not inaptly said, that things sacrificed are like the meat and drink placed before a guest who is invited to dinner, while things consecrated rather resemble the present which he carries away to his own residence, and keeps for the remainder of his life. CHAPTER IV. CONSECRATED PERSONS. We have seen the religious instinct leading to the consecration of actions, to the consecration of places, and to the consecration of things. We are now to follow it in a yet more striking exhibition of its power, the consecration by human beings of their own lives and their own persons (or sometimes of the lives and persons of their children). Not only is such self-dedication to the service of religion common; it is well-nigh universal. There is no phenomenon more constant, none more uniform, than this. Differing in minor details, the grand features of self-consecration are everywhere the same, whether we look to the saintly Rishis of ancient India; to the wearers of the yellow robe in China or Ceylon; to the Essenes among the Jews; to the devotees of Vitziliputzli in pagan Mexico; or to the monks and nuns of Christian times in Africa, in Asia, and in Europe. Throughout the various creeds of these distant lands there runs the same unconquerable impulse, producing the same remarkable effects. This is not the place to attempt a psychological explanation of asceticism as a tendency of human nature. We have now only to notice some of its most conspicuous manifestations, and thus to assign to it its proper place in a history of the mode in which man endeavors to approach and to propitiate his god.