Much depends here, as elsewhere, on the words which we use. Every act of worship may be called a sacrifice, and every sacred poet a high priest. To us these are very grand names and full of meaning. But let us look at some of the hymns addressed to Agni which are called sacrificial, and it seems to me that any peasant in his own cottage could have performed what is called a sacrifice, as presupposed, for instance, in the following hymn (Rig-Veda II, 6). Hymn to Agni, Fire. 1. Agni, accept this log of wood, This service which I bring to thee, Hear graciously these prayers and songs! 2. With this log let us honour thee, Thou son of strength, the horse’s friend, And with this hymn, thou nobly born. 3. And let us servants with our songs Serve thee, the lover of our songs, Wealth-lover, giver of our wealth! 4. Be thou our mighty, generous lord, Thou lord and giver of our wealth, And drive all hatred far from us! 5. He gives us rain from heaven above, He gives inviolable strength, He gives us food a thousandfold. 6. Come here, most youthful messenger, To him who lauds and craves thy help, Most holy priest[54], called by our song. 7. Agni, between both worlds[55], O sage, Thou passest, as a messenger Between two hamlets, kind and wise, 8. Thou hast befriended us before, Bring hither always all the gods, And sit thou on this sacred turf[56]. But whether these so-called sacrifices were in the beginning as complicated as they certainly were in the end, they are perfectly intelligible, and probably will become much more so when we know more of the literature in which they are described. How much of their development is presupposed in the Vedic hymns, I tried to explain, however shortly, as long ago as 1859 in my ‘History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature,’ p. 468, and much has been added by others during the last forty years; but when we speak of Vedic sacrifices, we must not think of the temple at Jerusalem, or of St. Peter’s, but of a small plot of grass, on which a fire was kindled within the walls of piled up turf, and kept alive by pouring butter or fat upon it.