The Bible God, as any careful reader will perceive, was very partial to roast meat. One of the earliest items recorded of him is that he had no respect for Cain and his offering of vegetables, while to Abel who brought him the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof, he had respect. He much prefered mutton to turnips. When Noah offered a sacrifice, we are told "He smelt a sweet savor" (Gen. vii. 21). But the Lord was by no means content with the smell. On his altars huge hecatombs of animals were continually being slaughtered, and the choicest portions set aside as the Lord's. The Lord God seems to have been extremely fond of fat, especially that about the rump. As the richest part of the animal, it was reserved with "the two kidneys and the fat that is upon them" especially for the Lord (Lev. iii. 9-11). Let it be noticed that the Lord God required no sacrifices except of eatable animals, oxen, rams, goats, lambs, and kids. Fishes he had no regard for, and of birds only turtle doves and pigeons were his favorite dishes. Wine and oil he took to wash them down, but never mentioned water. Like his ministers, he lived on the fat of the land,* claiming as his own the firstlings of the flock. From his claim to the first born, it appears that Jahveh was originally given to "long pig," but in the case of Abraham's son, he took a ram instead. He was, however, so partial to blood that he interdicted the sacred fluid to his worshippers, but demanded that it should be poured out upon his altar (Deut. xii.) Even the early Christians made it a fundamental rule of the Church that disciples should abstain from blood, and from things strangled (Acts xv. 20). The blood was supposed to be especially the Lord's. * To "eat the fat" seems, as in Neh. viii. 10, to have been a biblical expression for good living. Let not the serious reader suppose we are jesting. Hear what Prof. Robertson Smith says. "All sacrifices laid upon the altar were taken by the ancients as being literally the food of the gods. The Homeric deities 'feast on hecatombs,' nay particular Greek gods have special epithets designating them as the goat-eater, the ram-eater, the bull-eater, even 'cannibal,' with allusion to human sacrifices. Among the Hebrews the conception that Jehovah eats the flesh of bulls and drinks the blood of goats, against which the author of Psalm 1. protests so strongly, was never eliminated from the ancient technical language of the priestly ritual, in which the sacrifices are called _lechem Elohim_, 'the food of the deity.'"* * Religion of the Semites, p. 207. Our translators of the passages where this phrase occurs (Lev. xxi. 8, 17, 21, 22; Num. xxviii. 2) have done their best to conceal the meaning, but like the phrase "wine which cheereth God and man" (Judges ix. 13), it takes us back to the time when gods were supposed, like men, to eat, drink, and be refreshed.