If then we interpret the offering of the paschal lamb as being substituted for a human sacrifice, we shall understand how it is at once a thank-offering and yet eaten with "the bread of affliction," the motzahs, or unleavened cakes, and bitter herbs, which are the remaining features of the festival, and this may help to explain the accusation which in all ages has been brought against the Jews, viz., that once in seven years at least they required their Passover to be celebrated with human blood. It is true the accusation has been often brought without evidence, but the Jews themselves profess astonishment at the unanimity with which their opponents have fixed upon this charge. Further, we shall see that in adopting the paschal lamb as the type of Christ, the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, the Christians were simply reverting to the early savage notion that deities are only to be appeased with blood, and to this degraded belief they have added the absurdity that Christ himself was God, thus making God sacrifice himself in order to appease himself! THE EVOLUTION OF JAHVEH. In the beginning when men created gods they made them in their own image, cruel, unrestrained and vacillating, All the early religions give evidence of the savage nature of ancient man. The departed gods, viewed in the light of modern ideals, were all ugly devils. The boasted God of the Jews is no exception. Although the books of the Old Testament do not give us the earliest and doubtless still more savage beliefs of the Israelites, the oldest portions, such as the legends embodied in Genesis and the historical books, sufficiently betray that Jahveh was no better than his compeers. It is evident that originally he was only one of many gods. He is always spoken of as a family deity--the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. Human sacrifices were at one time offered to him (see Genesis xxii., Leviticus xxvii. 29, Numbers xxv. 4, Judges xi. 31-39,1 Samuel xv. 23, Micah vi. 6,7). He is anthropomorphic, yet anything but a gentleman. In his decalogue he describes himself as "a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children until the third and fourth generation." He delights in blood and sacrifice. He is entitled "a god of battles," "Lord of hosts," and "a man of war." He has the form, the movements, and the imperfections of a human being. Man is said to be made in his image and after his likeness. It is plain these words must be taken in their literal significance, since, a little further on, Adam is described, in the same language, as having begotten Seth "in his own likeness and after his image" (Genesis v. 3).