In the most ancient times it would appear that even human sacrifices were offered, but this custom was obsolete except on rare occasions, and lambs, oxen, sometimes swine’s flesh, formed the usual elements of the sacrifice. The gods seized as it arose from the altar the unctuous smoke, and fed on it with delight. When they had finished their repast, the supplication of a favour was adroitly added, to which they gave a favourable hearing. Services were frequent in the temples: there was one in the morning and another in the evening on ordinary days, in addition to those which private individuals might require at any hour of the day. The festivals assigned to the local god and his colleagues, together with the acts of praise in which the whole nation joined, such as that of the New Year, required an abundance of extravagant sacrifices, in which the blood of the victims flowed like water. Days of sorrow and mourning alternated with these days of joy, during which the people and the magnates gave themselves up to severe fasting and acts of penitence. The Chaldeans had a lively sense of human frailty, and of the risks entailed upon the sinner by disobedience to the gods. The dread of sinning haunted them during their whole life; they continually subjected the motives of their actions to a strict scrutiny, and once self-examination had revealed to them the shadow of an evil intent, they were accustomed to implore pardon for it in a humble manner. “Lord, my sins are many, great are my misdeeds!--O my god, my sins are many, great my misdeeds!--O my goddess, my sins are many, great my misdeeds!--I have committed faults and I knew them not; I have committed sin and I knew it not; I have fed upon misdeeds and I knew them not; I have walked in omissions and I knew them not.--The lord, in the anger of his heart, he has stricken me,--the god, in the wrath of his heart, has abandoned me,--Ishtar is enraged against me, and has treated me harshly!--I make an effort, and no one offers me a hand,--I weep, and no one comes to me,--I cry aloud, and no one hears me:--I sink under affliction, I am overwhelmed, I can no longer raise up my head,--I turn to my merciful god to call upon him, and I groan!... Lord reject not thy servant,--and if he is hurled into the roaring waters, stretch to him thy hand;--the sins I have committed, have mercy upon them,--the misdeeds I have committed, scatter them to the winds--and my numerous faults, tear them to pieces like a garment.” Sin in the eyes of the Chaldaean was not, as with us, an infirmity of the soul; it assaulted the body like an actual virus, and the fear of physical suffering or death engendered by it, inspired these complaints with a note of sincerity which cannot be mistaken.