The self-revelation made by nature to primitive man was very primitive in its kind. She not only demonstrated that the blood was the life, or that the life passed away with the letting out of the blood, but in another domain, which our author has not entered, she showed that blood was, and how it was, the future life. Blood was the primary witness to the future life which the child received from the mother. It was the token of the time when the female could become the bearer of that future life which took flesh and form in her blood. The blood-covenanting of the primitive races is still a part of the most elaborate system of making presents, which are the express witnesses of proffered troth and intended fealty. The most precious or sacred things are parted from in proof. The best is given on either side. And in the offering of blood, they were giving their very life, that in which the best attains supremacy. But these primitive rites can never be truly read except by those who are deeply grounded in the fact, and well acquainted with the evidence, that sign-language was primordial, that gestures preceded verbal speech, and acting was an earlier mode of representing than talking. Primitive men could only _do_ that which we can _say_. In Egyptian that which is _said_ is _done_. And in these primitive customs and religious rites we see the early races of men performing in pantomime the early drama of dumb or inarticulate humanity. And it seems as if this primitive language could produce an impression and reach a reality that are unapproachable by means of words. The significance of the teaching went all the deeper when it was incised in the flesh and branded into the blood. For example, what a terrific glimpse of reality is revealed by the fact that the Malagasy make their sign of a blood-covenant by an incision in the skin that covers the bosom, and this opening with its utterance of blood is called _ambavfo_, the “mouth of the heart.” Thus the covenant is made in the blood, which is the very life, uttering itself with the mouth of the heart. In Egyptian the covenant, the oath, and the life, have the same name of _Ankhu_; and the greatest oath was to swear by the life or the blood of the Pharaoh. The primitive mode was to slash the flesh and let the hot blood spout and speak for itself with the “mouth of the heart,” the utterance of the living letter and red seal of the wound, as true witness.