Fire sacrifices which were interpreted as offerings of fragrant smoke were prevalent among the settled Semites (p. 218). Sacrificial fat was burned on the altar. Smith remarks: “This could be done without any fundamental modification of the old type of sacred stone or altar pillar, simply by making a hollow on the top to receive the grease, and there is some reason to think that fire-altars of this simple kind, which in certain Phœnician types are developed into altar candlesticks, are older than the broad platform altar proper for receiving a burnt offering” (p. 364). * * * * * With regard to the worship of the sun and stars by the Semites, we read that the Semite addressed his God as Baal or Bal. The simple form of Baal was the sun.[97] By the Semites the stars were, on account of their movements, held to be alive; they were therefore gods, and it was in consequence of this widespread belief that the stars were worshipped (p. 127). The worshippers “burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, to the moon and to the planets, and to all the hosts of heaven” (II. Kings, xxiii., 5). Job congratulated himself that “his heart had not been enticed, nor his mouth kissed his hand, if he beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in her brightness” (Job, xxxi., 26-27). The worship of the morning star as a god is the old Semitic conception (Isa., xiv., 12), “Lucifer son of the Dawn.” We gather from the later practices of the Saracens that the sacrifices to the morning star could not be made after the star had disappeared in the dawn.[98] The God had to be in the presence of the worshippers. * * * * * The Semitic worship was generally carried on in “high places”; in the Babylonian temples built in a river valley the “high places” were secured by building towers with the sanctuary on the top. These high places were necessary because exact observations of the risings of the heavenly bodies formed part of the ceremonial, and a clear horizon was absolutely imperative. That this was generally understood and acted on is well evidenced by the fact that in the Old Testament the mention of high places is nearly always associated with the references to the religion of the Canaanites and other Semitic nations as if the high places were among the most important points in it. * * * * *