On this same point Dr. Edersheim says:[518] “The Talmud declares the offering of birds, so as to secure the blood [so as to secure that which was preeminently precious] to have been the most difficult part of a priest’s work. For the _death_ of the [victim of the] sacrifice was only a means towards an end; that end being the shedding and sprinkling of the _blood_, by which the atonement was really made. The Rabbis mention a variety of rules observed by the priest who caught up the blood--all designed to make the best provision for its proper sprinkling. Thus, the priest was to catch up the blood in a silver vessel pointed at the bottom, so that it could not be put down; and to keep it constantly stirred, to preserve the fluidity of the blood. In the sacrifice of the red heifer, however, the priest caught the blood directly in his left hand, and sprinkled it with his right towards the Holy Place: while in that of the leper, one of the two priests received the blood in the vessel; the other [received it] in his hand, from which he anointed the purified leper.” Recognizing the truth that in the sacrifices of the Mosaic ritual, “consecration by blood is consecration in a living union with Jehovah,” Professor W. Robertson Smith observes,[519] that, “in the ordinary atoning sacrifices, the blood is not applied to the people [it is merely poured out Godward, as if in sign of life surrender]; but in the higher forms, as in the sacrifice for the whole congregation (Lev. 4 : 13 _seq._), the priest at least dips his hand in it, and so puts the bond of blood between himself, as the people’s representative, and the altar, as the point of contact with God.”[520] And so, on the basis of the root-idea of the primitive rite of the covenant of blood, an inter-union is symbolized between the returning sinner and his God. The aim of all the Mosaic sacrifices was, a restored communion with God; and the hope which runs through them all is of a divine-human inter-union through blood. “The one purpose which is given after every sacrifice in the first chapters of Leviticus,”[521] says Stanley,[522] “is, that it ‘shall make a sweet savour unto the Lord’.” And Edersheim says,[523] of all the various sacrifices of the ritual: “These, were, then, either sacrifices of communion with God, or else [were] intended to restore that communion when it had been disturbed or dimmed through sin and trespass: sacrifices _in_ communion, or [sacrifices] _for_ communion, with God. To the former class belong the burnt and the peace-offerings; to the latter, the sin and the trespass offerings.”[524]