Even the Speaker’s Commentary says, of this mutual blood-sharing by Israel and Jehovah at Sinai: “The blood thus divided between the two parties to the covenant signified the sacramental union between the Lord and his people.”[670] Of the blood which was to be poured out on Calvary, Jesus said: “This is my blood of the [new] covenant, which is shed for many.”[671] And of the sacramental union which could be secured, between his trustful disciples and himself, by tasting his blood, and by being nourished on his flesh, he said: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life.”[672] It really looks as if there were more than a superficial relation between the fact of an absolute inter-union of two natures through an inter-flow of a common life, in the rite of blood-covenanting, and the sacramental union between the Lord and his people, which was typified in the blood-covenant at Sinai, and which was consummated in the blood-covenant at Calvary. Herbert Spencer, indeed, seems to have a clearer conception than the Speaker’s Commentary, of the relation of human blood-covenanting, to the inter-union of those in the flesh, with spiritual beings. He perceives that the primitive offerings of blood over the dead, from the living person, are, in some cases, “explicable as arising from the practice of establishing a sacred bond between living persons by partaking of each other’s blood: the derived conception being, that those who give some of their blood to the ghost of a man just dead and lingering near [and of course, the principle is the same when the offering of blood is to the gods, thereby] effect with it a union, which on the one side implies submission, and on the other side friendliness.”[673] This admission by Mr. Spencer covers the essential point in the argument of this entire volume. LIFE IN THE BLOOD, IN THE HEART, IN THE LIVER. Among all primitive peoples, the blood has been deemed the representative of life. The giving of blood has been counted the giving of life. The receiving of blood has been counted the receiving of life. The sharing of blood has been counted the sharing of life. Hence, the blood has always been counted the chief thing in any sacrificial victim proffered to the gods; and whatever was sought through sacrifice, was to be obtained by means of the blood of the offering. Even though no specific reference to the blood be found in the preserved descriptions of one of the earlier sacrifices,--as, for example, the Akkadian sacrifice of the first-born (page 166, _supra_), the very fact that the offering made was of a _life_, and that _blood_ was recognized as life, is in itself the proof that it was the blood which gave the offering its value.