if there was no idea of substitution by way of expiation; something in addition to the simple idea of “a banquet”; something which was an essential preliminary to the banquet. Access to God being attained by the Emperor, the Emperor enjoys communion with God in the Temple of Heaven. It is after the outpouring of blood, and the offering of the holocaust, that--in a lull of the orchestral music, in the great annual sacrifice--“a single voice is heard, on the upper terrace of the altar, chanting the words, ‘Give the cup of blessing, and the meat of blessing.’ In response, the officer in charge of the cushion advances and kneels, spreading the cushion. Other officers present the cup of blessing and the meat of blessing [which have already been presented Godward] to the Emperor, who partakes of the wine and returns them. The Emperor then again prostrates himself, and knocks his forehead three times against the ground, and then nine times more, to represent his thankful reception of the wine and meat [in communion].”[307] The evidence is abundant, that the main idea of this primitive and supreme service in the religions of China, is the inter-communion of the Emperor with God. And there is no lack of proof that in China, as elsewhere all the world over, blood--as life--is the means of covenanting in an indissoluble inter-union; of which inter-union, inter-communion is a result and a proof. In China, as also in India,[308] when the sacrifice of human beings was abolished, it was followed by the sacrifice of the horse. And the horse-sacrifice is still practised in some parts of the Chinese Empire, on important occasions. A white horse is brought to the brink of a stream, or a lake, and there sacrificed, by decapitating it, “burying its head below low-water mark, but _reserving its carcase for food_.”[309] In a description of this sacrifice, in honor of a certain goddess, as witnessed by Archdeacon Gray,[310] it is said: “Its _blood_ was received in a large earthenware jar, and a portion carried to the temple of the aforesaid goddess; when all the villagers rushed tumultuously to secure a sprinkling of blood on the charms which they had already purchased. The rest of the blood was mingled with sand,” and taken with various accessories, in a boat. “This boat headed a long procession of richly carved and gilded boats, in which were priests, both Buddhist and Taouists, and village warriors discharging matchlocks to terrify the water-devils; while the men in the first boat sprinkle the waters, as they advance, with blood-stained sand.”