All that we have stated concerning the blood-covenant brings us nearer and nearer to the disgusting and beastly habit of cannibalism. Dr. Trumbull says: “It would even seem to be indicated, by all the trend of historic facts, that cannibalism—gross, repulsive, inhuman cannibalism—had its basis in man’s perversion of this outreaching of his nature (whether that outreach-ing were first directed by revelation or by divinely-given innate promptings) after inter-union and intercommunion with God, after life in God’s life, and after growth through the partaking of God’s food or of that food which represents God. The studies of many observers in widely-different fields have led both the rationalistic and the faith-filled student to conclude that in _their_ sphere of observation it was a religious sentiment, and not a mere animal craving—either through a scarcity of food or from a spirit of malignity—that was at the bottom of cannibalistic practices there, even if that field were an exception to the world’s fields generally. And now we have a glimpse of the nature and workings of that religious sentiment which prompted cannibalism wherever it has been practised. In misdirected pursuance of this thought men have given the blood of a consecrated human victim to bring themselves into union with God; and then they have eaten the flesh of that victim which had supplied the blood which made them one with God. This seems to be the basis of fact in the premises, whatever may be the understood philosophy of the facts. Why men reasoned thus may indeed be in question. That they reasoned thus seems evident. Certain it is, that where cannibalism has been studied in modern times it has commonly been found to have had originally a religious basis; and the inference is a fair one that it must have been the same wherever cannibalism existed in earlier times. Even in some regions where cannibalism has long since been prohibited there are traditions and traces of its former existence as a purely religious rite. Thus, in India little images of flour paste or clay are now made for decapitation or other mutilation in the temples, in avowed imitation of human beings who were once offered and eaten there.” Réville, treating of the native religions of Mexico and Peru, comes to a similar conclusion with Dorman, and he argues that the state of things which was there was the same the world over, so for as it related to cannibalism. “Cannibalism,” he says, “which is now restricted to a few of the savage tribes who have remained closest to the animal life, was once universal to our race. For no one would ever have conceived the idea of offering to the gods a kind of food which excited nothing but disgust and horror.” In this suggestion Réville indicates his conviction that the primal idea of an altar was a table of blood-bought communion.