In spite of much obvious groping in the dark in this and other passages of the _Religion of the Semites_, it is clear that the learned professor recognised at least one central fact--“the sacred stone at Semitic sanctuaries was from the first an object of worship, a sort of rude idol in which the divinity was somehow supposed to be present.” Again, he notes that “Jacob’s pillar is more than a mere landmark, for it is anointed, just as idols were in antiquity, and the pillar itself, not the spot on which it stood, is called ‘the house of God,’ as if the deity were conceived actually to dwell in the stone, or manifest himself therein to his worshippers. And this is the conception which appears to have been associated with sacred stones everywhere. When the Arab daubed blood on the _nosh_, his object was to bring the offering into direct contact with the deity; and in like manner the practice of stroking the sacred stone with the hand is identical with the practice of touching or stroking the garments or beard of a man in acts of supplication before him.” Elsewhere he says: “So far as evidence from tradition and ritual goes, we can only think of the sacred stone as consecrated by the actual presence of the godhead, so that whatever touched it was brought into immediate contact with the deity.” And he quotes a line from an Arab poet in which the Arabian gods are expressly described as “gods of stone.” It is thus clear that sacred stones were common objects of worship with the Semites in general, and also with the Hebrew people in particular. But after the exclusive worship of Jahweh, the local Jewish god, had grown obligatory among the Jews, it became the policy of the “Jehovist” priests to Jehovise and to consecrate the sacred stones of Palestine by bringing them into connexion {120}with the Jehovistic legend and the tales of the Patriarchs. Thus Professor Cheyne comments as follows upon the passage in Isaiah where the prophet mocks the partizan of the old polytheistic creed as a stone-worshipper--“Among the smooth stones of the valley is thy portion: They, they are thy lot: Even to them hast thou poured a drink offering: Thou hast offered a meat offering: “The large smooth stones referred to above were the fetishes of the primitive Semitic races, and anointed with oil, according to a widely spread custom. It was such a stone which Jacob took for a pillow, and afterwards consecrated by pouring oil upon it. The early Semites and reactionary idolatrous Israelites called such stones Bethels.... i.e., houses of _El_ (the early Semitic word for God) *.... In spite of the efforts of the ‘Jehovist’ who desired to convert these ancient fetishes into memorials of patriarchal history, the old heathenish use of them seems to have continued especially in secluded places.” * Say rather, “for a god.”