Is there, however, any evidence of a linga or other stone pillar being ever thus enshrined and entempled as the great god of a sanctuary? Clearly, Major Conder has already supplied some, and more is forthcoming from various other sources. The cone which represented Aphrodite in Cyprus was similarly enshrined as the chief object of a temple, as were the stelæ of all Egyptian mummies. “The trilithon,” says Major Conder, “becomes later a shrine, in which the cone or a statue stands.” The significance {199}of this correlation will at once be seen if the reader remembers how, in the chapter on Sacred Stones, I showed the origin of the idol from the primitive menhir or upright pillar. “The Khonds and other non-Aryan tribes in India,” says Conder once more, “build such temples of rude stones, daubed with red,--a survival of the old practice of anointing the menhirs and the sacred cone or pillar with blood of victims, sometimes apparently human. Among the Indians, the pillar is a lingam, and such apparently was its meaning among the Phoenicians.” And in the Greek cities we know from Pausanias that an unhewn stone was similarly enshrined in the most magnificent adytum of the noblest Hellenic temples. In fact, it was rather the rule than otherwise that a stone was the chief object of worship in the noblest fanes. One more curious trait must be noted in the worship of Jahweh. Not only did he rejoice in human sacrifices, but he also demanded especially an offering of the firstborn, and he required a singular and significant ransom from every man-child whom he permitted to live among his peculiar votaries. On the fact of human sacrifices I need hardly insist: they were an integral part of all Semitic worship, and their occurrence in the cult of Jahweh has been universally allowed by all unprejudiced scholars. The cases of Agag, whom Samuel hewed to pieces before the face of Jahweh, and of Jephthah’s daughter, whom her father offered up as a thank-offering for his victory, though not of course strictly historical from a critical point of view, are quite sufficient evidence to show the temper and the habit of the Jahweh-worshippers who described them. So with the legend of the offering of Isaac, who is merely rescued at the last moment in order that the god of generation may make him the father of many thousands. Again, David seeks to pacify the anger of Jahweh by a sacrifice of seven of the sons of Saul. And the prophet Micah asks, “Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”--a passage {200}which undoubtedly implies that in Micah’s time such a sacrifice of the eldest child was a common incident of current Jahweh-worship.