(2.) On every hand we note the most solemn inculcation of care, thoughtfulness, consideration, especially in their religious worship, and the most impressive warnings against a rash and inconsiderate spirit. Hence wine was forbidden to the priests when about to go to the altar (Lev. 10: 8–11). It seemed that God could have no patience with the thoughtless and irreverent. At whatever cost, the fear of the Lord must be impressed upon the people――else all effort for their religious culture would be vain. (3.) Their great thanksgiving festivals; their numerous thank-offerings; their vows; their required tithes――all concur in this one idea――the recognition of God as the Giver of all blessings, their great personal and national Benefactor. No pains was spared to impress and enforce this great truth. The long course of God’s redeeming mercies toward their nation; the rescue from Egyptian bondage; the miraculous supplies of bread and water forty years in the desert; the gift of the goodly land of Canaan;――these were the staple facts of their history which God sought to engrave upon the national heart and to work into the living thought of the thousands of Israel. By every hopeful appliance their religious system was shaped to keep alive and intensify these feelings. (4.) More important than all the rest were the great moral lessons set forth _by the perpetual presence of atoning blood_. The Israelites were never allowed to forget that they were sinners, and that their approach to God must always be through the blood of atonement. No day might begin, no day might close, without the shedding of animal blood――the sacrifice of an innocent animal’s life. The great days were great because of the multiplication of these sacrifices――evermore distinguished and memorable for the rivers of blood that flowed; for the struggles and throes of the dying; for the sprinkling of blood, _blood_, BLOOD, all round about the hallowed altar, toward the unseen Presence within the most holy place, and upon the assembled hosts of Israel.――――It may cost us a few moments’ effort to reproduce those scenes before our mind’s eye so as to take in their full significance; but this effort to comprehend that ancient ritual would bring its reward. What a demonstration it would be in proof that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission”! that God never looks propitiously on guilty sinners save through the bleeding sacrifice of his crucified Son! As bearing upon the great questions――the _fact_ and the _nature_ of the atonement――this bloody ritual has a most vital and impressive significance. No questions of deeper and more vital import can ever arise than such as these: Was the death of Christ expiatory? Was his blood shed for the sins of men? Did he lay down his life, an innocent victim, that the guilty sinners who place their hands upon his sacred head and there confess their sins may live and never die? In a word, was his death foreshadowed and its true significance