It is written in the Mosaic law, that, when a bondman would bind himself and his family in permanent servitude to his loved master, “his master shall bring him unto God [or to the place of judgment and of covenant], and shall bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall [thenceforward] serve him forever;”[178] or, as it is elsewhere said, the master shall thrust the awl “through his ear, unto [or into] the door.”[179] Here, apparently, the master and servant appeal together at the household altar, in witness of their sacred covenant. The high court of Turkey is still called the “Sublime Porte,” the “Exalted Gateway;” and the subjects of the Sultan seek imperial favor at his palace door. He, or his representative, administers justice there, to those who are waiting at his gate. A promise to Abraham was: “Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.”[180] And again Jesus says of his Church, that “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”[181] In both these cases “gates” are obviously equivalent to the power of those who are within the gates. Thus, also, when the overthrow of a city is foretold in prophecy, it is said, that “the gate is smitten with destruction.”[182] 7. COVENANT TOKENS ON THE DOORWAY. Because the threshold of the doorway is the primitive altar of the household, the doorway itself is, as it were, a framework above the altar; and the side-posts and lintel of the doorway fittingly bear tokens or inscriptions in testimony to the sacredness of the passage into the home sanctuary. It would seem that originally the blood poured out in sacrifice on the threshold was made use of for marking the door-posts and lintel with proofs of the covenant entered into between the in-comer and the host; and that afterwards other symbols of life, and appropriate inscriptions, were substituted for the blood itself. There are survivals in the East, at the present time, of the original method of blood-marking the frame of the doorway; and there are traces of its practice in ancient times in both the East and the West. President Washburn, of Robert College, Constantinople, says:[183] “I remember, after the great fire in Stamboul, in 1865, going over the ruins, and coming to a house that the fire had spared; a sheep had been sacrificed on the threshold, and a hand dipped in the blood and struck upon the two door-posts.”