An illustration of the popular idea of the sacredness of the church threshold, and of the impropriety of stepping on it, in its passing, is found in a Finnish mode of judging a clergyman. “In Finland, it is regarded as unlucky if a clergyman steps on the threshold, when he comes to preach at a church.” A writer on this subject says: “A Finnish friend told me of one of his relations going to preach at a church, a few years ago,–he being a candidate for the vacant living,–and the people most anxiously watched if he stepped on the threshold as he came in. Had he done so, I fear a sermon never so eloquent would have counted but little against so dire an omen.”[417] Here is a new peril for pulpit candidates, if this primitive test becomes widely popular! Even to the present time, it is customary, in portions of Europe, for Jews to rub their fingers on the posts of a synagogue doorway, and then kiss their fingers. Quite an indentation in the stone at the door of the synagogue in Worms is to be seen, as due to this constant sacred rubbing.[418] 6. TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN AMERICA. In the West, as in the East, traces of the primitive sacredness of the threshold and the doorway are to be found. The stepped pyramid, or uplifted threshold, with the sanctuary at its summit, was the earliest form of temple or place of worship in Mexico, and in Central and South America. In the later and more elaborate temples there was no altar within the building, although an image of the god was there. The altar, or stone of sacrifice, was without, before the door of the sanctuary.[419] When a sacrifice was offered on the altar, the blood of that sacrifice was smeared on the doors of the temple of the god.[420] Human sacrifices were included in these offerings, in earlier times.[421] Even when larger temples were erected, and altars were enclosed within them, human victims were brought to the temple entrance into the hands of the priests; and from the threshold they were borne by the priests themselves, to be laid on the altar.[422] Among the Pipiles, a Maya people, in Central America, there were “two principal and very solemn sacrifices; one at the commencement of summer, and the other at the beginning of winter.” Little boys, from six to twelve years old, were the victims of sacrifice. At the sound of trumpets and drums, which assembled the people, four priests came out of the temple with braziers of coals on which incense was burning, and after various ceremonies and religious exercises they proceeded to the house of the high-priest, near the temple, and took from it the boy victim of the sacrifice. He was then conducted four times round the court of the temple, with dancing and singing.