Coeval with the Race THAT the offering of material things as sacrifices to Deity dates from Adamic days is attested in Genesis 4:3-5, wherein we read that both Cain and Abel made offerings unto the Lord. The Biblical record shows that the practise continued to and beyond the Deluge, and throughout the patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations among the Semitic peoples, who were distinguished as Jehovah worshipers. Non-scriptural history is no less definite in making the sacrifice of animals an essential feature of pagan ceremonial, even in the earliest times of which we have account. That Noah, Abraham, Jacob and other patriarchs and prophets builded altars and sacrificed thereon is admitted by all to whom the Holy Bible is authentic; and the Mosaic code regulated the ordinance of sacrifice while silent as to its origin or even its establishment in Israel. That pagan sacrifices were originally in imitation of the Semitic practise is highly probable, though both may have been derived from a common and, as generally regarded, a prehistoric pattern. This conception is no whit weakened by the corruptions and abominations incident to heathen idolatry, which reached the extreme of atrocity in the immolation of human victims on the altars of defilement and sacrilege; for, without the directing and restraining power of Divine revelation, unauthorized innovations and unholy extremes were inevitable. Israelitish sacrifices may be conveniently classified as bloody and bloodless, the former comprising all offerings involving the ceremonial slaughter of animals, and the latter consisting in the offering of vegetables or their manufactured products. The bloody sacrifices were early associated with the idea of expiation, or propitiation for sin, the offerer, whether an individual or the community as a whole, acknowledging guilt and craving propitiation through the death of the animal made to serve as proxy for the human offender. The animal victim intended for sacrificial death had to be chosen in accordance with specific requirements. Thus, it was to be of the class designated as clean, and within this class only domestic cattle and sheep and certain birds--pigeons and turtle-doves--were acceptable. Furthermore, it was essential that the selected animal be without physical defect or blemish; and thus all that were deformed, maimed or diseased were absolutely excluded. Physical defects were held as typical of spiritual blemish, or sin; and "God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance."