And here we find the key to open and solve the mystery of Jehovah's preferring Abel's offering to Cain's. While the latter consisted in mere inanimate substances, the former embraced the firstlings of the flock--a higher and more valuable species of property, and quite sufficient to induce the selfish Jehovah to prefer Abel's offering to Cain's, or rather for the selfish Jews to cherish this conception. In all nations where offerings were made, the conclusion became established in the minds of the people that the amount of God's favor procured in this way must be proportionate to the value of the commodity or victim offered up--a conviction which ultimately led to the seizure of human beings for the atoning offerings, which brings us to the third stage of growth in the atonement doctrine. Children frequently constituted the victims in this case. The sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter, as related in Judges xi. 30, and other cases cited by bible writers, (Isaiah xxxii. 25), and modern Christian authors, prove that this practice was in vogue among "God's holy people." One step more (constituting the _fourth_ stage of development) brings us to the sacrifice of Gods. The climax is now reached; the conception can go no higher. The ancient Birmese taught that while common property in burnt-offerings would procure the temporary favor of the ruling God, the sacrifice of human beings would secure his good pleasure for a thousand years, and cancel out all the sins committed in that period. And when one of the three Gods on the throne of heaven was dragged down, or _voluntarily came down_ (as some of the sects taught), and was put to death on the cross as an atonement for sin, such was the value of the victim, such the magnitude of the offering, that it "atoned for _all_ sin, past, present and future, for all the human race." The Hindoos, cherishing this conception, taught that the crucifixion of their sin-atoning Savior Chrishna (1200 B. C.) put an end to both animal and human sacrifices, and accordingly such offerings ceased in most Hindoo countries centuries ago. Thus far back in the mire and midnight of human ignorance, and amid the clouds of mental darkness, while man dwelt upon the animal plane, and was governed by his brutal feelings, and "blood for blood" was the requisition for human offenses, originated the bloody, savage and revolting doctrine of the atonement.