It was exactly what you daily read in morning papers, viz.:--that,
in order to appear effectually before that Olympus in London, which
rains rarities upon us poor abject creatures in the provinces,
you must enclose 'an order on the Post-Office or a reference.' It
is true that a man did not always register his _votum_, (the
particular offering which he vowed on the condition of receiving
what he asked,) at the moment of asking. Ajax, for instance, prays
for light in the 'Iliad,' and he does not then and there give either
an order or a reference. But you are much mistaken, if you fancy
that even light was to be had _gratis_. It would be 'carried
to account.' Ajax would be 'debited' with that 'advance.'

Yet, when it occurs to a man that, in this _Do ut des_, the
general _Do_ was either a temple or a sacrifice, naturally it
occurs to ask what _was_ a sacrifice? I am afraid that the dark
murderous nature of the pagan gods is here made apparent. Modern
readers, who have had no particular reason for reflecting on the
nature and management of a sacrifice, totally misconceive it. They
have a vague notion that the slaughtered animal was roasted, served
up on the altars as a banquet to the gods; that these gods by some
representative ceremony 'made believe' to eat it; and that finally,
(as dishes that had now become hallowed to divine use,) the several
joints were disposed of in some mysterious manner: burned, suppose,
or buried under the altars, or committed to the secret keeping
of rivers. Nothing of the sort: when a man made a sacrifice, the
meaning was, that he gave a dinner. And not only was every sacrifice
a dinner party, but every dinner party was a sacrifice. This was
strictly so in the good old ferocious times of paganism, as may be
seen in the Iliad: it was not said, 'Agamemnon has a dinner party
to-day,' but 'Agamemnon sacrifices to Apollo.' Even in Rome, to