Excerpt from False Worship: An Essay But, in the history of the antediluvian pe riod, we are not directly told so much as that sacrifices had been required of man; and we do not learn with what rites they were per formed. We may assume that where there was an offering there was an altar; but even then, it seems as if we might almost adopt the words of the Roman historian, aram tantum et reve rentiam - unless indeed he meant to exclude the idea Of a material and substantial sacrifice. It looks as if we m1ght say, not merely as he says of Mount Carmel, that there was no image, no temple, no building consecrated by holy rites, or dedicated to sacred purposes; but that there was nothing like what we now call religious service consisting Of confession, prayer and thanksgiving. But While we say this with regard to ritual worship, I think there can be no doubt that we should be authorized to add for our world, so far as it was then peopled, what a believer in the Bible would have added to the description of the sacred mountain by Tacitus - that it was sanctified. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.