Altar of burnt offering

“ The altar of burnt-offering had the privilege of being a sanctuary or place of refuge. The wilful murderer, indeed, sought protection there in vain; for by the express command of God he might be dragged to justice, even from the altar. The altar or table of shew bread was of shittim wood also, covered with plates of gold, and had a border round it adorned with sculpture. It was two cubits long, one wide, and one and a half in height. This table stood in 46the sanctum sanctorum, [holy of holies,] and upon it were placed the loaves of shew bread. ”

“ From ancient times the burnt offering was the most solemn kind of sacrifice. Only male animals, and, as a rule, bulls and rams, could be offered as burnt offerings. When they had been slain and skinned these offerings were entirely burnt in the fire on the altar, without any part being enjoyed by the sacrificer or the priest, as was the case in other kinds of offerings; only the skin fell to the share of the priests. As the burnt offering [Pg 213] was intended to gain the favour of Jehovah, so were the sin offerings intended to appease his anger and blot out transgressions. ”

“ From. "And thou shalt receive them of their hands, and burn them upon the altar for a burnt offering, for a sweet savour before the Lord: it is an offering made by fire unto the Lord." Exodus xxix. 25. ↑ Material. Full of matter. ”

“ Ought he not to shudder at, and flee from, the altar of the devil, which he had seen to smoke and to be redolent of a foul stench, as it were, a funeral and sepulchre of his life? Why bring with you, O wretched man, a sacrifice? Why immolate a victim? You yourself have come to the altar an offering, yourself a victim; there you have immolated your salvation, your hope; there you have burned up your faith in those deadly fires. ”

“ It is kept burning perpetually, the symbol of undying worship, undying Love. Everyone may keep such a light as that burning always. The spark is ours for the kindling. It may be placed before the Altar of an Unknown God. ”

“ Mock'd by the idle winds that waft; and all
Life's blooms, its last, in vain!
If vain for others, not in vain for me,—
Who builds an altar let him worship there;
What needs the crowd? though lone the shrine may be,
Not hallow'd less the prayer.
Eno' if haply in the after days,
When by the altar sleeps the funeral stone,
When gone the mists our human passions raise,
And Truth is seen alone:
When causeless Hate can wound its prey no more,
And fawns its late repentance o'er the dead,
If gentle footsteps from some kindlier shore
Pause by the narrow bed. ”

“ With the deepest, most solemn reverence, let us now draw nigh in spirit to this altar, on which was offered the one "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world." Let all worldly thoughts be put off; it is on holy ground that we tread, as the cross—stained with that most precious blood which alone cleanseth from all sin—draws our contemplation to Him who upon it agonized and died for mankind. ”

“ The lofty windows on one side, were hidden by curtains of dark purple. At one end of the spacious hall, was a broad hearth, blazing with a cheerful wood-fire; at the other, on a dark platform, arose a marble image of "the master," as large as life, and thrown distinctly into view by the dark background.
There are two altars covered with black velvet, fringed with gold; one on each side of the table. The altar on the right supports the coffin; the one on the left, the iron chest; and around coffin and iron chest, as for a funeral, tall wax candles are dimly burning. ”

“ It is well for us to understand that we ourselves are the cube altar upon which and in which burns the altar fire. For many centuries the Initiate of fire has been nourishing and guarding the Spiritual Flame within himself, as the ancient priests watched day and night the altar fires of Vesta’s temple.
The ever burning lamp of the alchemist, which having burned thousands of years without fuel in the catacombs of Rome, is but a symbol of this same spiritual fire within himself. ”

“ It is the beautiful emblem of faith, springing from and surviving the ruins of its earthly temple. Passing through the gateway, over columns of porphyry and massive fragments of sculptured marble, we came to a broad pedestal near the upper end, which must have been the site of the grand altar. How it moves the heart to its inmost depths to reflect, that before that high altar have stood the Beloved Disciple and the Apostle of the Gentiles! In fancy, one hears the tremulous tones of the first, as he repeats over and over his favourite exclamation, “My children, love one another.” ”

“ We offer on the earthly Altar the same Sacrifice that is being perpetually offered on the Heavenly Altar. There is only one Altar, only one Sacrifice, one Eucharist—"one offering, single and complete". All the combined earthly Altars are but one Altar—the earthly or visible part of the Heavenly Altar on which He, both Priest and Victim, offers Himself as the Lamb "as it had been slain". The Heavenly Altar is, as it were, the centre, and all the earthly Altars the circumference. We gaze at the Heavenly Altar through the Earthly Altars. ”

“ Easily imagined is the hallowed aspect of the lofty fane when the last rays of the sun shot redly within, suffused the altar in a crimson haze, and glowed upon the burnished ornaments and the carvings of veined marble and whitest stone ”

“ Nay, more, I believe that the very offering of one has its effect upon all, and that there is this vicarious suffering and this vicarious holiness, and that God Almighty looks down into the dark places of the world, and He regards those places a little less dark and a little less dreadful when He sees the light of one poor flame burning upon one solitary altar. ”

“ It is the solemn Mass of requiem, and almost noon, though the sombre day, subdued yet more by stained-glass windows, seems like a winter twilight. The church is all in deep shadow, except the sanctuary with its softly-burning lamp, and its altar decked with starry wax-lights. Black draperies hang about the altar, black robes are upon the officiating priests. The slow, mournful chant of the Dies Iræ, sung by a choir invisible in the darkness, resounds through the dim, lofty aisles. ”

“ Far, far away, in a land which no mortal and no fairy ever saw, is an altar upon which the holy fire is constantly burning. Now, although no mortal and no fairy may enter there, yet there may, and there do, come messengers from thence, bearing sparks of this holy fire. ”

“ The sound now rang out, the type blazed at him with all its fires and with a mystery of radiance in which endless meanings could glow. The thing became as he sat there his appropriate altar and each starry candle an appropriate vow. He numbered them, named them, grouped them—it was the silent roll-call of his Dead. They made together a brightness vast and intense, a brightness in which the mere chapel of his thoughts grew so dim that as it faded away he asked himself if he shouldn’t find his real comfort in some material act, some outward worship. ”

“ It is built and shaped to be used exclusively as a shrine, and when the one god has been broken or stolen from the altar, the woman will dig up all the other fractured and defaced gods and ikons of her youth and weep over them, recalling in what gracious fashion this one took to incense and marigolds, and how beautiful that one was before the testing fires scorched him. ”

“ It may be, however, that after the decease of the priest who performed his sacred functions before the altar for many years, the people, to whom he had so long ministered, laid, or burned his remains on the altar which they so much revered, and then, like the ancient builders of the pyramids, erected a monument to departed worth, and during the strange ritual deposited beside the respected remains whatever implements or ornaments they could part with, in honor of the dead. ”

“ The fire that the gods had allowed him to snatch, because he was humble and pure and clean and brave, had been stamped out beneath the feet of minor and dilettante poets, and now the gods guarded close the brands that yet remained on the altars.
They may not be violated twice, those sacred fires. Once in a lifetime the very young and the pure in heart may see the shine of them and pluck a brand from the altar's edge. ”

“ Let us not dash the image from the altar, nor quench the fire at the shrine, before we have another idol and another shrine to give to the old worshippers, who must worship still. Such reckless iconoclasm is too dangerous. ”

“ Then, while we still beat our hands and thighs, one of them took up the third, laid her across the altar and made her ready with a stone knife. The fire's light gleamed off the chipped edge of obsidian. As her blood drained down the groove cut as a gutter into the rock of the altar, we stopped our chant and the fires were snuffed out.
But still we could see what was going on, for these things were, of course, not happening at all—only seeming to happen, really, just as all the people and things there only seemed to be what they were. Only I was real. That must be why they desired me so. ”

“ It paid to do the saint honor, and that could best be done through the painter’s art. The poorest man might have a small portrait of his patron, a rich man might endow a chapel and cause all his patron’s miracles to be pictured on the wall. Think also that every altar—a dozen or more in every large church—was a shrine [1] , containing the bread and wine that by the never-ceasing miracle of the Mass became the Saviour’s body and blood; and was also a reliquary or tomb, containing in whole or part the body of some saint. ”

“ The roof is lofty, and is made of teak. The room is of the usual oblong shape, but at the further end a magnificent altar-like shrine stretches from side to side. The sides of this valuable altar are covered with gold-leaf and gilded glass, which lose a little of their dazzling brilliancy, though they gain in depth of colour, in the subdued light of the interior. Small prachadees in clusters stand at the same end of the temple, all heavily gilt. ”

“ Man's heart has found a home and resting-place in this vale of tears. To us the altar is the vestibule of heaven, and the Host its open door.
Yes, and to us the words of the prophet, when he calls the reign of Antichrist "the abomination of desolation," because the Daily Sacrifice shall then be taken away, has a peculiar fitness. It is our delight now to think that, as the sun in its course brings daylight to each successive spot on earth, it ever finds some priest girding himself to go up to the Holy Altar ”

“ Never in God's holiest temple has the altar been sanctified by a prayer, more full of majestic eloquence, than that which rose from the hearth of the miserable cellar that night. The old man truly wrestled with the angels, and called for help against his own rebellious nature, till his forehead was beaded with drops of anguish, and every word seemed to burn and quiver like fire upon his meagre lips. ”

“ Gilded and painted fragments of helpless idols strewed the floor, the great stone altar, carved in writhing dragons, had been broken into many pieces, and incense vases of priceless porcelain, candlesticks of richest cloisonné, tables of carved ebony, stands of polished jade, and rosaries torn from the hands of frightened priests, had been ruthlessly destroyed, and now lay in great [Pg 8] heaps of rubbish. The guardians of the temple had fled before the wrath of the rebel reformers, and the dead gods were left alone in their temple. ”

“ In the first the prescriptions are (Exod. xx. 24) : "An altar of earth shalt thou make to Me, and thou shalt sacrifice upon it thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thy oxen. In every place where I cause My name to be remembered I will come unto and bless thee." In the Levitical law "the altar" is to be of Shittim or acacia wood overlaid with copper, and the place for it is to be in the court of the Tabernacle. There all sacrifices are to be offered, and thither every slaughtered animal is to be brought (Lev. xvii. 1 ff.) ”

“ This crypt is in the centre to be sure, and yet is in front of steps which lead to the beautiful altar. The steps are of white marble, and the high, superb altar is of both black and white marble, with a canopy of gold, beneath which is a figure of Christ on the cross. The cost of this entire monument was nearly two million dollars, and is all so rich and effective that I hope my description of it will enable you to see it, a little, as with my eyes. The life of conquest and glory, defeat and suffering, which this man knew is without a parallel. His spirit left the body in obscurity and exile ”

“ This is why the flesh of victims was, in funeral sacrifices, wholly destroyed by fire, none of it being reserved for those present. People always retained the conviction that the offerings burnt on the altar or the libations poured into the grave were consumed by him for whom they were intended. ”

“ He had given himself to his Dead, and it was good: this time his Dead would keep him. He couldn't rise from his knees; he believed he should never rise again; all he could do was to lift his face and fix his eyes on his lights. They looked unusually, strangely splendid, but the one that always drew him most had an unprecedented lustre. It was the central voice of the choir, the glowing heart of the brightness, and on this occasion it seemed to expand, to spread great wings of flame. The whole altar flared-- dazzling and blinding ”