ying that prayer states the motive with which the
sacrifice is made, and that sacrifice is essential to the prayer, which
would not be efficacious without the sacrifice. The reason why a
community can address the god which it worships is that the god is felt
to be identified in some way with the community and to have its
interests in his charge and care. And the rite of sacrifice is felt to
make the identification more real. Prayer, again, is possible only to
the god to whom the community is known; with whom it is identified,
more or less; and with whom, when his help is required, the {178}
community seeks to identify itself more effectually. The means of that
identification without which the prayers of the community would be
ineffectual is sacrifice. The earliest form of sacrifice may probably
be taken to be the sacrifice of an animal, followed by a sacrificial
meal. Later, when the god has a stated place in which he is believed
to manifest himself,--tree or temple,--then the identification may be
effected by attaching offerings to the tree or temple. But in either
case what is sought by the offering dedicated or the meal of sacrifice
is in a word "incorporation." The worshippers desire to feel that they
are at one with the spirit whom they worship. And the desire to
experience this sense of union is particularly strong when plague or
famine makes it evident that some estrangement has taken place between
the god and the community which is normally in his care and under his
protection. The sacrifices and prayers that are offered in such a case
obviously do not open up communication for the first time between the
god and his tribe: they revive and reenforce a communion which is felt
to exist already, even though temporal misfortunes, such as drought or
famine, testify that it has been allowed by the tribe to become less
close than it ought to be, or that {179} it has been strained by
transgressions on the part of individual members of the community. But
it is not only in times of public distress that the community
approaches its god with sacrifice and prayer. It so happens that the
prayers offered for victory in war or for rain or for deliverance from
famine are instances of prayer of so marked a character that they have
forced themselves on the notice of travellers in all parts of the
world, from the Eskimo to the Australian black fellows or the negroes
of Africa. And it was to this class of prayers that I ca