Chapter XXIII. The Sacrifice Of The Mass. Sacrifice is the oblation or offering made to God of some sensible object, with the destruction or change of the object, to denote that God is the Author of life and death. Thus, in the Old Law, before the coming of Christ, when the Hebrew people wished to offer sacrifice to God they took a lamb or some other animal, which they slew and burned its flesh, acknowledging by this act that the Lord was the supreme Master of life and death. The ancients offered to God two kinds of sacrifices, viz., living creatures, such as bulls, lambs and birds; and inanimate objects, such as wheat and barley, and, in general, the first fruits of the earth. All nations — whether Jews, idolaters or Christians, except Mahometans and modern Protestants — have made sacrifice their principal act of worship. If you go back to the very dawn of creation, you will find the children of Adam offering sacrifices to God. Abel offered to the Lord the firstlings of his flock, and Cain offered of the fruits of the earth.388 When Noe and his family are rescued from the deluge which had spread over the face of the earth his first act on issuing from [308] the ark, when the waters disappear, is to offer holocausts to the Lord, in thanksgiving for his preservation.389 Abraham, the great father of the Jewish race, offered victims to the Almighty at His express command.390 We read that Job was accustomed to offer 388 Gen. iv. 389 Gen. viii. 390 Ibid. xv.