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 hewn stone; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." And, certainly, the earliest practice of that nation was with deference to the precept (Joshua viii. 30—32): "Then Joshua built an altar unto the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses: an altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron." The law of the twelve tables at Rome had an injunction remarkably similar—Rogam asciâ ne polito; where the injunction, though only mentioning the funeral-pile, included all the component parts, of which the altars to the Lares and funereal gods were the principal; and as these customs or laws were a bequest from the primeval Etruscans, it may be questioned whether the precept was older in Palestine or in Italy.

That the original intention of placing stones was by designing them as objects to consecrate the place and make it holy, the earliest mention of them may prove. In Genesis xxviii., after Jacob had seen the glorious vision of the ladder, he exclaims, on awaking (v. 16, seq.), "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not; and he was afraid, and said: How dreadful is this place: this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for an altar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God; and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house."

The transition was easy and natural from consecration