So closed the first day of Helon’s sacerdotal life; his heart was agitated, as it had been at his first entrance into the land of his fathers; but the sanctity of the place forbade every violent expression of his emotions. He had become more serious, it might almost be said more manly; and his joy and gratitude, instead of dissipating themselves in words, seemed to reserve their energy for action and the fulfilment of duty. A new life seemed to have begun in the temple of Jehovah.
As on the following day he attended the usual morning-sacrifice, although only as a spectator, he observed a woman who was undergoing the ceremony of purification after childbirth. She had bathed herself at home, first on the seventh and afterwards on the fortieth day, and she now brought to the temple a burnt-offering and a sin-offering—a lamb of the first year for the former, a turtle-dove for the latter.[74] The priest sprinkled her with the blood of the sin-offering, and she was purified, and praised the Lord, who had done great things for her, had preserved her own life, and had given a son into her arms. Helon beheld the ceremony with profound attention. The old man approached him, and after the rites of the morning-sacrifice were ended, turning to Helon, said to him, “Son of Adam, remember that for thee, too, a mother once offered a sin-offering and a burnt-offering.”
“I know it,” replied Helon, “but I have been in vain endeavouring to discover what is the import of this purification of the mother.” “Compare it,” said the old man, “with what thou thyself didst, to obtain purification at the festival of the new moon, after having touched a grave. Since man defiles, at his death, those who lament his departure with the tears of affection, and by his birth those who embrace him with joy, can he himself be pure by nature?”
Helon started. After a pause the old man continued: “Does not David say, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me! And did not God say to the first man, In the day that thou eatest of the tree, thou shalt die the death? Is any thing more necessary, in order to prove that the birth of man is in sin, and that his death is the wages of sin? Forty days, after the birth of a male, eighty, after that of a female, (the sex which first sinned,) is the mother unclean. For a burnt-offering she brings a lamb, for a sin-offering a turtle-dove, and reconciled by the blood of these innocent animals, she is permitted to appear before Jehovah. See what are the consequences of our birth!