And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.
Cut themselves ... with knives and lancets - (see Grotius.) [The scenes of Carmel are transacted daily before the eyes of our missionaries. An account is given ('Missionary Herald,' p. 1005) of the rites of the Hindu goddess Matha.: 'There was a multitude of ten or twelve thousand people assembled. In a short time a man advanced into the center of the group, pretending that the goddess had entered into him; pulling off his turban and tossing his long hair over his face, he began to leap and shake, uttering a noise occasionally like the bark of a dog. As his excitement increased, he beat himself with a chain, and made incisions in his tongue with a sword. Having taken the blood, he rubbed it on the foreheads of the spectators. By and by the infection spread, and others pretended to be in like manner possessed by the goddess; so that in a short time every party had three or four of the possessed. These poor, infatuated men continued to leap and shake the whole night.' (See Graham's 'Jordan and Rhine,' p. 176; Virgil, 'AEneid,' 4:, 672: cf. Revelation 13:16-17; Revelation 15:2; Revelation 16:2; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:4.)] No response was heard; no fire descended. Elijah exposed their folly and imposture with the severest irony.