ATONEMENT

(From the old English verb to atone, or reconcile: the phrase is still used adverbially, as where we say that two persons are " at one," i. e. agreed.) In Theology, the reconcilement of God with man by virtue of the death of our Saviour. The sacrifices of Jewish and patriarchal antiquity were types of this great event, and were in themselves offered for the purpose of atoning for sin; and the idea attached to the practice of sacrifice by the numerous heathen nations of antiquity, and of the present time, has always been the same. {See Sacrifice.) [s. 117]