In the palace ruins at Persepolis and Susa, the great doorways show, in their architecture, the influence of Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt. And in the relief sculpture of those doorways there is seen a representation of “the king sitting on his throne rendering justice at his palace gate.”[[161]]

At one of the gates of modern Cairo, the writer has seen a venerable Arab sitting in judgment on a case submitted to him by the contestants. And such a scene may be often witnessed at the gates of an Oriental city.

In accordance with this primitive idea, it became a custom in India for one who would obtain justice from another to seat himself at the door of a house, or a tent, and refuse to move from that position until he starved to death, unless his claim were heeded. If the suitor died at the door, or the household altar, the sin of his death rested upon the householder. The suitor’s blood cried out against the evil-doer.

Even to the present time appeals at the household altar are made in blood, in portions of India. A case recently before the British court in Kathiawar involved an illustration of such an appeal. One of the Charaus, a caste of heralds, had become responsible with his life, according to custom, for the repayment of a loan made to a land owner. The land owner delayed payment, and seemed disposed to avoid it. “The herald and his brother, with their old mother for a sacrifice, went to the door of the debtor’s house and demanded payment, as their family honor was at stake. When the land owner would not pay, the herald struck off the head of his mother with his sword before the door, the brother at the same time wounded (intending to kill) the debtor, and the two brothers sprinkled the mingled blood of the sacrifice on the householder’s door-posts. The land owner, smitten by public infamy and the guilt of the matricide, starved himself to death.”[[162]] References to this responsibility of the heralds are found in the Mahabharata.[[163]]

Even where the primitive custom of sacrificing at the doorway has died out, there sometimes seems to be a survival of it in popular phraseology. Talcott Williams, of Philadelphia, relates an incident of his experiences in Morocco, which illustrates this. He says: “As I was riding through the Soko at Tangier on a morning in June, 1889, a servant stopped me, and said: ‘Four men, from near Azila (a town on the seacoast of Morocco, about thirty miles away), are waiting for you at the gate of the house of Mr. Perdicarus, and they have killed a sheep.’ ‘What have they killed a sheep for?’ said I. ‘Oh!’ said the servant, ‘I don’t mean that they have actually killed a sheep, but they are sitting at the gate, asking for your help, and expect you to aid them in their trouble, because they have heard that you have influence with the American consul, and are a man of importance in your own country, and we call that “killing a sheep.”’ I think he added ‘at the gate,’ but my memory is not perfectly clear at this point. I rode on to the house of my friend, where I was stopping, and found there the kinsman of a sheikh, who had been imprisoned by the American consul. They seized my horse’s bridle, and, with the usual Oriental signs of respect, refused to let me dismount until I had heard them and their plea for help.

“I was told by my own servant and the other Orientals there, that this plea ‘at the gate,’ accompanied as it was by the readiness to ‘kill a sheep,’ was one which no man in Morocco would dream of disregarding. I made some inquiry on the subject afterwards, and found that the habit of sitting at the gate waiting for a man of supposed influence or authority, while absent, to return to his house, often actually accompanied, though less frequently at present, by the slaughter of a sheep, whose blood is poured across the road over which he must pass, was a form used only in cases of dire necessity, and one to which a man with whom other pleas would avail nothing, felt compelled to give attention. I am glad to add that in my own case this ancient rite was not without its fruits to those who had used it.”[[164]]

See the Bible references to this idea. Moses stood “in the gate of the camp,” at a crisis hour in Israel’s history, when he would execute judgment in the Lord’s cause.[[165]] All Israel was aroused to do judgment against the sinning Benjamites because of the appeal of the dying woman who fell at the door of the house, “with her hands upon the threshold.”[[166]] Boaz “went up to the gate,” to meet the elders there, when he would covenant to do justice by Ruth and the kinsman of Naomi.[[167]] Absalom sat in “the way of the gate” when he would show favor to those who came there with their appeals for justice.[[168]] And when Absalom was dead, David as king was again sitting in the gate.[[169]] Zedekiah, the king of Judah, was sitting in the gate of Benjamin when Ebed-melech appealed to him in behalf of Jeremiah.[[170]] Daniel’s post of honor in Babylon was “in the gate of the king,” as a judge in the king’s name.[[171]]

Wisdom, personified, says of him who would seek help where it is to be obtained:

“Blessed is the man that heareth me,

Watching daily at my gates,