igent
idolaters make all the world over; but it is more interesting to observe
that, in the present case, we seem to have the equivalents of divination
by teraphim, with the aid of something like an ephod (which, however, is
used to sanctify the image and not the priest) mixed up together. Many
Hebrew archaeologists have supposed that the term "ephod" is sometimes
used for an image (particularly in the case of Gideon's ephod), and the
story of Micah, in the book of Judges, shows that images were, at any
rate, employed in close association with the ephod. If the pulling of
the string to call the attention of the god seems as absurd to us as
it appears to have done to the worthy missionary, who tells us of the
practice, it should be recollected that the high priest of Jahveh was
ordered to wear a garment fringed with golden bells.

And it shall be upon Aaron to minister; and the sound thereof
shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before
Jahveh, and when he cometh out, that he die not (Exod.
xxviii. 35).

An escape from the obvious conclusion suggested by this passage has
been sought in the supposition that these bells rang for the sake of
the worshippers, as at the elevation of the host in the Roman Catholic
ritual; but then why should the priest be threatened with the well-known
penalty for inadvisedly beholding the divinity?

In truth, the intermediate step between the Maori practice and that of
the old Israelites is furnished by the Kami temples in Japan. These are
provided with bells which the worshippers who present themselves ring,
in order to call the attention of the ancestor-god to their presence.
Grant the fundamental assumption of the essentially human character of
the spirit, whether Atua, Kami, or Elohim, and all these practices are
equally rational.

The sacrifices to the gods in Tonga, and elsewhere in Polynesia, were
ordinarily social gatherings, in which the god, either in his own person
or in that of his priestly representative, was supposed to take part.
These sacrifices were offered on every occasion of importance, and even
the daily meals were prefaced by oblations and libations of food and
drink, exactly answering to those offered by the old Romans to their
manes, penates, and lares. The sacrifices had no moral significance,
but were the necessary result of the theory that the god was either a
deified ghost of an ancestor or chief, or, at any rate, a being of like
nat