CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 403 



homey, " the sovereign's words are spoken to the men, who informs 

 the interpreter, who passes it on to the visitor, and the answer must 

 trickle back through the same channels." And, concerning Abyssin- 

 ia, where even the chiefs sit in their houses in darkness, so " that vulgar 

 eyes may not gaze too plainly upon " them, we are told the king was 

 " not seen when sitting in council," but " sat in a darkened room," 

 and " observed through a window what was going on in the chamber 

 without ; " and also that he had " an interpreter, who was the medium 

 of communication between the king and his people on state occasions ; 

 his name meant the voice or word of the king." I may add that this 

 parallelism between the secular and sacred agents of communication 

 is in some cases recognized by peoples whose institutions display it. 

 Thomson tells us that the New Zealand priests were regarded as the 

 embassadors of the gods. 



There is a further evidence of this homology. Where, along with 

 social development considerably advanced, ancestor-worship has re- 

 mained dominant, and where gods and men are, consequently, but lit- 

 tle differentiated, the two organizations are but little differentiated. 

 China furnishes a good instance. Hue tells us that " the Chinese em- 

 perors are in the habit of deifying .... civil or military officers, whose 

 life has been characterized by some memorable act, and the worship 

 rendered to these constitutes the official religion of the mandarins." 

 Further, we read in Gutzlaff that the emperor " confers various titles 

 on officers who have left the world, and shown themselves worthy of 

 the high trust reposed in them, creating them governors, presidents, 

 overseers, etc., in Hades, and thus establishing his government even 

 among the manes." And then we learn from Williams that the Li 

 pu, or Board of Rites, examines and directs concerning the perform- 

 ances of the five kinds of ritual observances those of a propitious 

 and those of a felicitous nature, military and hospitable rites, and 

 those of an infelicitous nature. Among its departments is that of 

 ceremonial forms the etiquette to be observed at court, the regula- 

 tions of dresses, of carriages and riding-accoutrements, of followers 

 and insignia, personal and written intercourse between the various 

 ranks of peers. Another department superintends the rites to be ob- 

 served in worshiping deities and spirits of departed monarchs, sages 

 and worthies, etc. statements showing that the same board regulates 

 both religious ceremonial and civil ceremonial. To which summarized 

 account I may add this quotation : " In court, the master of ceremo- 

 nies stands in a conspicuous place, and with a loud voice commands 

 the courtiers to rise and kneel, stand or march " that is, he directs 

 the worshipers of the monarch as a chief priest directs the worship- 

 ers of the god. Equally marked were, until lately, the kindred rela- 

 tions in Japan. With the sacredness of the mikado, and with his 

 divine inaccessibility, travelers have familiarized us ; but the implied 

 confusion between the divine and the human went to a much greater 



