JUDGE AND LAWYER. 263 



the wills of supernatural beings, who are originally the 

 ghosts of the distinguished dead; and in pursuance of this 

 belief the ministrants of such ghosts come to be the oracles. 

 Thus Lander tells us that &quot; in Badagry the fetish-priests are 

 the sole judges of the people.&quot; Cameron describes a sitting 

 of a Mganga, chief medicine man at Kowedi. After the 

 chief s wife had made presents and received replies to her 

 inquiries others inquired. 



Questions were &quot; put by the public, some of which were quickly dis 

 posed of, while others evidently raised knotty points, resulting in 

 much gesticulation and oratory. When the Waganga [apparently 

 the plural of Mganga] pretended they could not find an answer the 

 idols were consulted, and one of the fetish men who was a clever 

 ventriloquist made the necessary reply, the poor dupes believing it to 

 be spoken by the idol.&quot; 



695. Of ancient historic evidence readers will at once 

 recall that which the Hebrews yield. 



There is in the Bible clear proof that the ideas of law and 

 of divine will were equivalents. Their equivalence is shown 

 alike in the bringing down of the tables from Sinai and in 

 the elaborate code of regulations for life contained in Leviti 

 cus where the rules even for diet, agricultural operations, 

 and commercial transactions, are set down as prescribed by 

 God. Still more specific evidence, elucidating both the 

 general theory of law and the functions of the priestly class, 

 is supplied by the following passages from Deuteronomy : 



If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between 

 blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and 

 stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates : then shalt 

 thou arise, arid get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God 

 shall choose; and thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and 

 unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire ; and they 

 shall shew thee the sentence of judgment; and thou shalt do accord 

 ing to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall 

 choose shall shew thee.&quot; (xvii, 8-10.) 



Moreover, beyond the often recurring injunction to &quot; en 

 quire of the Lord/ we have the example furnished by the 

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