334 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vin 



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 wor- 

 shippers, 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 atten- 

 tion 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 else- 

 where in Polynesia, were ordinarily social gatherings, 

 in which the god, either in his own person or in 



