Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub
[graphic]
[ocr errors]
[graphic]

RAILWAY PASSENGERS ASSURANCE COMPANY

CAPITAL, £1,000,000.

[ocr errors]

Apply to the Clerks at the Railway Stations, the Local Agents, or

West End Office, 8 Grand Hotel Buildings, W.C.

OR AT THE

Head Office, 64 CORNHILL, LONDON, E.C.

WILLIAM J. VIAN, Secreuary.

EPOTTISWOODE AND CO. PRINTERS, NEW-STREET SQUARE, LONDON,

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors]

THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY.

No. CX.-APRIL 1886.

THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY: AN

ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY.

II.

THE Tongan theologians recognised several hundred gods; but there was one, already mentioned as their national god, whom they regarded as far greater than any of the others, as a great chief from the top of the sky down to the bottom of the earth' (Mariner, vol. ii. p. 106). He was also god of war, and the tutelar deity of the royal family, whoever happened to be the incumbent of the royal office for the time being. He had no priest except the king himself, and his visits, even to royalty, were few and far between. The name of this supreme deity was Ta'li-y-Tooboo', the literal meaning of which is said to be wait there, Tooboo,' from which it would appear that the peculiar characteristic of Ta'li-y-Tooboo', in the eyes of his worshippers, was persistence or duration. And it is curious to notice, in relation to this circumstance, that many Hebrew philologers have thought the meaning of Jahveh to be best expressed by the word Eternal.' It would probably be difficult to express the notion of an eternal being, in a dialect so little fitted to convey abstract concep tions as Tongan, better than by that of one who always waits there.'

6

The characteristics of the gods in Tongan theology are exactly those of men whose shape they are supposed to possess, only they have more intelligence and greater power. The Tongan belief that, after death, the human Atua more readily distinguishes good from evil, runs parallel with the old Israelitic conception of Elohim expressed in Genesis, 'Ye shall be as Elohim knowing good from evil.' They further agreed with the old Israelites, that all rewards for virtue and VOL. XIX.-No. 110 LL

« ForrigeFortsæt »