Though ancestor-worship among the Hebrews could not be fully developed, according to Mr. Spencer, because of their nomadic habits, it was fully developed, according to the Rev. A.W.  Oxford.  ’Every family, like every old Roman and Greek family, was firmly held together by the worship of its ancestors, the hearth was the altar, the head of the family the priest....  The bond which kept together the families of a tribe was its common religion, the worship of its reputed ancestor.  The chief of the tribe was, of course, the priest of the cult.’  Of course; but what a pity that Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer omitted facts so invaluable to their theory!  And how does the Rev. Mr. Oxford know?  Well, ‘there is no direct proof,’ oddly enough, of so marked a feature in Hebrew religion but we are referred to 1 Sam. xx. 29 and Judges xviii. 19. 1 Sam. xx. 29 makes Jonathan say that David wants to go to a family sacrifice, that is, a family dinner party.  This hardly covers the large assertions made by Mr. Oxford.  His second citation is so unlucky as to contradict his observation that ‘of course’ the chief of the tribe was the priest of the cult.  Micah, in Judges xvii., xviii., is not the chief of his tribe (Ephraim), neither is he even the priest in his own house.  He ’consecrated one of his own sons who became his priest,’ till he got hold of a casual young Levite, and said, ‘Be unto me a father and a priest,’ for ten shekels per annum, a suit of clothes, and board and lodging.

In place, then, of any remote reference to a chief’s being priest of his ancestral ghosts, we have here a man of one tribe who is paid rather handsomely to be family chaplain to a member of another tribe.  Some moss-troopers of the tribe of Dan then kidnapped this valuable young Levite, and seized a few idols which Micah had permitted himself to make.  And all this, according to our clerical authority, is evidence for ancestor-worship![13]

All this appears to be derived from some incoherent speculations of Stade.  For example, that learned German cites the story of Micah as a proof that the different tribes or clans had different religions.  This must be so, because the Danites asked the young Levite whether it was not better to be priest to a clan than to an individual?  It is as if a patron offered a rich living to somebody’s private chaplain, saying that the new position was more creditable and lucrative.  This would hardly prove a difference of religion between the individual and the parish.[14]

Mr. Oxford next avers that ’the earliest form of the Israelite religion was Fetishism or Totemism.’  This is another example of Stade’s logic.  Finding, as he believes, names suggestive of Totemism in Simeon, Levi, Rachel, and so on, Stade leaps to the conclusion that Totemism in Israel was prior to anything resembling monotheism.  For monotheism, he argues, could not give the germs of the clan or tribal organisation, while Totemism could do so.