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CHARLES WILLIAM WASON

COLLECTION
CHINA AND THE CHINESE

THE GIFT OF
CHARLES WILLIAM WASON
CLASS OF 1876
1918
THE ‘RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

CONFUCIANISM AND TAOISM DESCRIBED
AND

COMPARED WITH CHRISTIANITY. g

Opt trace

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fe =

BY

JAMES LEGGE,

PROFESSOR OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

Zondon:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCLXXX.

(AX Rights reserved.)
&
THE SPRING LECTURE

OF THE

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF ENGLAND
FOR 1880.

DELIVERED IN THE COLLEGE, GuILForpD STREET, Lonpon.
WHEN asked by the Rev. Dr. Dykes, on behalf
of the Committee of the Presbyterian College,
to write and deliver the following Lectures,
the author was the more ready to accede to
his request because he does not himself belong
to the Presbyterian Church. He longs to see
a frequent interchange of services among
ministers of different churches, who are in
cordial sympathy in the faith and love of their

common Lord.
CON TEN YS.

LECTURE I.
CONFUCIANISM.

Meaning in these lectures of the name Confucianism—
Error of not regarding Confucius as a religious
teacher—The earliest thoughts on religion of the
Chinese to be sought in their primitive written
characters—Primitive for heaven or the sky—For
the name God—For spirits and spiritual things—
For the idea of manifestation or revelation—For the
spirits or manes of departed men—Three primitives
relating to divination—Results derived from the
primitive characters and further method of treating
the subject—The old religion of China was not
merely animistic, with a fetishist tendency—Views
of Professor Tiele—What took place in the time
between the formation of the primitive characters
and the twenty-third century B.c.—Institution of a
worship of God and a worship of ancestors—The
Shi King, and its evidence concerning the worship
of YA4o and Shun as a monotheism, with an inferior
worship of spirits—Testimony of the Shih King,
in addition to the Shi—Predicates in them both
about Heaven and Shang Ti, or God—New style of
speech on the rise of the Chau dynasty, in the twelfth
vi

Contents.

century B.c.—The dualistic phrase heaven and earth
used for the single terms, Heaven and Ti—Judgment of
Confucius about the solstitial sacrifices—Expansion of
his judgment by the author—How the dualistic name
continued, and is guarded against being misunder-
stood—Announcement by the first emperor of the
present dynasty—The Y? King and its subject-matter
—On the divination of the eld Chinese—Appendixes
to the Yi by Confucius—Two sentences from one of
them—Prayers to Shang Ti at a special solstitial
sacrifice in A.D. 1538—Conclusions from those
prayers—The offerings at the solstitial services are
oblations, not propitiatory sacrifices—The idea of
substitution is not unknown in Chinese history, but
has no part in the religious services—The solstitial
service is an acknowledgment for himself and his
line and the nation of their obligations to God—
The emperor does not preside at the services as a
priest—Ancient division of the Chinese community
into four classes, with no indication of a priesthood
—-The place of that supplied to some extent by the
cultured class. : ‘ a . Pages 1—58

Notes : : : : . Pages 59—66

LECTURE II.

CONFUCIANISM.

The worship of their forefathers by all the Chinese people

—Filial piety—The worship of parents a part of it—
Filial piety and worship of Shun ; and subsequently
down to the Chau dynasty—Living representatives
of the dead then employed—Further description of
the filial piety and worship of the Chau kings—Titles
Contents. Vil

and worship carried back to ancestors—Seasons of
worship were family re-unions—Prayers to the dead
—Something pleasing about filial worship, but it was
injurious—Ancestors became tutelary spirits—Service
of the duke of Chau—Defect of the system—Case
of Ch'ing {—Has driven the masses to the TAoists—
Result of the teaching of filial piety—The worship of
the departed great—Imperial worship of such and
its evils—Warning of Confucius—Had the worship
of the spirits of the departed a good influence?—Man
is the creature of God; the most intelligent of all
creatures—The duty required of man is compliance
with his moral nature—Kings and sages appointed
to help man to fulfil his duty—Man’s moral feeble-
ness makes this necessary—View of Confucius and
Mencius—The course of human duty confined to the
five relationships of society—Relationships of friend
and friend, and of husband and wife—Position of
woman—Historical view of that position— Infanticide
—Feet-binding—Confucianism says nothing explicitly
about the state of man after death—Classical testi-
monies—More modern view, that retribution works
itself out in time—Four utterances of Confucius on
the subject—Conclusions—Life of Confucius—His
birth to his marriage—Marriage to his visiting the
court of Chau, B.C. §517—To the end of his brief period
of office, B.c. 496—Till his return to Li in B.c. 483—
To his death in B.c. 478—Personal characteristics
—Confucius did not modify or change the ancient
religion—His golden rule—What is to be thought of
him as a religious teacher—Two things that lower
our estimate of Confucius—The admiration of him
among his disciples—Estimate of him by the govern-
ment and people of China... . Pages 67—149

Notes . : : : ; : . Pages 150—156
Vill

Contents.

LECTURE III.

TAOISM.

What is Taoism? Both a religion and a philosophy—

Legal standing of Taoism in China—It is legally
recognized, and its chief endowed—Origin of Taoism
as a religion—Its polytheism—What Taoism was
before Buddhism entered China—A mass of super-
stitions and sacrifices not digested into any system—
Illustrated by the case of the Han emperor Wi—
The origin of the present Taoism—Position of Con-
fucius in regard to the growing Taoism of his time—
Rapid degeneracy of the nation after Confucius—
From Mencius to the Han dynasty—Connexion of
Téoism with what are called the state gods—The
moral teaching of Taoism—Its purgatory and hell—
Taoism as a magical power in conflict with male-
volent spirits—Geomancy and the worship of the
dead—Taoism as a philosophy—Historical account
of Lao-tsze—Errors in the interpretation of the Tao
Teh King: first of Prémare and other Roman
Catholic missionaries; second of P. Amiot and
Rémusat ; third of Professor Miiller—Things that are
taught in the book ; First, the author’s description of
himself; Second, emptiness is necessary to useful-
ness; Third, a freedom from all selfish motives;
Fourth, humility; Fifth, three precious things;
Sixth, returning good for evil; Seventh, with the
progress of knowledge and society the author has
no sympathy—Does the Tao Teh King recognise
the existence of God?—No inculcation of religion
in the book . ‘ ‘ é . Pages 157—230

Notes . . : : . . . Pages 231—237
Contents. 1X

LECTURE IV.

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA COMPARED WITH
CHRISTIANITY.

Object and method of the Lecture—Preliminary points
of agreement in the three religions—Comparison
as to the doctrine and worship of God—Comparison
as regards filial piety and the worship of ancestors—
Comparison as regards the teaching of morality—On
the position of woman—Comparison as regards the
teaching about a future state—Peculiarities in the
disclosures of the future by Christianity— The Chris-
tian revelation of futurity rests on the resurrection
of Christ—Results of the comparison thus far, and
farther pursuit of the subject—The evidence of the
resurrection of Christ—The Christian Scriptures
claim to contain a divine revelation—Bearing of the
revealed character of Christianity on the comparison
between it and other religions, and on the study of
its sacred books—The Christian doctrine of the
death of Christ as a propititiary sacrifice—The
Christian doctrine of future punishment and retri-
bution generally—Two practical issues of the course
of four lectures :—A greater interest in Christian
missions in China; and a greater earnestness in
manifesting our personal Christianity, and in all
Christian work . 2 ‘ . Pages 239—3I10.
I.

CONFUCIANISM: ITS DOCTRINE AND
WORSHIP OF GOD.
—. Y ~ WL = A.

Zz
uh ff Pai < ik x6
“‘In the ceremonies at the altars of Heaven and Earth, they

served God.”—Confuctus, ‘‘ Doctrine of the Mean,” ch. xix.

“They knew God.”—Faul, Romans i. 21.
I.

The meaning in these Lectures of the
name Confucianism.

I. HE first thing to be done in these Lectures

is to give an account of Confucianism, and
I must define at the outset in what sense I wish
that term to be understood. No name current
among men is more fully historical than that of
Confucius. We know the years, and the months,
and the days of the months, in which he was born
and died. We see him moving on the stage of
his country for between seventy and eighty
years in the sixth and fifth centuries before our
Christian era. But the religion of China does
not date only from his time. It has been said,
indeed, but incautiously, that “without Confu-
cius, China had been without a native religion.”?
The sage, no doubt, helped to preserve the
ancient religion of his country, and it may be
said that it took some tinge through him from
his own character and views; but more than

1 “Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History.”
A. M. Fairbairn. Page 244.
4 Confucianism :

this cannot be affirmed. What he claimed for
himself was to be a “transmitter, and not a
maker, believing in and loving the ancients ;”
that “he was fond of antiquity, and earnest in
seeking knowledge there.”! What his grandson
claimed for him was that “he handed down (the
doctrines of) Y4o and Shun, as if they had been
his ancestors, and elegantly displayed (the regu-
lations of) Wan and W4, taking them as his
models.” ?

I use the term Confucianism, therefore, as
covering, first of all, the ancient religion of
China, and then the views of the great philoso-
pher himself, in illustration or modification of it,
—his views as committed to writing by himself,
or transmitted in the narratives of his disciples.’
The case is pretty much as when we comprehend
under Christianity the records and teachings of
the Old Testament as well as those of the New.

The error of not regarding Confucius as a
religious teacher. :

Thus much in vindication of my extended
application of the name Confucianism, and in

1 © Confucian Analects,” VII, i., xix.

2 “Doctrine of the Mean,” xxxi.

3 See my Preface to Vol. III. of the “Sacred Books of
the East,” pp. xiv., xv.
Its Doctrine and Worship of God. 5

correction of the error of some who think of
Confucius in connexion with the religion of
China more highly than we have reason to
think. A few words on an error in regard to
him of an opposite character will not be out
of place. The questions have often been put
to me, “ But is Confucianism really a religion ?
Was it anything more than a system of morals
intended for the government of human society?”
The most extended expression of this sentiment
is given in a recent number of The China Review,
where the writer says, “ Confucianism pure and
simple is in our opinion no religion at all. The
essence of Confucianism is an antiquarian ad-
herence to traditional forms of etiquette,—taking
the place of ethics; a sceptic denial of any
relation between man and a living God,—taking
the place of religion; while there is encouraged
a sort of worship of human genius, combined
with a set of despotic political theories. But
who can honestly call this a religion?” ? Cer-
tainly if this were a fair account of all there is
in Confucianism, I would not call it a religion.

1 The China Review, Vol. VIII.,i., p. 59. See also the
previous number, p. 363, where the Rev. Mr. Macintyre
says, “ Confucius was a sceptic, who deemed it his duty
to conceal his scepticism out of deference to the ancient
sages and traditional opinions.” See also Note A.
6 Confucianism :

But the representation is absurdly unfair. I will
not stop to show this immediately. I think
you will all agree with me in what I thus say of
it, when I come to show what the teachings of
the Chinese sage, “ pure and simple,” were.

The earliest thoughts of the Chinese on
religion to be sought for in their pri-
mitive written characters.

2. I will now give a view of some of the
religious thoughts of the fathers of the Chinese
people, the fruit of which is found in the beliefs
of their descendants down to the present day.
In doing this, I will go back to a period long
anterior to the composition of the most ancient
Chinese books, and glance with you at some of
the primitive written characters. We shall get
from them a vivid idea of what was in the
minds of those fathers when they were laying
the foundations on which so great a structure
of literature has been built by their descendants.
We shall be in the position of the Aryan philo-
logists, who, from the root-words of Sanskrit and
other kindred languages, try to give us pictures
of the earliest Aryan life ; as, for instance, when
Professor Max Miller, in his “ Essay on Com-
parative Mythology,” having found the root of
daughter (duhitar) in duh, meaning to milk,
Lis Doctrine and Worship of God. 7

goes on to observe, “The name of milkmaid,
given to the daughter of the house, opens before
our eyes a little idyll of the poetical and pastoral
life of the early Aryans.”1 We are not treading
on less firm ground when we undertake to do
the same for the ancient Chinese by the study
of their primitive characters. We are, in fact,
treading on much firmer ground. Hunting for
roots in the fields of philology is difficult and
uncertain. What a boon it would be if a chart
were discovered somehow of the root-words of
that speech which existed somewhere before it
branched out into Sanskrit, Celtic, Latin, Greek,
Teutonic, and the other languages that claim to
be descended from it! Such a chart we have
of what we may call Chinese roots in its primitive
characters,—the pictures and ideagrams which
exhibit to the student by the eye the ideas in
the minds of their makers. We thus learn their
meaning without reference to the names by
which they have been called,? and, according
to the sentiment of the line in which Tennyson
condenses two well-known lines of Horace:

“ Things seen are weightier than things heard.”

' “Chips from a German Workshop,” II., p. 26.

2 See two papers on “ Principles of Composition in
Chinese as deduced from the Written Characters,” in the
Fournal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. X1., Part ii.
New Series.
8 Confucianism :

Application of the above method.

3. Let me therefore adduce a few specimens
of those primitive characters which served as the
symbols of the religious or supersensuous notions
of their makers, and which are still employed
to classify, or assist in the pronunciation of,
hundreds of other characters of later formation.
It is by unbroken tradition from the earliest
historic time that we determine their meaning ;
—if we could exactly make out their pictorial
outlines and original grouping, we should see
how that meaning grew from their component
parts. The results of analysis, so far as they
go, are remarkable, and put us ex rapport with
the Chinese fathers fully five thousand years
ago.! From no other source do we obtain in-
formation so important and reliable concerning
what we may call the religion of infant man.

Primitive for heaven or the sky.

i. Our first example shall be the character
t‘ien, the symbol for heaven. Its application
must have been first to the visible sky, but, all
along the course of history, it has also been
used as we use Heaven, when we intend the
ruling Power, whose providence embraces all.

' See Note B.
Lis Doctrine and Worship of God. 9

The character is made up of two other primi-
tives—yi, the symbol of unity, placed over ta,
the symbol of great, and thus awakens the
idea of the sky, which is above and over all,
and to whose magnitude we can assign no limit

Professor Max Miiller says: “In Chinese,
t‘ien denotes sky or day, and the same word,
like the Aryan dyu, is recognized as the name
of God.”® But it was the vastness of the sky,
and not its brightness, which made the senszus
nunetizs in the ancient Chinese use its name to
express the idea of an overruling Power. There
was a radical difference in the concepts of the
Aryan and Chinese fathers, supposing that our
view of those concepts is correct. That of the

former might be symbolized by Apollo; that of
the latter, by Hercule And, moreover, the

Chinese did not from tien, “the sky,” fashion
a character or name which should be used as
the general appellation God, and lead the mind
to the Supreme Being as a person.

Primitive for the name God.
ii. That name was Ti, and the character so
denominated is the second primitive of which
1
K (t‘ien) = —— (yf = one) over Je (ta;= great).

? See Note C.
3“ Lectures on the Science of Language,” II., p. 480.
IO Confucianism :

I wish to speak. It is more complex in form
than t‘ien, and native help fails us in the
attempt to analyse it into its constituent parts
and ascertain their significance There is no
doubt, however, as to the idea which it was
made to symbolise,—that, namely, of “lordship
and government.”? Heaven is styled Shang
Ti, and as frequently Ti alone without the
Shang. That addition,meaning Supreme, in-
dividualises and exalts the Ti; and throughout
the Shi and the Shih, the ancient books of
History and Poetry, the names T‘ien, Ti, and
Shang Ti are constantly interchanged,—in the
course of the same chapter or paragraph, often
in the same sentence. Ti enters also into the
title of the emperor of China, Hwang Ti mean-
ing “the great or august Ti.” This shows how
adapted it is for an appellative name; but such
application of it is only two thousand years old,
and dates from B.C. 221, when it was adopted by
the founder of the shortlived dynasty of Ch'in,
avowedly that he might appear equal to Fi-hsi,
and other ancient sovereigns, to whom the title
of Ti had been given in subsequent times by
a process of deification. Since its earliest
formation, Ti has properly been the personal
name of Heaven. T‘ien has had much of the

' See Note D. 2 See Note E.
Lts Doctrine and Worship of God. 11

force of the name Jahve, as explained by God
Himself to Moses; Ti has presented that abso-
lute deity in the relation to men of their lord
and governor. Ti was to the Chinese fathers,
I believe, exactly what God was to our fathers,
whenever they took the great name on their lips.

Thus the two characters show us the religion
of the ancient Chinese as a monotheism. How
it was with them more than five thousand years
ago, we have no means of knowing; but to find
this among them at that remote and early
period was worth some toilsome digging among
the roots or primitive written characters. I will
only add here that the relation of the two names
which we have been considering has kept the
monotheistic element prominent in the religion
proper of China down to the present time, and
prevented the prostitution of the name Ti, as
Deus and other corresponding appellations of
the Divine Being were prostituted.

Primitive ch‘i, used for spirits, and
spiritual things.

iii. J proceed to a third primitive symbol,
having two different names or pronunciations,
ch‘i and shih.! Pronounced ch’i, it is used as

1 Ti composed of =, and JJy.
12 Confucianism :

the significant element in characters denoting
spiritual beings, sacrifices, and prayer. Spirits
generally, and especially those whose seat is
referred to heaven, are called shan;! those
whose influence is in and over the earth are
simply styled ch’i, and an altar to them is
called sheh,? formed from ch‘f and t‘d, signi-
fying “the ground,” “territory ;” and another
character altogether, of which I will presently
speak, is employed for the spirits or manes of
departed men.

Primitive shih, with the idea of manifes-
tation or revelation.

Pronounced shih, this character is the symbol
for manifestation and revelation. The upper
part of it is the same as that in the older form
of Ti, indicating “what is above;” but of the
three lines below I have not found a satisfactory
account. Hsii Shan says they represent “the
sun, moon, and stars,” and that the whole sym-
bolises “the indications by these bodies of the
will of Heaven.” Shih therefore tells us that
the Chinese fathers believed that there was com-

, nH, composed of Tl and the phonetic Ha
it. composed of il and Sie
Lts Doctrine and Worship of God. 13

munication between Heaven and men. The
idea of revelation did not shock them. The
special interpretation of the strokes below, how-
ever, if it were established, would lead us to
think that even then, so far back, there was the
commencement of astrological superstition, and
also, perhaps, of Sabian worship.

Primitive for the spirits, or manes, of
departed men.

iv. I have just said that another character is
used for the spirits, or mazes, of departed men. It
is named kwei, and enters into the characters
corresponding to the Latin axzma and animus,
or the animal soul and the intelligent ; besides
being an extensively used phonetic element.
According to Hsii Shan, it is formed from the
figure of a ghost’s or demon’s head over the legs
of a man, with the addition of another character,
denoting maliciousness. Tdi scouts this analysis
of it, and deservedly so; but he supplies no
better himself. I cannot form a definite idea of
what the makers meant by using this kwei
as the symbol of the disembodied spirit. We
learn from it, however, that they did not think

i, formed of (44 (a ghost’s head), /L (the

legs), and /\ (selfish).
14 Confucianism :

that man when he was dead, had all ceased
to be.

Three primitives relating to divination.

v. There are still three other primitives,
affording us some insight into the religious
notions of the earliest Chinese, on which I will
make a few observations. They are connected
together, the two last being derived from the
first.

That first character is named pi; and is the
symbol for divining by the lines produced through
a certain process on the back of a tortoise-shell.
It consists merely of two lines, which may pos-
sibly have been intended to represent the lines
appearing on the shell. For some reason or other
the makers held the tortoise-shell in veneration,
and supposed that it possessed a mysterious
power of indicating, with regard to undertakings
about which it was consulted, whether their issue
would be fortunate or unfortunate.

The second character is kw4,? with pfi as its
significant element, and used itself as a phonetic.
It was the symbol for divining by means of the
eight famous trigrams of Fi-hsi, themselves

i hee

2 ¥p, formed from ee and p
Its Doctrine and Worship of God. 15

called “the eight Kwa.” They are not cha-
racters, but lineal figures on which was built up
the mysterious book called the Yi King. Its
diagrams were worked in divination by manipu-
lating a certain number of stalks from a plant
called the shih, the Prarmica Sibirica) The
formation of kw4 from p4, and the absence of any
primitive character for this plant, indicate that this
method of divination was more recent than that
by the tortoise-shell, though we find them both
recognized in the “ Counsels of the Great Yii,”
one of the oldest documents of the Shi King.
The third character, also formed from pd, by
the addition of (k‘4u,)? the symbol for a mouth, is
chan, which is one of the most fruitful phonetic
elements, and gives its name to more than
seventy characters. It was the symbol for the
interpretation of the answers given by the shell
divination, the practice of which, it would appear,
was reduced to some sort of art. The interpre-
tation of the answers derived from the stalks
was expressed by a character shi, not so ancient
as chan, and composed of the symbol for the
bamboo, and another denoting a sorceress or

1 So, Dr. Williams. See his Syllabic Dictionary, on
the character Shih (32).

5 yp formed from ph , (pa), and I (k‘au).
16 Confucianism :

spirit-medium. Superstition had found its way
very early into the minds of the ancient Chinese,
and made itself manifest side by side with the
intelligence that appeared in the characters for
Heaven and God.

I may have seemed tedious while dwelling so
long on the testimony borne to the ancient
religion of China by its primitive written cha-
racters; but the conclusions which I have drawn
from it are legitimate and important. I felt
their truth soon after I began the study of the
language here in London, nearly forty-three
years ago; but many years elapsed before I saw
my way to set them forth as I have endeavoured
to do to-day.

Results derived from the primitive charac-
ters, and further method of treating the
subject.

4. Five thousand years ago the Chinese were
monotheists,—not henotheists, but monotheists ;
and this monotheism was in danger of being
corrupted, we have seen, by a nature worship on
the one hand, and by a system of superstitious
divination on the other. It will be my object to
show, first, how the primitive monotheism has
been affected by these dangers in the course of
time, and how far it has prevailed over them.
Lis Doctrine and Worship of God. 17

I will then speak of the worship of ancestors,
and of the departed great, as it has prevailed in
the country. My third subject will be the place
of man considered as to his nature, duty, and
destiny in the religion of China; and, finally,
I will give you, if the time permit me, and ac-
cording to my lights, a sketch of the life and
character of Confucius and of his teachings, so
far as they have not appeared in our discussion of
the other subjects. One Lecture will not suffice
for all this, but I hope to accomplish it in two.

The old religion of China was not merely
animistic with a fetishist tendency.—
Views of Professor Tiele.

5. I may appropriately introduce the first of
these four subjects by referring to a view of the
old religion of China that has recently found
expression in Europe, and places it in the
category of what are called animistic religions.
Professor Tiele of Leiden says: “The religion
of the old Chinese empire, as it existed certainly
from the twelfth century B.c., and probably at
a much earlier period, is best described as a
purified and organised worship of spirits, with
a predominant fetishist tendency, combined
into a system before it was possible for a regular
mythology to develop out of it. The sole

2
18 Confucianism :

objects of worship are the spirits (shan), which
are divided into heavenly, earthly, and human,
and, as a rule, are still closely connected with
the objects of nature.” }

What religion, it may be asked, is not
animistic, in the sense that its objects of worship
are regarded as spirits?‘ But it is not merely
because they are spirits that they are wor-
shipped, but because of the relation that they
are supposed to sustain to the worshippers, and
to the Supreme Spirit, or God. If the old
Chinese religion were only animism, whence
came it to have, as far back as we can go, Ti or
God as the one supreme object of its homage?
And as to the other spirits, to whom at an early
period an inferior worship was paid, and who,
it is said, were closely connected with the
objects of nature, they were worshipped as
doing service to men on behalf of God. In
default of prayers or hymns of a date anterior
to our era addressed to such spirits, we may
accept, as representing faithfully the ancient
tradition, the following prayers to the heavenly
and earthly spirits, selected from the “ Statutes
of the Ming dynasty (1368—1642).” To the

1 “Outlines of the History of Religion to the Spread of
the Universal Religion,” p. 27. (Triibner and Co., 1877.
Translated by J. Estlin Carpenter, M.A.)
Lts Doctrine and Worship of God. 19

heavenly spirits, “the spirits of the Cloud-
master, the Rain-master, the lord of the Winds,
and the Thunder-master,” it is said, “It is your
office, O Spirits, to superintend the clouds and
the rain, and to raise and send abroad the
winds, as ministers assisting Shang Ti. All
the people enjoy the benefits of your service.”!
Again, to the earthly spirits, “the spirits of the
mountains and hills, of the four seas and four
great rivers, of the imperial domain, and of all
the hills and rivers under the sky,” it is said,
“Tt is yours, O Spirits, with your Heaven-con-
ferred powers, and nurturing influences, each to
preside as guardian over one district, as ministers
assisting the great Worker and Transformer, and
thus the people enjoy your meritorious services.”
Such language might seem to have been con-
structed to prevent the misrepresentation that
the religion of China took its form from the
principle of animism.

Professor Tiele says that in the ancient
Chinese worship cf spirits there was a pre-
dominant fetishist tendency. Perhaps he means
by this no more than what he says in the next
sentence, that the spirits were still closely
connected with the objects of nature. But

1 See my “Notions of the Chinese concerning God
and Spirits,” pp. 34, 35. (Hong-kong, 1852.)
20 Confucianism :

according to the prayers just read, they were so
connected with those objects in subordination
to the conception of nature as sustained by
Shang Ti, or God, for the good of mankind,
having its different parts, with their elemental
agencies, committed to the guardian care of
the spirits. This is not our view of nature,
but it is one that has appeared in different
stages of society; and I do not see any tendency
to fetishism in it. There is a danger, indeed, of
the spiritual potencies being regarded as inde-
pendent, and being elevated to the place of
gods ; but the most ancient and strong convic-
tion of one God prevented this in China.

But the language of Professor Tiele may have
been moulded by a mental reference to the
wooden tablets which are employed as resting-
places for the spirits, both in the state worship
of China and the ancestral. These are small
rectangular pieces of wood, at least as high
again as they are wide, set up in front of the
worshipper, and having written upon them the
characters shan wei, “Seat of the spirit,” or
ling wei, “Seat of the soul,” or shan cha,
“Lodging-place of the spirit,” with, perhaps,
the surname, name, and office of the departed,
in the ancestral worship. While the worship
is performed, the tablet is supposed to be
Its Doctrine and Worship of God. 21

occupied by the spirit specially interested in
the service; and at the conclusion, the spirit
returns to its own place, and the tablet is laid
aside in its repository, till required for use
again, being in the interval no more spirit-
possessed than any other piece of wood.! In
the next Lecture I shall have to speak of the
practice, especially during the Chau period, of
using living members of the worshipping family,
to be taken possession of by the spirits of the
deceased, instead of these wooden tablets.
How the use of the tablet originated can only
be matter of speculation with us, and I will
not take up time with an attempt to account
for it. But it was not and is not fetishism.
“A fetish,” says Professor Max Miller, “ pro-
perly so called, is itself regarded as some-
thing -supernatural / the idol was originally
meant as an image only, a similitude or a
symbol of something else. No doubt, an idol
was apt to become a fetish; but, in the
beginning, fetish-worship, in the proper sense
of the word, springs from a source totally
different from that which produces idolatry.” ?

1 See Note F.

2 Lectures (the Hibbert) on the Origin and Growth of
Religion, as illustrated by the Religions of India,
Pp. 63, 64.
22 Confucianism :

Athe tablet is not regarded as in itself either
supernatural or sacred; and it has operated
to prevent the rise of idolatry in the Confucian
religion of China,—a fact to which I may have
occasion to refer hereafter.

What took place in the time between the
formation of the primitive characters
and the twenty-third century B.C.—
Institution of a worship of God, and a
worship of Ancestors.

6. From what we may call the prehistoric
time, in which we have found great exercises
of thought, we arrive at the twenty-third century
before our era.- Moré than a thousand years
have passed since Fi-hsi, during which period
there must have been growth and development,
both progress and corruption. We know very
little of what was transacted in that millennium
on the theatre of China. A few hints are given
by later historians ;—-we do not know on what
authority. A few are given also by Confucius
himself, in the longest of the appendixes to the
Yi King, ascribed to him; but however willing
we may be to accept them as his, both they,
and a few other similar passages in “the Record
of Rites,” crumble away, on close handling, into
speculations and guesses about the progress of
Lts Doctrine and Worship of God. 23

society. One very important step had certainly
been taken during the long and unreported
interval. Methods of worship, as the comple-
ment of the religious ideas on which I have
tried to throw light from the primitive Chinese
characters, had been instituted: a worship of
God for all, but in which the ruler of the State
should be the only officiator; and a worship of
ancestors by all, or at least by the Heads of
families, for themselves and all the members in
their relative circle. The nature of this twofold
worship will fully appear as I proceed. At the
present day we find the state worship of God,
and the universal worship of ancestors, and we
can trace them back from dynasty to dynasty.
If we cannot fully explain every modification
which they underwent, we are certain that we
always have substantially the same things before
us, until we reach the time immediately suc-
ceeding the prehistoric.

The Shi King, and its evidence concern-
ing the worship of Yao and Shun as a
monotheism, with an inferior worship
of spirits.

7. We come to the Shai King, a compilation
of historical documents, and the oldest of Chinese
books. The first two parts of it extend over a
24 Confuctanism :

hundred and fifty years, and are occupied with
the characters and events of the sage rulers—Yao
and Shun! I do not say that the composition
of them was contemporaneous with, or imme-
diately subsequent to, the things that they
narrate; but there is an element of history in
them. They bear the zmprimatur of Confucius,
and will repay our careful examination. A very
intelligent Chinese gentleman, now in Europe,
said to me, not very long ago, “ We have nothing
in China the roots of which are not to be found
in the Canons of Yao and Shun.”

In the Canon of Shun we have the record of
several acts of religious worship. Yao resigns
the administration of the government to Shun,
and his inauguration in that new position takes
place “in (the temple of) the Accomplished
Ancestor.”? That ancestor, I suppose, was he
to whom Y4o traced his lineage, and his sanction
was thus sought for the transference of the
kingdom to another. Shun was now the ruler
of the Chinese state, and he signalised the fact
by a solemn act of worship: “He sacrificed
specially, but with the ordinary forms, to Shang

' YAo’s reign began in B.C. 2357, and Shun’s ended in
2207. The shorter chronology of the Bamboo books
reduces these dates, but only by a little more than two

hundred years.
2 The Sha, IT. i. 4.
Lts Doctrine and Worship of God. 25

Ti,’—that is, we have seen, to God; “ sacrificed
purely to the six objects of Honour; offered
their appropriate sacrifices to the hills and
rivers, and extended his worship to the host of
spirits.” }

The notice that Shun, on this occasion, when
sacrificing specially to God, yet used the ordi-
nary forms, indicates that there was even then
a regular worship of God by the sovereign
of China,—such, no doubt, as we find fully
established in later times, and observed at the
present day. Thereafter, every fifth year, on
his tours of inspection through his dominions,
Shun offered what seems to have been a similar
sacrifice at each of the four quarters of the
country, where he met the feudal lords, “ pre-
senting,” as it is expressed, “a burnt-offering to
Heaven, and sacrificing in order to the hills and
rivers,’? When he returned from these tours
to the capital, “he went to (the temple of)
the Cultivated Ancestor, and offered a single
bullock.”

It is impossible to give a distinct account of
the other sacrifices offered by Shun, when he
undertook the administration of the government.
Chinese writers differ among themselves in what

1 The Sha, IL. i. 6. 2 1b, i. 8.
8 7b., i. 8
26 Confucianism :

they say about “the six objects of Honour.”
When he sacrificed to the hills and rivers, he
did so to the spirits supposed to preside over
the hills and rivers of note in all the kingdom,
and thereby exercised his royal prerogative, for
in subsequent ages each feudal lord sacrificed to
the hills and rivers in his state, while the wor-
ship of the sovereign embraced all such objects
“under the sky.”? The final statement that
Shun “extended his worship to the host of
spirits,” is understood of all spirits not attended
to in his previous sacrifices,—“ those,” it is said,
“presiding over mounds, dykes, plains, and
forests, and the spirits of the sages and worthies
of ancient times.”®

Thus in the worship of the sage Shun, we see
the primitive monotheism of his race, and that
there had grown up round it an inferior wor-
ship of multitudinous spirits. I have already
argued that this inferior worship was not a
nature-worship, and that it was subordinate to
the homage due to God, and resulted from
a mistaken idea of His government in creation.
This will be seen more fully as we go on.

1 See note in the Chinese Classics, Vol. II., 2 loc., and
“ Mayers’ Chinese Reader’s Manual,” p. 329.

? The Li Chi, xx. 3.

* See Commentary in the Yung-chang Shi, zz Joc.
Lis Doctrine and Worship of God. 27

Testimony of the Shih King in addition to
the Shi.—Predicates in them both about
Heaven and Shang Ti, or God.

8. The documents of the Shi extend, though
not continuously, over between seventeen and
eighteen centuries. Next in antiquity to the
Sha is the Shih, or book of ancient poetry.
It contains three hundred and five pieces, six
of which are of the period of the second feudal
dynasty, from B.C. 1766 to 1123. The rest are
of the third or Chau dynasty, down into the
sixth century B.C.

In both of these books many things are
predicated of Heaven, Ti, and Shang Ti,
that are true only of the true God. He is the
ruler of men and all this lower world. Men
in general, the mass of the people, are His
peculiar care. He appointed grain to be the
chief nourishment of all. He watches especially
over the conduct of kings, whom he has exalted
to their high position for the good of the people.
While they reverence Him, and fulfil their duties
in His fear, and with reference to His will, taking
His ways as their pattern, He maintains them,
smells the sweet savour of their offerings, and
blesses them and their people with abundance
and general prosperity. When they become
28 Confucianism :

impious and negligent of their duties, He
punishes them, takes away the throne from
them, and appoints others in their place. His
appointments come from His fore-knowledge
and fore-ordination.

Sometimes He appears to array Himself in
terrors, and the course of His providence is
altered. The evil in the state is ascribed to,/
Him. Heaven is called unpitying. But this
is His strange work, in judgment, and to call
men to repentance. He hates no one; and it is
not He who really causes the evil time: that is
a consequence of forsaking the old and right
ways of government. In giving birth to the
multitudes of the people, He gives them a good
nature, but few are able to keep it, and hold
out good to the end.

There is a remarkable document of the Sha,
called “The Establishment of Government,” in
which the consolidator and legislator of the
Chau dynasty gives a summary of the history of
the feudal kingdom down to his own time. Yii
the Great, the founder of the Hsia dynasty, dating
from B.C. 2205, “ sought for able men who should
honour God (in the discharge of their duties).”
But the way of Chieh, the last of his line, was
different. Those whom he employed were cruel
men, and he had no successor. The kingdom
Its Doctrine and Worship of God. 29

was given to T’ang the Successful, the founder
of the Shang or Yin dynasty, who “grandly
administered the bright ordinances of God.”
His reign dates from B.c. 1766; but Shdu, the
last of his line, came to the throne in 1254, and
was cruel as Chieh had been. God, in conse-
quence, “sovereignly punished him.” The throne
was transferred to the House of Chau, whose
chiefs showed their fitness for the charge by
“employing men to serve God with reverence,
and appointed them as presidents and chiefs of
the people,’ while all their other ministers,
such as their officers of law, their treasurers
and historiographers, were “men of constant
virtue.”?

Such is the testimony of the Shai and Shih
as to the views entertained concerning God
during the many centuries to which the histories
and pieces belong; nor do they contain a sen-
tence inconsistent with those which I have woven
into my description ; nor is there a word in them
about the sacrifices to other spirits implying
that there was one among them “equal or second”
to, or more than a minister of, Shang Ti.

1 This and the two previous paragraphs are taken almost
verbatim from my prolegomena to the Chinese Classics,
IL. pp. 193, 194, and III., p. 152. The original texts are
there indicated.
30 Confucianism :

New style of speech on the rise of the
Chau dynasty, in twelfth century B.C.
—The dualistic phrase Heaven and Earth
used for the single Heaven, and Ti.

g. On the rise of the Chau dynasty we meet
with a style of speech that is new. Its first sove-
reign (B.C. 1122) in a “Great Declaration” made
to his adherents when he had taken the field
against the last ruler of Yin, said, “ Heaven
and Earth is the parent (lit, the father and
mother) of all creatures, and of all creatures
man is the most intelligent. The sincerely
intelligent (among men) becomes the great
sovereign, and the great sovereign is the parent
(lit. the father and mother) of the people. But
now, Shau, the king of Shang, does not rever-
ence Heaven above, and inflicts calamities on
the people below.” Heaven and Earth pass
immediately, you perceive, into the one name
Heaven ;—notwithstanding the dualistic form of
the expression, it is only one that is the parent of
all creatures Further on in the “Declaration,”
we have similar and still more remarkable lan-
guage, corrected in the same way by reference

1 The Shia, V.i., sect. 1., 3, 4, “ Heaven and Earth” is
no more plural, than the sovereign, who also is “ father
and mother,” is plural.
Its Doctrine and Worship of God. 3

to the one supreme controlling Power, to whom
the speaker gives the name of Heaven. The
phrase “Heaven and Earth” stands for the
Being sacrificed to at the two places distin-
guished as the altars to heaven and earth ;—at
the round altar to heaven on the day of the
winter solstice, and at the square altar to earth
on the day of the summer solstice. Such was
the practice under the Chau dynasty as it is
at the present day. There was a danger of its
leading to serious misconception concerning the
oldest religious ideas and worship of the nation,
—a danger which Confucius himself happily
came in to avert. We have from him the
express statement that “the ceremonies of the
sacrifices to Heaven and Earth are those by
which we serve Shang Ti.”! The worship
offered in them was to the one and the same
God.

Expansion of the judgment of Confucius
about the two sacrifices by the author.

A commentator expands this sentence of the
sage in the words,? “The emperor sacrifices to

1 “The Doctrine of the Mean,” xix. 6.
2 See the Four Books, with the Standard Commentary
and a Paraphrase, zz doc.
32 Confucianism :

heaven on the round mound at the winter
solstice, and at the summer solstice to the
earth at the square pool. Thus service is
performed to Shang Ti, and the emperor
takes the sincerity and reverence wherewith
he gives honour to heaven and respect to the
earth to acknowledge His goodness in the
processes of production and maturing.” The
meaning which we are thus led to attach to
the two ceremonies is the following, and I
state it now in words which I used eight-and-
twenty years ago: “The material heavens and
earth are the great works of God. They speak
to man with different voices, and utter con-
cordant, yet various, testimony concerning their
maker. When we consider the heavens, we
are filled with awe; we are moved to honour
and reverence Him whose throne they are.
When we consider the earth, we are pene-
trated with a sense of His kindness. Softer
feelings enter into the soul, and we are disposed
to love Him who crowneth the year with His
goodness. The heavens are to us the repre-
sentatives of the Divine majesty; the earth is
the representative of the Divine care. The
former teaches us God’s more than paternal
authority ; the latter His more than maternal
love. By means of the one and the other we
Lts Doctrine and Worship of God. 33

rise to Him, as maintaining a sovereign rule
and an ever-watchful care; as the Being into our
service of whom there should enter the elements
of fear and love, reverence and gratitude. Such
is the ideal of the highest worship in the religion
of China, the worship rendered through the ser-
vices at the summer and winter solstices,”?

Some may suppose that I have expressed
myself about it as from a Christian standpoint ;
they will hardly do so when they hear some
prayers to Shang Ti, in which Chinese devotion
reached its height.

How the dualistic name continued, and is
guarded against being misunderstood.
—Announcement by the first emperor
of the present dynasty.

10. We will come to them soon; meanwhile let
me say that the judgment of Confucius must be
accepted as final on the common object of the
two solstitial services. Unfortunately, his words
did not have the effect of abolishing the use of
the double name,—Heaven and Earth, instead
of Heaven or God; yet the abuse is for the
most part rendered harmless by the more
correct phraseology with which it is associated.

' “Notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits,”
p- SI.
3
34 Confucianism :

Let me give an example. In 1644, when the
first emperor of the present dynasty took pos-
session formally of the throne, he announced
the fact at a great service to Heaven in a prayer
which began thus :—

“T, the Son of Heaven, of the Great Pure
dynasty, humbly, as a subject, dare to make
announcement to imperial Heaven and sovereign
Earth. Throughout the vast world, God looks
on all without partiality. My imperial grand-
father received the gracious decree of Heaven,
and founded a kingdom in the east, which
became firmly established. My imperial father,
succeeding to the kingdom, established it, and
it grew wider and more powerful. I, Heaven's
servant, in my poor person, became the inheritor
of the dominion they transmitted.” Further on,
he says: “J, receiving Heaven's favour, and in
agreement with the wishes of the people, on
this the first day of the tenth month, announce
to Heaven that I have ascended the throne of
the empire.” Evidently in this announcement,
“imperial Heaven and sovereign Earth,” was but

a periphrasis for the names God and Heaven,—

Heaven, whose servant the Emperor was.!

* See the whole prayer in Edkins’ “ Religion in China,”
pp. 18, 19,
Lis Doctrine and Worship of God. 35

The Yi King, and its subject-matter.

11. I should be glad now to adduce at once
the prayers of which I spoke a little ago; but
it is necessary to say something about the Yi
King, “the mysterious book.” In 1876 a trans-
lation of it was published by the Rev. Canon
M‘Clatchie, M.A., of Shanghai, with Notes and
Appendix. Another translation in Latin, with
still more copious notes, made in the first part
of last century by Father Regis and other
Jesuit missionaries, had been published at
Stuttgart in 1834, edited by the late Jules Mohl.
The difference between the two versions is con-
siderable ; the difference of opinion between the
two translators as to the bearing of the book on
the question of the Religion of China is very
great indeed. The writer of an article in the
Edinburgh Review for October, 1877, based on
Canon M‘Clatchie’s translation, says that the
Yi King is “the fountain-head to which we must
go to gain a true notion of the deeper beliefs”
of the Chinese; and adds that if Ricci, the
pioneer of Roman Catholic missionaries in
China, and certainly one of the ablest of them,
—‘if Ricci had read the works of Chii-tsze and
the Yi King, he never would have imagined that
the T‘ien, the Heaven of the Confucianist’s
36 Confucianism :

worship, had any points of similarity with the
Christian’s God.” I have no doubt that Ricci
had “read, marked, and inwardly digested ” the
Yi, and only found his conclusions respecting
the religion of China, drawn from other sources,
confirmed by it. So it has been with myself.
The reviewer quotes a sentence from Mr.
M‘Clatchie to the effect that “so long as com-
parative mythology continues to be neglected
by Chinese students, so long must the Yi King
remain a sealed book to them.” I cannot admit
that, as Chinese students, I, and others who
think with me, have neglected comparative
mythology. I have looked much into it, but I
have looked more into the Y?f itself. It would
be passing strange if Confucius, with all his
appendixes to it, had not been able to make
its meaning sufficiently plain without our re-
sorting to writings much more recent than
itself, and whose authors had never heard of
it. What, then, do we find inthe Yi? Before
I answer this question, let me point out an
error into which the Canon and his reviewer
equally fall. The latter calls the Yi “the
oldest book of the oldest nation;” and the
former, “the most ancient of the Chinese
classical writings.” The fact is, that not a

1See Note G.
Its Doctrine and Worship of God. 37

single character in the Yi is older than the
twelfth century Bc. The text of it, not taking
in the appendixes of Confucius, consists of two
portions,—from king Wan, and from his son,
the duke of Chau. The composition of Wan’s
portion is referred to the year 1143 B.c. As an
authority for the ancient religion of China,
therefore, the Yi is by no means equal to the
Sh and the Shih.

In these circumstances, how has the common
opinion about the antiquity of the book arisen ?
The answer is, that it is based on diagrams, or
lineal figures, ascribed to Fi-hsi, and made up of
whole and divided lines ( and — —).
Those figures are in all sixty-four, but the prevail-
ing opinion is that only eight of them were from

 

 

 

Fa-hsi,_the famous kua or trigrams (

»

 

|

|

 

]
J

2 >

= —). What their framer intended

by these figures we do not know. No doubt
there was a tradition about it, and I am willing
to believe that it found a home in the existing
Yi. There is some ground also to suppose that
there was an explanation, or two explanations,
of the figures during the two dynasties that
38 Confucianism :

preceded Chau. If there were, the whole has
perished. If king Wan and his son incorpo-
rated previous explanations with their own, so
important a fact could hardly have escaped
special mention.

The char. i is the symbol for the
_idea—of-ehange, The Yiis “The Book of
Changes.” The fashion of the world is con-

tinually being altered. We have action and
reaction, flux and reflux,—now, one condition,
and immediately its opposite. The vicissitudes
in the worlds of sense and society have their
correspondencies in the changes that take place
in the lines of the diagrams. Again, certain
relations and conditions of men and things lead
to good, are fortunate; and certain others lead
to evil, are unfortunate; and these results are
indicated by the relative position of the lines.
Those lines were systematically changed by
manipulating with a fixed number of the stalks
of a certain plant. In this way the Yi served
the purpose of divination; and since such is
the nature of the book, a reader must be pre-
pared for much in it that is tantalizing, fantastic,
and perplexing.

The whole lines in the figures are styled the
strong, and the divided lines the weak. The
two represent the two forms of the subtle matter
Lts Doctrine and Worship of God. 39

—whether eternal or created is not said—of
which all things are composed. Under one form
the matter is active, and is called yang; under
the other it is passive, and is called yin. What-
ever is strong and active is of the yang nature ;
whatever is weak and passive is of the yin.
Heaven and earth, sun and moon, light and
darkness, male and female, ruler and minister,
are examples of these antinomies. The aggre-
gate of them makes up the totality of being;
and the Yi is supposed to give, in its diagrams,
a complete picture of the phenomena of that
totality. It does not give us a sexual system
of nature, though of course the antinomy of sex
is in it; but the lines on which it is constructed
embrace other antinomies as well. Authority
and power on the one side; inferiority and
docility on the other:—these are the ruling ideas
in the Yi. Mr. M‘Clatchie makes the sexual
antinomy unpleasantly prominent, both in his
translation and his notes.

Further, the hidden operation in and through
which the change takes place in nature is said
to be that of the kwei shan. We have seen
that kwei was the name for the spirit of
departed men,’ and shan* the name for spirits

1 See Note H. ? Page 13.
8 Page 12.
40 Confucianism :

generally, and specially for spirits of heaven.
The combination of the names can often be
translated in no other way than by spirits,
spiritual beings. In the Yi, however, its sig-
nification is held to be peculiar and technical.
Shan is yang, and indicates the primary matter
in the process of expanding; kwei is yin, and
indicates the same in the process of contracting.
But we shall see, immediately, that Confucius
held there was a force in the operation which
was not material.

What I have thus said about the Yi has given
you, I hope, an inkling of the nature of the work,
and I cannot devote more time to it. It is a
book of strange physical speculation, constructed
so as to serve the purpose of divination, and
affords us little help in studying the subject
of religion.

On the divination of the old Chinese.

. 12, Let me interject here a few sentences on
he divination of the Chinese. I showed how
a superstition on the subject had infected the
minds of the earliest fathers, and that this was
proved by some of the primitive characters. It
should be understood, however, that it was not
supposed that by means of divination future
events in themselves could be known before-
Lis Doctrine and Worship of God. 41

hand. Its object was to determine what would
be the issues of undertakings contemplated by
the consulter, and how certain anticipated con-
ditions of events would turn out ;—whether they
would be fortunate or unfortunate, lucky or
unlucky. And weare told that the tortoise-shell
and the stalks were consulted only in doubtful
cases. But the whole scheme was vain, and
must have been injurious to the practical conduct
of life. The old methods of divination have
fallen into disuse, and I cannot say how far other
methods are sanctioned by the Government ; but
the almanac published with its approval still
contains the distinction of days as lucky for this
enterprise and that, and unlucky for that enter-
prise and this. With the multitudes, divination
is still aspopular profession. Those who follow
it are for the most part TAoists, if they are any-
thing in religion.

Appendixes by Confucius to the Yi.—Two
sentences from one of them.

13. The larger portion of the text of the Yi is
understood to be from Confucius himself. His
opinion of it was very high, and he said that
if his life were prolonged, he would give fifty
years to the study of the Yi. In what he wrote
about it two objects at least clearly appear :—
42 Confucianism :

to impart a moral and ethical character to its
lessons ; and to explain how the lineal figures
were made to represent the phenomena of
change in nature. In his appendix called
“Discourses on the Diagrams,” he describes
the processes of Ti, as emblemed by the eight
trigrams, throughout the four seasons, until,
as the Lord and Master, He has crowned the
year with His goodness. The whole passage
has always brought to my mind Thomson’s
Hymn to the Seasons.

I will end my account of the Yi by quoting
two sentences from the longest of the appen-
dixes. The one of them expresses the sub-
stance of the book in these few words: “The
successive movement of the inactive and active
elements makes what is called the course (of
things in nature).” The other sentence is
equally brief: “That which is unfathomable
in (the movement of) the inactive and active
elements is what we call (the presence of a)
spiritual (operation).’ Confucius felt that all
which appeared in the Yi did not account for
all that took place in the world of fact. Given
the distinction of the states of matter into
inactive and active; given also the agencies
of expansion and contraction ;—there was, after
all, something unfathomable in every pheno-
Its Doctrine and Worship of God. 43

menon, and in that unfathomableness the sage
recognized the working of a spiritual power.
When my mind first apprehended his meaning,
there came into it also those words of the
apostle Paul, “The same God worketh all in
all.” In a wider application than the apostle
had in view, Confucius felt, I believe, that in
all phenomena there was the presence and
doing of God, the potency that “spreads un-
divided and operates unspent,” an immanent
spirit, and yet not to be confounded with the
matter which He moulds and changes,’

Prayers to Shang Ti at a special solstitial
sacrifice in A.D. 1538.

14. Iam now free to draw toa close this branch
of my subject on the monotheism of the Chinese
as seen in the state worship, by submitting to
you a series of prayers addressed to Shang Ti,
in the year 1538, by the then emperor of the
Ming dynasty. They suit my purpose, perhaps,
better than any other selection of solstitial
prayers that could be made, because they
were prepared for a special occasion. It had
been determined to make a slight change in
the name by which the Supreme Being was
called in the imperial worship. Heretofore the

See Note I.
44 Confucianism :

name had been, “Shang Ti, (dwelling in the)
bright heavens;” henceforth it should be “Shang
Ti, (dwelling in the) sovereign heavens.”® Such
was the matter canvassed at Peking, while in
London, at the court of Henry VIII, they
were deliberating about the articles of the new
creed to be given to the nation instead of the
dogmas of the Church of Rome. The change
was made. It was inaugurated at a solemn
service with more than the formalities of a
regular grand sacrifice; and the style then
initiated passed over without alteration into
the worship of the present Tartar dynasty.

But such a thing could not be done without
various preparation,—in heaven as well as on
earth. The intercession with Shang Ti of all
the spirits in any way associated with the
solstitial worship must be secured, and for this
purpose the emperor went in state to the round
altar, and heard the reading of the following
paper :-—

“J, the emperor of the Great Illustrious
dynasty, have respectfully prepared this paper
to inform—the spirit of the sun; the spirit of
the moon; the spirits of the five planets, of the
constellations of the zodiac, and of all the stars
in all the sky; the spirits of the clouds, the

? See Note K.
Lis Doctrine and Worship of God. 45

rain, wind, and thunder ; the spirits which have
duties assigned to them throughout the whole
heavens; the spirits of the five grand moun-
tains; the spirits of the five guardian hills;
the spirits of the five hills, Chi-yiin, Hsiang-
shang, Shan-lieh, T‘ien-shan, and Shun-teh;
the spirits of the four seas; the spirits of the
four great rivers: the intelligences which have
duties assigned to them on the earth; all the
celestial spirits under heaven; the terrestrial
spirits under heaven; the spirit presiding over
the present year; the spirit ruling over the
tenth month, and those over every day; and
the spirit in charge of the ground about the
border altar.

“On the first day of the coming month, We
shall reverently lead our officers and people to
honour the great name of Shang Ti, dwelling
in the sovereign heavens, looking up to the
lofty nine-storied azure vault. Beforehand we
inform you, all ye celestial and all ye terrestrial
spirits, and will trouble you, on our behalf, to
exert your spiritual power, and display your
vigorous efficacy, communicating our poor desire
to Shang Ti, and praying Him graciously to
grant us His acceptance and regard, and to be
pleased with the title which we shall reverently
present.
46 Confucianism :

“For this purpose we have made this paper
for your information. All ye spirits should be
well aware of our purpose. Ye are respectfully
informed.”

This paper shows how there had grown up
around the primitive monotheism of China the
recognition and worship of a multitude of
celestial and terrestrial spirits; and yet the
monotheism remained. Shang Ti stands out,
not among, but above all, those spirits, single,
alone. They are but ministering spirits, and
though there are occasions when worship is paid
to them specially, they receive their orders from
the emperor, who speaks to them, as he does to
his ministers and people, with the authoritative
We.

But I hasten on. The selected day arrived,
and we stand, with the emperor and his suite,
at the round altar. We watch and listen to
them while they engage in the different parts of
their service,—as eleven times they prostrate
themselves in reverent homage. First, they
greet the approach (real, they think, though
invisible) of the spirit of Shang Ti, and say:
“Of old, in the beginning, there was the great
chaos, without form and dark. The five ele-
ments had not begun to revolve, nor the sun
and moon to shine. In the midst thereof there
Lts Doctrine and Worship of God. 47

presented itself neither form nor sound. Thou,
O spiritual Sovereign, camest forth in Thy
presidency, and first didst divide the grosser
parts from the purer. Thou madest heaven;
Thou madest earth; Thou madest man. All
things got their being, with their reproducing
power.” ?

The next step was to present a notice about
the change in the title, when it was said:
“OQ Ti, when Thou hadst opened the course
for the inactive and active forces of matter to
operate, Thy making work went on. Thou
didst produce, O Spirit, the sun and moon, and
five planets; and pure and beautiful was their
light. The vault of heaven was spread out like
a curtain, and the square earth supported all on
it,and all creatures were happy. I, Thy servant,
presume reverent!ly to thank Thee, and, while
I worship, present the notice to Thee, O Ti,
calling Thee Sovereign.”

Precious stones and silks were then presented
as offerings, with the following prayer: “Thou
hast vouchsafed, O Ti, to hear us, for Thou
regardest us as our Father. I, Thy child, dull
and unenlightened, am unable to show forth my

1 See for all the prayers here my “Notions of the
Chinese,” pp. 25 to 31. I think “ madest” is the likeliest

word in English for the character li in this prayer. It
is the symbol of setting up, establishing.
48 Confucianism :

feelings. I thank Thee that Thou hast accepted
the intimation. Honourable is Thy great name.
With reverence we spread out these precious
stones and silk, and, as swallows rejoicing in
the spring, praise Thine abundant love.”

Vessels with offerings of food followed, with
this prayer: “ The great feast has been set forth,
and the sound of our joy is like thunder. The
Sovereign Spirit vouchsafes to enjoy our offering,
and his servant’s heart is within him like a
particle of dust. The meat has been boiled in
the large caldrons, and the fragrant provisions
have been prepared. Enjoy the offering, O Ti,
and then shall all the people have happiness, I,
Thy servant, receiving Thy favours, am blessed
indeed.”

A first drink-offering was now made, when it
was said: “The great and lofty One sends
down His favour and regard, which we, in our
insignificance, are hardly sufficient to receive. I,
His simple servant, while I worship, present
this precious cup to Him, whose years have
no end.”

There was next a thanksgiving in these
words: “When Ti, the Lord, had so decreed,
He called into existence’ the three powers

1 The character whose meaning I have thus expressed
is very strong. Translators of our Scriptures into Chinese
Its Doctrine and Worship of God. 49

(heaven, earth, and man). Between heaven and
earth He separately disposed men and things,
all overspread by the heavens. I, His small
servant, beg His (favouring) decree, to enlighten
me His vassal; so may I for ever appear before
Him in the empyrean.”

At a second drink-offering it was said: “ All
the numerous tribes of animated beings are
indebted to Thy favour for their beginning.
Men and creatures are emparadised, O Ti, in
Thy love. All living things are indebted to Thy
goodness, but who knows whence his blessings
come to him? It is Thou alone, O Lord, who
art the true parent of all things.”

There was a third and final drink-offering,
when it was said: “The precious feast is wide
displayed; the gem-adorned benches are ar-
ranged; the pearly spirits are presented,—with
music and dancing. The spirit of harmony is
collected ; men and creatures are happy. The
breast of His servant is troubled, that he can
make no recompense (for such goodness).”

After this, the various offerings were removed,
and it was said: “The service of song is com-

have used it, alone or with another character, for the
Hebrew dara.

' These have always been accompaniments of the
great religious services.

4
50 Confucianism :

pleted, but our poor sincerity cannot be fully
expressed. Thy sovereign goodness is infinite.
Asa potter hast Thou made all living things.
Great and small are curtained round (by Thee
from harm). As engraven on the heart of Thy
poor servant is the sense of Thy goodness, but
my feeling cannot be fully displayed. With
great kindness Thou dost bear with us, and,
notwithstanding our demerits, dost grant us life
and prosperity.”

It remained only to send away the spirit of
Shang Ti, and to burn the various offerings. At
the performance of these ceremonies, the follow-
ing prayers were used: “With reverent cere-
monies the record has been presented; and Thou,
O Sovereign Spirit, hast deigned to accept our
service. The dances have all been performed,
and nine times the music has resounded. Grant,
O Ti, Thy great blessing to increase the
happiness of my House. The instruments of
metal and precious stones have given out their
melody ; the jewelled girdles of the officers have
emitted their tinklings. Spirits and men rejoice
together, praising Ti the Lord. What limit,
what measure can there be, while we celebrate
His great name? For ever He setteth fast the
high heavens, and establisheth the solid earth.
His government is everlasting. His poor
és Doctrine and Worship of God. 51

servant, I bow my head, and lay it in the
dust, bathed in His grace and glory.”

And finally: “We have worshipped and
written the Great Name on this gem-like sheet.
Now we display it before Ti, and place it in
the fire. These valuable offerings of silks and
fine meats we burn also, with these sincere
prayers, that they may ascend in volumes of
flames up to the distant azure. All the ends
of the earth look up to Him. All human beings,
all things on the earth, rejoice together in the
Great Name.”

Conclusions from those prayers.

15. I will not multiply words to try and
increase the impression which these prayers
must have made upon your minds. The original
monotheism of the Chinese remains in the state
worship of to-day. We saw how the fathers of
the nation, when they began to form their
written characters, figured the visible heavens
as the one thing over and above all, and illimi-
table. Then there arose in their minds the idea
of God, ruling and overruling all, symbolized
to them by the figure of this visible sky. Their
name for this idea of God conceived of as a
personal being was Ti, and the connexion
between the two names T‘ien and Ti, Heaven
52 Confucianism :

and God, tended to prevent the rise of poly-
theism, and to bring about the extrusion of it,
if it did at any time manage to obtain a foothold
in the religion of the country. Whether it ever
did do so, and if it did, in what manner the
thing came about, are questions on which neither
the time nor my inclination will permit me to
enter. Allsemblances ofan uncertain polytheism
were swept away from the imperial worship
soon after the middle of our fourteenth century,
immediately on the rise of the Ming dynasty,
whose statutes have supplied us with a series of
such remarkable prayers. We may not be able
to feel much sympathy with the way in which
the solstitial services are conducted. We may
deplore, as we do deplore, the superstitious
worship of a multitude of spirits, terrestrial and
celestial, that finds a place in them; but this
abuse does not obscure the monotheism. Those
spirits are not Gods, and are not called by the
divine name. As I have already said, I do not
think that, in the truly Confucian worship of
the empire, that name, the name Ti, is applied
to any spirit but Him whose right it is. As
well might we argue that Roman Catholicism
is not monotheistic, because of the place which
is held in it by angels and saints, as that the
religion of China is not so because of the inferior
Lis Doctrine and Worship of God. 53

worship given in it to various spirits, real or
fictitious.

16. With some remarks on the nature of the
offerings at the solstitial services, and the absence
of a priestly class from the Chinese religion, I
will bring this Lecture to a close.

The offerings at the solstitial services are
oblations, not propitiatory sacrifices.

These offerings are oblations, and not sacrifices
in our common acceptation of that term. There
is not, and never was, any idea of propitiation
or expiation in them. They are the tributes of
duty and gratitude, accompanied with petitions
and thanksgivings. They do not express a
sense of guilt, but the feeling of dependence.
A whole burnt-offering, indeed, consumed on a
special furnace near the altar, always forms a
part of the greatest solstitial services; but the
sins of the emperor and people have not been
confessed over the head of the heifer so devoted.
It does not bear those sins in its body, nor in
its death carry them away. The idea of substi-
tution is not in the solstitial or in any other
of the religious services of the Chinese people;
nor is the idea of consecration on the part of
the worshipper symbolized by any part of the
worship.
54 Confucianism :

The idea of substitution is not unknown
in Chinese history, but has no place
in the religious services.

17, We have in the Shi a document of the date
B.C. 1766. In it T‘ang,a truly noble and heroic,
and I venture to say also, pious man, having
overthrown the dynasty of Shang, announces to
his subjects the principles of the rule through
which they would, under himself, enter on a new
life. At the conclusion of it, he said, “When
guilt is found anywhere in you who occupy the
myriad regions, let it rest on me, the One man.
When guilt is found in me, the One man, it shall
not attach to you who occupy the myriad
regions.” In harmony with this generous utter-
ance was an incident in the life of T‘ang, which,
though not in the Sha, has been handed down
by the historian Sze-m& Ch‘ien and others.
For seven years after his accession (B.C. 1766
—1760), there was a great drought and famine.
It was suggested at last by some one that a
human victim should be offered in sacrifice to
Heaven, and prayer made for rain. T'ang said,
“Tf a man must be the victim, I will be he.”
He fasted, cut off his hair and nails, and in a
plain carriage, drawn by white horses, clad in
rushes, in the guise of a sacrificial victim, he
Lts Doctrine and Worship of God. 55

proceeded to a forest of mulberry trees, and
there prayed, asking to what error or crime of
his life the calamity was owing. He had not
done speaking when a copious rain fell. The
ideas of substitution and consecration are thus
to be found in the history of China, but they
have not found their way into its religious
ceremonies.

The solstitial service is an acknowledgment
by the emperor for himself, and his
line, and the nation, of their obligations
to God.

18. Writing with reference to the solstitial
services, Dr. Edkins says that “the idea of a
sacrifice in them is that of a banquet.”! This is
hardly intelligible. The notion of the whole ser-
vice might be that of a banquet; but a sacrifice
and a banquet are incompatible ideas. Nor is
the idea of a banquet altogether appropriate to
a solstitial service. It is true that the ancestors
of the emperor are present, that is, are supposed
to be present, in spirit, on the altar, and receive
homage from him, thus being assessors of Shang
Ti, and sharing with him in the tribute of the
service ; but they are there only from the deep

' “Religion in China,” p. 23.
56 Confucianism :

conviction of the solidarity of the family, which
is characteristic of the Chinese. They and their
descendants are the representatives of the
family which was called by the divine decree
to rule the empire when the sovereigns of the
previous dynasty had been proved incompetent
to fulfil that high charge. The highest title of
the living chief of the family is that he is “the
son of Heaven,” the one man whom Heaven
delights to honour, as if he were Its first-born
son, and to whom is delegated the duty of
ruling the myriads of the people for their
good, in harmony with the divine will.

The emperor stands forth in his dignity, and
his glory is reflected on his ancestors, present
with him in spirit, and who have been the steps,
each in his own time and place, by which the
dignity came to him. But the whole service is
to Shang Ti, and the last act of it is the burning
of the offerings and prayers, that their smoke
may ascend in a cloud of incense to heaven.
The emperor, for himself and his line, and as
representing all the millions of his subjects, gives
in it solemn expression of their obligations to
God, and of their purpose to rule so as to secure
the objects intended by Him in the institution
of government. Such is my idea of the highest
acts of worship in the religion of China.
lts Doctrine and Worship of God. 57

The emperor does not preside at the
services as a priest.

19. It is often said that at the solstitial ser-
vices the emperor appears at once the high
priest and the father of the people. But if he
be the high priest, who are the class of priests
under him? There is no priesthood in China.
We apply improperly to the religious offerings
in its various services the name of sacrifices,
and then conclude that in order to offer those
sacrifices there must be priests.

Ancient division of the Chinese commu-
nity into four classes, with no _ indi-
cation of a priesthood.—The place of
that supplied, to some extent, by the
cultured class.

The distinction of all the Chinese community
into four classes is very ancient. It is named
in one of the books of the Shi? as an existing
division in the twelfth century B.c. The four
classes were the official or cultured class, the
husbandmen, the mechanics or workers, and the
traders or merchants. This was a social, and
not a religious, distribution of the community ;
and owing to it there never appeared in China

1 See note L. 2 V. xx. 12.
58 Confucianism.

anything like the castes of Brahmanism. The
official or cultured class have, all along the line
of Chinese history, borne some resemblance to a
clerical body. While the feudal system lasted,
the members of this class were scions of the
princely families of the different states, who had
been educated in the schools set apart for them,
and the shadowy forms of which we can dimly
discern nearly four thousand years'ago. When
the element of rank disappeared from the com-
munity, that of education was developed and
took its place. The literati generally became
the ruling class, or the class from which, as a
rule, the governors of the people should be
chosen. They come nearest to our idea of a
clerical body; but they are far enough from
being priests, or even in any sense ministers of
religion, unless when they are exercising some
function in connexion with the state worship.
The emperor himself presides at the highest
services of that worship as a minister of religion,
giving expression to the highest ideas of God
that have been the inheritance of his nation
for several millenniums, and acknowledging the
dependence of all upon Him for life and breath
and all things; but he does this as the parent
and representative of the people, and not as a
priest.
NOTES TO LECTURE I.

Note A, p. 5.

In the Buddhist work, “A Dispassionate Discussion of
Confucianism (lit. the system of the Learned), Bud-
dhism and Taoism,” by the recluse ascetic, Lid Mf, it
is said that “the great idea in Confucianism is correct-
ness,” and that its object is “the right ordering of
society.” This would reduce it to a system of morals
and manners. The author did not understand what
religion is. Confucianism is the only ene of the three
systems he treats of, from which he could have got an
idea of this. His discussion, of course, comes to a
triumphant issue in favour of Buddhism ; but the book
might in many respects be a model for controversialists.

Note B, p. 8.

I am speaking within bounds when I say that by these
characters we go back five thousand years. Their invention
is ascribed to Fé-hst, Ts‘ang Chieh, and Hwang Ti. The
first year of Hwang Ti was B.C. 2697 ; but, according to
the chronologists, the evidence preponderates in favour of
Fi-hsf (see the largest of the appendices to the Yi King,
ascribed to Confucius, Pt. ii. 23, and the preface to the
Shi King, by his descendant K'ung An-kwo), as the
inventor of the written characters. The “Chronological
Tables from the Twenty-four Histories,” published with
authority early in the present century, make Fi-hsi’s
60 Notes to Lecture L.

reign begin in B.C. 3252. They give another estimate
making the year B.C. 3697, and a third which would
place it at a still more distant date.

The “Chronological tables of the reigns throughout
the different dynasties,” published in 1817 by Ch‘i Shdo-
nan, give B.C. 3376 for Fi-hsi’s first year, placing also
fifteen reigns between him and the Yen Ti, Shan-nang
shih, without saying how long they lasted.

From the tables in the Yi Sze, or “ Lengthened His-
tories,” by M4 Sa of the present dynasty, the lowest
estimate makes Fi-hsi’s reign begin in B.c. 3316; but
one estimate is mentioned which would carry him up to
more than B.C. 20000 !

There is nothing extravagant, therefore, in placing the
commencement of the written characters of China five
thousand years back from the present time. Dr. Mor-
rison (View of China for Philological Purposes, p. 58)
makes Fi-hsi’s reign commence in B.C. 3369. The late Mr.
Mayers (Chinese Reader’s Manual, p. 366) reduces the
date to 2852; and he is followed by Dr. Edkins (Intro-
duction to the Study of Chinese Characters, p. 2). I
have not been able to find any Chinese authority for this
reduction. The assigning to Shan-nang only forty years
is evidently an oversight.

NOTE C, p. 9.

Hsii Shan, author of the Shwo Wa4n dictionary, A.D.
100, says that t‘ien was formed from yi and t 4, on the
principle of “ association of ideas.” Tai T‘ung, a lexico-
grapher of our thirteenth century, takes the upper line as
equivalent to “what is above,” and refers the formation
of t‘ien tothe principle of “indication.” His account
of its significance, however, is substantially the same as
that of Hsii Shan, which I have followed in the Lecture.
T‘ien is also a phonetic element, though overlooked by
Notes to Lecture L. 61

Callery, Williams, and Edkins. Dr. Williams even says
(Syllabic Dictionary, Introduction, p. lxi.) on the ninety-
first phonetic, “This primitive resembles t‘ien, heaven ;
but that forms no derivatives.” No derivatives! In
Chalmers’ Concise Dictionary of Chinese, p. 268, t‘ien
appears as a phonetic ; and, along with two other subor-
dinate phonetics derived from it, it gives rise to forty
different characters. It has all the characteristics of a
primitive.

NOTE D, p. to.

—
Ti is written Tht which is modified from a more ancient

form. Hsii Shan and Tai Tung make the upper portion
of it to indicate “what is above,” but they give us no
help towards analysing the rest. Dr. Chalmers (The
Origin of the Chinese, p. 12) makes the whole equivalent
to “He who is great, overruling heaven and earth.”
Whatever may be thought of this analysis, he introduces
it with the important observation that “ the peculiar nature
of Chinese written language has done good service in
stereotyping, so to speak, the primitive belief in one
Supreme Ti.” The “Concise Dictionary” shows forty-
two other characters, in which Ti? is the sole or partial
phonetic element.

NOTE E, p. Io.

This is Tai’s account of Ti,—“ the honourable designa-
tion of lordship and government.” The recognition of the
Supreme Being as our Lord and Governor is, I must
believe, the true sensus xuminis in the mind of man, It
is not an intuition innate in his nature; but it is a con-
viction that does not fail, in connexion with his per-
ceptions, to arise in the unsophisticated mind. My firm
persuasion of this has made me hold for many years
62 Notes to Lecture I.

that the Chinese Ti and our God are synonymous terms
of the two languages ; and it keeps me from accepting,
without question, the meaning of the Sanskrit Deva,
identified with deus and other corresponding terms, in
the root significance of being “the bright or shining.”
“The bright” may well be an epithet of God, as in the
old Chinese poem, “The bright and glorious Shang-Ti
(Shih, IV., Dec. ii., Ode 2,)” but could hardly be that
general appellation itself.

In illustration of this important point, I venture to give
two sentences from Sir Isaac Newton’s famous scholium
at the end of his Principia : “ Deus est vox relativa, et
ad servos refertur; et deitas est dominatio Dei, non in
corpus proprium utisentiunt quibus deus est anima mundi,
sed in servos. Deus summus est ens eternum, infinitum ;
sed ens, utcunque perfectum, sine dominio non est
dominus meus.” ‘There is a very remarkable reference
to this scholium at the commencement of Voltaire’s
tractate on ‘‘The Metaphysics of Sir Isaac Newton.
(London, 1747. Translated by David Erskine Baker.) ”

Nore F, p. 21.

The most common name for this tablet is Shan cha

(iH =F). on this name Dr. Williams (Syllabic

Dictionary, p. 88) says,—“Shan chad, the ancestral
tablet, intimating that the deified lord resides in it.”
“ Deified lord” is an erroneous translation of the cha-
racters for shan and chiiinthename. Shan, according
to its proper significance, is here the symbol for the idea
of spirit, spirits, spiritual, and is used substantively,
=“the Spirit.” Chia is here not =“lord,” though that is
a common meaning of the character. It is used as a
verb, in a well-known sense,—the symbol of residing with,
being present, as a guest (Mencius, V.i, ch. 8). The
Notes to Lecture I. 63

spirit is present at the service, a guest for the occasion.
On every occasion of worship, the first prayer is “to
meet or welcome the coming of the spirit ;” the last, “to
escort the spirit on its departure.” Before and after the ser-
vice, the spirit does not reside in the tablet. As it is one
of the prerogatives of the sovereigns of China “ to sacrifice
to or worship all spirits,” he is called pai shan chih
chi, “the host or entertainer of all spirits.”

Dr. Morrison’s account of the name shan chi is not
sufficiently complete, but it contains no inaccuracy, so
far as it goes : “Shan chi, a tablet in family temples with
the name of the deceased inscribed on it. If he have
held an official situation, the name of his office is inscribed
before his own” (Dictionary I. i., p. 30).

NOTE G, p. 36.

This error does not surprise me so much as that the
title-page of Regis’ translation should say that the Yi is
“Antiquissimus Sinarum Liber.” But this is due, I
suppose, to the editor, and not to Regis, so difficult is it
to free one’s self from the entanglement of a blunder that
has once obtained currency.

Note H, p. 39.

Professor Tiele (Religion of the Chinese, p. 28) says:
“ The twelfth century B.C. is the era of the establishment
of the Chau dynasty, whose cultus we know from the
book Chau Li. Plath objects to the conception of the
joint working of heaven and earth as a marriage, and
describes the earth as a feudal prince. But the great
power which they exert is called generation (sang) and
in the Yi King they are frequently represented as husband
and wife, as father and mother. The same idea occurs
also in the Shi King. See the passages cited by Plath
64 Notes to Lecture I.

himself, ‘Rel. der alten Chinesen,’ pp. 35—38, and 73.
To treat this as a type of parental care is inappropriate.
The two original principles, Yang and Yin, which Plath
regards as the fruit of later philosophical reflection, make
their appearance as early as [100 B.C. in the Chau Li,
op. cit, vii. 3, and ix. 10, 11; and in the same work it is
not the chief vassal of the empire, but the principal wife
of the emperor, who is named after the earth. The
old and generally diffused myth of the marriage between
heaven and earth certainly lies at the foundation of
Chinese mythology also, though the philosophers after-
wards disguised it past recognition.”

I have thought it well to give the whole of Tiele’s note.
When he says that it is not the chief vassal, but the
principal wife of the emperor, that is named after the
earth, he must intend to say that the earth is not named
after the chief vassal, but after the principal wife,—
referring to the phraseology “ Hwang Tien, Hau T‘t,”
of which there is an instance in the prayer quoted from
Dr. Edkins on p. 34, and translated by him, correctly,
“ Tmperial Heaven and Sovereign Earth.” Hau need not
be feminine any more than Hwang need be masculine.
This correction takes away the force of his argument in
adducing the phraseology. The idea he is insisting on
occurs indeed in the Shi, but only in the passages which I
have specially commented on at p. 30. He would hardly
have said that to treat the language in them as a type
of parental love is inappropriate, if he had known what
I have called attention to in a note on the same page, that
in the same sentence where “Heaven and Earth” is called
the father and mother of all creatures, the one sovereign
is called the father and mother of the people. Plath was
correct in saying that the joint working of heaven and
earth in the Yi was not to be regarded as the result of
their marriage. A marriage and its consequences by no
means covers the antinomy of the Yin and Yang.
LVotes to Lecture L. 65

Note I, p. 43.

These two sentences are the twenty-fourth and thirty-
second of what is called “the Great Appendix (Section 1).”
The former appears in P. Regis as—“ Principia Yin Yang
habent viam suam seu operandi ordinem certum mo-
dumque vel legem naturalem.”—Dr. Medhurst (Theology
of the Chinese, p. 114,) translated it by, “One male
principle or (? and) one female principle of nature may
be called the right course of things.” Canon M‘Clatchie
has, “The revolving Darkness-Light is Reason.” The
second sentence appears in P. Regis as—“Quod non
cadit sub mensuram modumque principiorum Yin, Yang,
dicitur Chin (Shan) Spiritus.” Dr. Medhurst translated
it by—“The inscrutable character of the male and
female principle may be denominated Shan, the mys-
terious.” Canon M‘Clatchie has, “ That which is incom-
prehensible in the Darkness-Light (Yin-Yang) is God.”

Strangely enough, the meaning found by Canon
M‘Clatchie is the same as that which I also find in it.
He comes to his view, however, by mistranslating the
character shin, which means spirit and spiritual, and
the view is incongruous on his system of interpretation.
The rendering of shan by Dr. Medhurst, mysterious,
is only admissible when we bear in mind that behind the
mysterious is the idea of spirit, spiritual.

NoTE K, p. 44.
So I must understand the title Hwang T‘ien Shang

Ti (= RK Ez iii) literally—“ Sovereign Heaven,

Supreme God.” But the two pairs of characters cannot
well be taken as binomial nouns in apposition, nor can
we construe the first pair as performing the part of an
adjective, and qualifying the second. The version which
I have given is not contrary to Chinese usage.

5
66 Notes to Lecture T.

When the Roman Catholic missionaries at Peking,
during the K‘ang-hsi period (1662—1722), were disputing
among themselves about the meaning of the names Tien
and Shang Ti, those on one side presented a memorial
to the emperor in Manchi, submitting their view that
the two names denote but one object,—the Supreme
Ruler, and that T‘ien, singly or with attributives, was to
be understood of the place of Ti, employed, according
to Chinese usage, to avoid directly naming Him. The
emperor caused their memorial to be translated into
Chinese, and published it in the imperial Gazette, with
a declaration of his own approval of their views. See
Remusat’s “ Notices des Manuscrits,” pp. 414, 415.

Note L, p. 57.

The Chinese character tsi (3) covers a much wider

space of meaning than our term sacrifice. The account
of it in Morrison’s Dictionary, Part i., taken mainly from
the K‘ang-hsi dictionary, is—“To carry human affairs
before the gods (2.e. spirits). That which is the medium
between, or brings together, men and gods. To offer
flesh in the rites of worship ; to sacrifice with victims.”
There is nothing in the K‘ang-hsf corresponding to his
third sentence ; but I suppose Morrison took it from the
account of the character that is quoted from Hsii Shan’s
dictionary, and which says that tsi is made up of two
ideagrams ;—one the primitive for spiritual beings (see
p. 11), and the cther representing a right hand and a
piece of flesh. Offerings of flesh must have been common
in religious worship when the character was formed.
The most general idea symbolised by it is—an offering
whereby communication and communion with spiritual
beings is effected.
IT.

CONFUCIANISM : ITS WORSHIP OF THE
DEAD, AND TEACHING ABOUT MAN.
CONFUCIUS.
ti AH fs RK

“Esteem most highly filial piety and brotherly submission,
in order to give their due importance to the social relations.” —
The K'ang-hst Sacred Edict, Precept I.

“‘ Honour thy father and thy mother ; that thy days may be
long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”—F7fth
Commandment,
II.

The worship of their forefathers by all the
Chinese people.

I. ape first thing to be set forth in the pre-

sent Lecture is the Confucian worship of
ancestors. The former Lecture was occupied
principally with the worship of God as _ per-
formed by the sovereign of China for himself
and as the representative of his people; the
worship of his ancestors is also a part of the
state ceremonial, but in performing this the
sovereign does not stand alone ;—the worship
of their forefathers has always been the prac-
tice of all the Chinese people.

We found that a belief in one supreme and
only God was coeval with the fathers and
founders of the nation, and was testified to by
the primitive written characters. The worship
of God was, no doubt, the first, and for a time,
probably, the only worship. By-and-by all
nature was conceived to be a manifestation of
God, and to be peopled with spirits superintend-
70 Confucianism :

ing and controlling its different parts in sub-
ordination to Him. There grew up a worship
of these spirits in connexion with the worship
of God. The name of God was not given to
them, but honour was done to them as ministers
of God, and help might be sought from them
as mediators with Him. And it came about,
as we saw, that the worship of God and of these
spirits was all devolved on the Head of the
people. At the same time the recognition of
the one God was common to all. They knew
that in Him they “lived and moved and had
their being,” and that His will should be the
rule of their lives. All derived from Him their
life and nature; all owed to Him the duties of
obedience and reverence.

The philosopher Mencius says in one place,
that “though a man were wicked, yet if he
adjusted his thoughts, fasted, and bathed, he
might sacrifice to God.”! The language shows
the value that Mencius attached to penitent
purification, and how he felt that all men had to
dowith God. But the people were debarred from
the worship of Him. That was done for them
vicariously. Men, however, must worship, and as
they were cut off from worshipping God, there
remained for them the worship of their ancestors.

' Mencius, IV. ii. ch. 23.
Lts Worship of Parents and Ancestors. 71

Filial piety._-The worship of parents a
part of it.

2. According to Confucius, the worship of
parents is part of the duty of filial piety. “The
services,’ he said, “of love and reverence to
parents when alive, and those of grief and sor-
row for them when dead :—these completely
discharge the fundamental duty of living men.’”
The fundamental duty of living men is filial
piety, and among the services of grief and
sorrow to parents when dead, the worship of
them holds a prominent place. Confucius was
expressing in these sentiments the tradition of
his race. The character for filial piety, called
hsido, is one of the primitive characters: used
itself as a phonetic element, it is yet made up
of two other primitives, the symbols or pictures
of an old man anda son.* Thus the primary
conception of filial piety was set forth by the
picture of a son bearing up, or supporting, his
father. But supporting and nourishing by no
means exhaust the duty or virtue. Take a
pretty full description of it from the sage.

° The Hsido King, ch. 18.
3 Hsido (¥) = ldo (#., an old man) over tsze

Cy , a son).
72 Confucianism:

“The service,” said he, “which a filial son does
to his parents is as follows:—In his general
conduct to them, he manifests the utmost
reverence; in his nourishing of them, his en-
deavour is to give them the utmost pleasure ;
when they are ill, he feels the greatest anxiety ;
in mourning for them (dead), he exhibits every
demonstration of grief; in sacrificing to them,
he displays the utmost solemnity. When a son
is complete in these five things, (he may be
pronounced) able to serve his parents.

“He who (thus) serves his parents, in a high
situation will be free from pride; in a low situ-
ation will be free from insubordination ; and
among his equals will not be quarrelsome. In
a high situation, pride leads to ruin; in a low
situation, insubordination leads to punishment ;
among equals, quarrelsomeness leads to the
wielding of weapons. If those three things be
not put away, though a son every day contribute
beef, mutton, and pork to nourish his parents, he
is not filial." With the sentiment in this last
sentence may be compared what Confucius says
in the Analects, that the reverence of parents
was necessary to distinguish our support of them
from that given to our horses and dogs,?

' The Hsido King, ch. ro.
? Analects, II. vii.
Lts Worship of Parents and Ancestors. 73

Filial piety and worship of Shun; and
subsequently down to the Chau
dynasty.—Living representatives of the
dead then employed.

3. It was in the account of the ancient Shun,
given in the Sha King, that we found the first
instances of religious worship addressed to God
and to the host of spirits. Shun’s first appear-
ance in the Sh is in connexion with the report
of his filial piety. It was that virtue which led
to his elevation to the throne; and we have in
the classic clear intimation that the worship of
ancestors was observed even in his time. He
asks his chief minister, to whom he should
commit the direction of his three (religious)
ceremonies,—the ceremonies, that is, in the
worship of the spirits of heaven, of earth, and
of men. One Po-i being recommended, he
appoints him in these words: “Ho! Po, you
must be the arranger in the Ancestral Temple.
Morning and night be reverent. Be upright, be
pure.” Thus the dignitary whom we may call
the minister of Religion at the court of Shun was
specially denominated the arranger in the Ances-
tral Temple. The ceremonies belonging to that
would require most of his time and attention.

1 The Shéa, II. i. 23.
74 Confucianism :

Our information about the services in the
ancestral temple increases, as might be ex-
pected, as time goes on. What Confucius said
of them as practised by the founders of the
Chau dynasty might have been said, I believe,
from the time of Shun. Once every season
worship was performed. “In spring and autumn,”
—and it might have been added in summer and
winter—“they repaired and beautified the temple
of their ancestors, set forth the vessels that had
belonged to them, displayed their various robes,
and presented the offerings of the several sea-

sons.” ?

The worshipper, as preliminary to the
service, when it was confined to one ancestor,
had to fast for two days, and to think of the
person whom he was intending to honour,—
where he had stood and sat, how he had
smiled and spoken, what had been his cherished
aims, pleasures, and delights; and on the third
day he would have a complete image of him
in his mind’s eye. Then on the day cf the
service, when he entered the temple, he would
seem to see him in the shrine, and to hear
him as he went about in the discharge of his
worship.

There are in the Shih two odes descriptive of

the worship of T‘ang, the founder of the Shang

? Doctrine of the Mean, ch. 19.
lis Worship of Parents and Ancestors. 75

dynasty (B.c. 1766—1122). I will read to you
one of them, written apparently by a member
of the royal House who had taken part in the
service :—

“O grand! The drums, both large and for the hand,
Complete in number, all in order stand ;
Their tones, though loud, harmoniously are blent,
And rise to greet our ancestor’s descent.

Him the great T‘ang, of merit vast, our king
Asks by this music to descend, and bring

To us, the worshippers, the soothing sense
That he, the object of desire intense,

Is here. Deep are the sounds the drums emit ;
And now we hear the flutes, which shrilly fit
Into the diapason :—concord great,

Which the sonorous gem doth regulate !
Majestic is our king of T‘ang’s great line,
Whose instruments such qualities combine.

Large bells we hear, which with the drums have place,
While in the court the dancers move with grace.
Scions of ancient lines the service view,

Pleased and delighted, guests of goodness true.

Such service we received from former days,

Down from our sires who showed us virtue’s ways,—
How to be meek and mild, from morn to night,

And reverently discharge our parts aright.

May T'ang accept the rites his son thus pays,

As round the winter comes, and autumn days !”

In the Sha, in “The Speech at Kan,” probably
a contemporaneous document of about 2194
B.C., the second sovereign of the Hsia dynasty
76 Confucianism :

is leading his troops against a rebellious vassal,
to inflict on him “the punishment appointed by
Heaven.” Having exhorted them to be valiant,
he concludes by saying, “You who obey my
orders shail be rewarded before (the spirits of) my
ancestors, and you who disobey my orders shall
be put to death before the altar of the spirit
of the land.” This seems to indicate that the
ancient kings carried with them to the field
the tablets of the spirits of their ancestors and
of the spirit of the land, to be an omen of
success, just as the army of Israel required on
one occasion that the ark of God should be
brought to the camp.

We conclude also from this passage that the
spirit-tablets, of which I spoke in the former
lecture, were in use at the commencement of
the Hsia period, and I embrace the occasion
which it presents to mention a strange inno-
vation in this practice that took place during
the period of Chau. The wooden tablet was
discarded, and the departed ancestors were
represented at the service by living relatives
of the same surname, chosen according to
certain rules. These took for the time the
place of the dead, received the honours which
were due to them, and were supposed to be
possessed by their spirits. They ate and drank
Lis Worship of Parents and Ancestors. 77

as those whom they personated would have
done; accepted for them the homage rendered
by their descendants, communicated their will
to the principal worshipper, and pronounced on
him and on his line their benediction, being
assisted in this point by a mediating officer of
prayer. This strange practice of using living
relatives at the ancestral worship, instead of the
wooden tablets, passed away with the dynasty
in which it prevailed. I make but one other
remark about it ;—strange as it was, it confirms
my opinion that there was, and is, nothing of
fetishism in the use of the spirit-tablet.

Further description of the filial piety and
worship of the Chau kings.—Titles and
worship carried back to ancestors.—
Seasons of worship were family reunions.

4. The Shih abounds in pieces descriptive
of the services in the ancestral temple of the
Chau kings. There are others which may be
denominated sacred songs of filial piety. This
virtue is celebrated as the crowning attribute of
the founders of the dynasty. Take as a specimen
the following piece in praise of Wd, who heads
the list of the actual sovereigns of his line :—

“¢ Kings die in Chau, and others rise,
And in their footsteps tread.
8

Confucianism:

Three had there been, and all were wise,
And still they ruled, though dead.

T‘ai, Chi, and W&n were all in heaven,

When Wi to follow them was given.

Yes, Wa to follow them was given.
To imitate his sires,
And to obey the will of Heaven,
He ardently desires.
This aim through all his course endured,
And this the people’s trust secured.

Yes, Wi secured the people’s faith,
And gave to all the law

Of filial duty, which till death
Shining in him they saw.

Such piety possessed his mind ;

Such pattern did he leave behind.

Thus the one man was Wd, the One,
The king whom all did love.

They saw in him the pattern son ;
Such sons to be they strove.

The filial aim in him bright shone;

In him were seen the dead and gone.

In Wd his sires were thus brought back.
The kings that from him spring,
Continuing in his steps to walk,
Upon themselves shall bring,
Through myriad years to Chau still given,
The blessing of impartial Heaven.

Ah! yes, Heaven’s blessing will descend,
And men their names shall bless.

Thousands from Chau’s remotest end
Their praises shall express.

Their sway through myriad years shall last

Nor helpers fail, strong friends and fast.”

?
Lis Worship of Parents and Ancestors. 79

Besides the innovation of living represen-
tatives of the departed in the ancestral temple,
another alteration in the manner of the worship
was made by the famous legislator of the Chau
dynasty. Confucius says in the Hsiao: “ Of all
the actions of man, there is none greater than
filial piety ; and in filial piety there is nothing
greater than the reverential awe of one’s father.
In the reverential awe shown to one’s father
there is nothing greater than making him the
correlate of Heaven. The duke of Chau was
the one who first did this.”! That is, as the
text goes on to say, the duke of Chau associated
the remote ancestor of his line with the service
at the border altar to Heaven, and instituted
another great service to God, at which his father,
king Wan, was the correlate or assessor. Many
of the Chinese scholars, in explaining the
passage, say that Shun thought only of the
virtue of his ancestors, and did not associate
the spirits of any of them with the worship at
the border altar; that the kings of Hsia and
Yin were the first to do this with the founders
of their lines; but that the honour was not ex-
tended to the father of the sovereign till the duke
of Chau. This explanation of the language of
Confucius I am constrained to accept; and it

' The Hsiao, ch. ix.
80 Confuctanism :

gives us a glimpse of the earliest worship of
God in the prehistoric time. He occupies His
altar alone. No spirit-tablets of favoured and
distinguished men are allowed upon it. The
service has nothing to make us regard it as
a feast or banquet. It was a tribute of homage
and gratitude to the one Lord and Governor
by the Head and representative of the Chinese
people.

And the duke of Chau did more than give
a place to the tablet of his father, on the altar
of God. “He carried up the title of king to
his grandfather and great-grandfather, and
sacrificed to all the former dukes of the line
with the ceremonies due to the Son of Heaven.”!
Such has been the rule in all subsequent
dynasties. The emperors of the present Manchi
dynasty have actually possessed the throne only
since 1644, but the title is given to six others
who preceded them as kings or chieftains of
their Manchurian inheritance. These share with
the sovereigns since 1644 in the worship, which
is performed in the grand ancestral temple at
the end of the year, while the more frequent
worship in the first month of each season ex-
tends only to the grandfather of the first emperor.
Their wives also have a part in the service,

1 Doctrine of the Mean, ch. 18.
Lts Worship of Parents and Ancestors. 8t

each pair of tablets being placed side by side
in one shrine.

From what has been said, it will appear to
you that those great seasonal occasions at the
court of China have always been what we might
call grand family reunions, where the dead and
the living meet, eating and drinking together,—
where the living worship the dead, and the dead
bless the living. This appears very clearly in
the following lines from a long ballad sung at
the court of one of the marquises of LA, of the
seventh century B.C. :—

“ In autumn comes the autumnal rite,
With bulls, whose horns in summer bright
Were capped with care : '—one of them white,
For the great duke of Chau designed ;
One red, for all our princes shrined.
And see! they place the goblet full,
In figure fashioned as a bull ;
The dishes of bamboo and wood ;
Sliced meat, roast pig, and pottage good,
And the large stand. Below the hall
There wheel and move the dancers all ;
O filial prince, your sires will bless,
And grant you glorious success.
Long life and goodness they’ll bestow
On you, to hold the state of La,

‘The horns of the bulls were capped, to keep them
from goring, and also to preserve them from injury. If
they were in any way injured, they could not be used as

victims.

6
82 Confucianism :

And all the eastern land secure,

Like moon complete, like mountain sure.
No earthquake’s shock, or flood’s wild rage,
Shall e’er disturb your happy age ;

And with your aged nobles three,
Unbroken shall your friendship be,

In long and firm security.” '

Prayers to the dead.

5. Of the prayers or addresses in the ances-
tral worship, the time will only permit me to
give three brief specimens. The two following
are from the statutes of the Ming dynasty :—“I
think of you, my sovereign ancestors, whose
glorious souls are in heaven. As from an over-
flowing fountain run the happy streams, such is
the connexicn between you and your descend-
ants. I, a distant descendant, having received
the appointment (from Heaven), look back and
offer this bright sacrifice to you, the honoured
ones from age to age, for hundreds of thousands
and myriads of years.” And again: “Now
brightly manifested, now mysteriously hid, the
movements of the spirits are without trace;
in their imperial chariots they wander about,
tranquil wherever they go. Their souls are in
heaven ; their tablets are in the rear apartment.
Their sons and grandsons remember them with

1 The Shih, IV. ii., Ode 4.
Lts Worship of Parents and Ancestors. 83

filial thoughts untiring.” To the same effect, and
in nearly the same language, is a concluding
prayer of the present dynasty, taken from a
ritual published in 1826. “Now ye front us,
(O Spirits,) and now ye pass by us, ascending
and descending, unrestricted by conditions of
place. The adytum behind is still and retired,
very tranquil and felicitous. Your souls are in
heaven; your tablets are in that apartment.
For myriads of years will your descendants

think of you with filial thoughts unwearied.”

Something pleasing about filial worship,
but it was injurious.

6. A recent writer who has carefully studied
the ritualistic books of the Chau dynasty, has
said: “It was supposed to be the glory of the
early statesmen and sages to have correctly ap-
prehended the natural feeling of filial duty, so as
to make it an engine for the perfect government
of the family, the state, and the empire. In
the description given us of the intention of the
sages we seem to lose sight of superstition, and
to be in the presence of practices as harmless
as some which flourish in Christian countries.” *
There is considerable truth in this representa-

1 Rev. John Macintyre, in the China Review, VII.
v. 249.
84 Confuctanism :

tion. The people, as I have already pointed
out, being cut off from the worship of God for
themselves, there remained for them the worship
of their ancestors} the only other channel that
had been opened in the nation for the flow of
religious feeling. The sages, therefore, dealt
with filial duty so as to make a religion of it.
It was not a religion capable of existing by
itself, apart from the belief in and worship of
the one God, the Lord and Governor; but it
stood side by side with that higher worship, and
the influence of it was injurious.

Ancestors became tutelary spirits.—Service
of the duke of Chau.

7. The ancestors of the kings were exalted to
the position of the tutelary spirits of the dynasty,
and the ancestors of each family became its
tutelary spirits. This result appears clearly
in the passage on p. 81 from one of the praise-

' The following passage from the will of Napoleon IIT.
sounds remarkably like a Chinese utterance :—“It is
necessary to consider that from heaven on high those
whom you have loved regard and protect you ;—it is the
soul of my illustrious uncle that has always inspired and
sustained me. The like will apply to my son, for he will
always be worthy of his name. With regard to my son,
let him be convinced that my heart and my soul remain
with him.”
Lis Worship of Parents and Ancestors. 85

songs of Lai. And it is even more remarkably
shown in the fifth part of the Sha, in the book
called “The Metal-bound Coffer.” There the
duke of Chau appears proposing to die in lieu
of his brother who was dangerously ill, and
whose life he considered more necessary to their
infant dynasty than his own. To accomplish
his object, he conducts a special service to his
father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and
prays to them as having in heaven the charge
of watching over the life of king Wd, and the
interests of their line, begging that his own death
may be accepted in substitution for that of Wa.
We are told that the day after this prayer the
king got better, while the duke of Chau con-
tinued to live and act as chief minister.

Defect of the system.—Case of Ch'ing 1.—
Has driven the masses to the Taoists.

8. The ancestral worship thus tended to
produce the superstition of tutelary spirits.
And there was also a great defect attaching
to it. It originated in the feudal time, when
the king and the vassal lords, with their high
nobles and great officers, all had their temples,
The worship of their ancestors could be kept up
by them ; but what provision was there for its
maintenance among the masses of the people?
86 Confuctanism :

When the feudal system passed away, the
case was harder still. Ch'ang I, a very dis-
tinguished scholar of our eleventh century, tells
us that in his time most of the families of great
officers, and other officers, neglected the worship
of their ancestors and other traditional rites.
They might be attentive to the support of their
parents, but they failed in doing what was
required of them for their ancestors. The state
of things, he says, was very deplorable. He
himself had a temple,—perhaps it was only a
large shrine,—connected with his house, and
furnished with the spirit-tablets of his ancestors.
Before these, on the first day of each month,
he set forth fresh offerings. He observed the
seasonal services in the second month of each
season. At the winter solstice he sacrificed to
his remotest ancestor; in the beginning of spring,
to his grandfather; and in the third month of
autumn, to his father. On the anniversary of a
death, he removed the tablet of the individual
to the principal adytum of the temple, and
there performed a special service; for the rites
of the service of the dead ought to be observed
more liberally than the duty of nourishing the
living.

This is an interesting account of the practice

' Taken from Chi Hsi’s Hsiao Hsio, Bk. 5, par. 6.
Lts Worship of Parents and Ancestors. 87

of an extraordinary man, though it may occur to
us to doubt whether it was healthy for his mind
to dwell so much withthe dead. It was possible,
however, for him, a man of culture and wealth,
and latterly in an official position, to maintain
his temple and keep all the days he mentions ;
but such a thing is not possible for the common
people. Unable to observe the ancestral wor-
ship as prescribed in the Confucian literature,
finding it too cold and too exacting, they have
thrown themselves into the arms of the T4aoists
and Buddhists, becoming the victims especially
of Taoist superstition. It does not fall within
my province to describe in this Lecture the
actual ancestral worship that is, through the
prevalence of Taoism, a great feature in the
social life of the country. Millions fancy that
their dead, and other dead, are in a sort of
purgatory, and will spite and injure them if
they do not bring about their deliverance. The
Taoist professors fleece them in order to effect
that object, and are wonderfully ingenious in
finding occasions to wheedle or frighten their
victims out of their money. Feeling, in itself
good and admirable, is abused, and made to
supply the wages of greediness and deceit.’

1 See an Essay on ancestral worship, by the Rev. Dr.
Yates, in Records of the General Conference of Protestant
88 Confucianism :

Result of the teaching of filial piety.

g. The Chinese teaching of filial piety has
done much to turn the hearts of the children
back to their fathers, and to keep them attached
to them and their ways. I will point out in my
fourth lecture wherein I think it wrong and
injurious; but numberless instances, well attested,
of filial devotion could be added We are
justified in looking on the long-continued exist-
ence and growth of the nation as a verification
of the promise attached to our fifth command-
ment, “ Honour thy father and mother, that thy
days may be long in the land which Jehovah thy
God giveth thee.”

The worship of the departed great.

10. The worship of the departed great need
not detain us long. The theory of it is given

Missionaries in China, held at Shanghai in May, 1877
(Shang-hai, Presbyterian Mission Press). Dr. Yates’
account of his subject is full and graphic; he unfortu-
nately sees only its dark side.

' Dr. Yates has had a different experience. ‘‘ Of all the
people,” he says, “of whom we have any knowledge, the
sons of the Chinese are most unfilial, disobedient to parents,
and pertinacious in having their own way. The filial
duties of a Chinese son are performed after the death of
his parents.” I am thankful I have not to endorse this
representation.
Lts Worship of the Departed Great. 8g

in the last paragraph of the book called “The
Laws of Sacrifice,” in the “Record of Rites or
Ceremonies.” It is there said: “The rule ob-
served by the sage kings in instituting sacrifices
was this,—that those who had legislated for
the people should be sacrificed to, also those
who had died in the diligent discharge of their
duties, those whose toils had established states,
and those who had warded off, or given succour
in, great calamities.”

Then follows a list of ancient worthies, dis-
tinguished by such achievements, and the
paragraph concludes: “As to the sun, moon,
and constellations of the zodiac, they are
looked up to by men with admiration; and
as to mountains, forests, rivers, and valleys,
the people derive from them their material
resources. It is only such beneficial services
that give a place in the sacrificial canon.” It
was shown in the former Lecture that, in what
is briefly called sacrificing to the hills and other
material objects, the worship is really paid to
the spirits presiding over them for the good of
men under God. So it is in regard to the
worship of the benefactors of the people in all
the course of time. It is dominated by the
idea of the one God, the Lord and Governor,
with which the Chinese fathers started in their
go Confucianism :

social state. This is very evident in the
following verses at one of the border services
of the Chau dynasty, addressed to Ch't or Hau-
chi, to whom its kings traced their lineage,
and whom they honoured besides as the father
of husbandry. He is one of those worthies
mentioned in the paragraph in “The Laws of
Sacrifice,’ and it was said to him :—

“O thou, accomplished, great Hau-chi,
To thee alone ’twas given,
To be, by what we owe to thee,
The correlate of Heaven.

On all who dwell within our land
Grain-food didst thou bestow -

Tis to thy wonder-working hand
This gracious boon we owe.

God had the wheat and barley meant
To nourish all mankind :

None would have fathomed His intent
But for thy guiding mind.

Man’s social duties thou didst show
To every tribe and state :

From thee the social virtues flow
That stamp our land ‘ the Great.’”

In such worship of the departed great there
is little to shock us. The memory of the just
and the good is blessed all the world over.
Every nation should keep its benefactors in
remembrance, and men everywhere should
Lis Worship of the Departed Great. 91

honour the names of all of every nation who
have ministered by their example and instruc-
tions to the advance and amelioration of our
race. But to build temples to the dead; to
present offerings to them; to invoke and
expect their presence at the service; and to
expect and pray for their help :—these are
things that are not founded in reason and
truth, and that encourage superstition instead
of contributing to the healthy edifying of the
mind and manners.

Imperial worship of such, and its evils.

There is in Peking the “Temple of the
kings and emperors of different dynasties,”
and twice a year, in spring and autumn, the
reigning sovereign visits it, and worships the
spirits of the long line, and of the most noted
of their ministers. The sacrificial canon of
1826 contains the names of about a hundred
and ninety sovereigns, from Fi-hsi downwards.
The roll is a wonderful testimony to the con-
tinuous occupancy of the throne of China»
and there is much to nourish the pride ‘and
soothe the mind of the worshipper in the
thought that when his line has passed away,
there will yet be a tablet in that or a similar
hall to his spirit. The members of the Board
92 Confucianism :

of Rites, and the reigning emperor, decide
what former sovereigns shall be included in
the canon, and what excluded from it. Such
a name as that of the founder of the Ch'in
dynasty, the burner of the classical books,
and destroyer of the Confucian scholars, can
never obtain a place; but in general there is
little regard paid to the moral and intellectual
character of the different sovereigns. The
second Mancha emperor, the famous sovereign
of the K‘ang-hst period, declared that it was
unseemly for men to discuss the characters
of those who had occupied the throne, and
whether they should be sacrificed to or not.
The canon thus becomes a tribute to power
and place, without regard to worth and virtue.
So it is in the worship of the departed great
by the emperor: you can conceive how liable
the practice is to be abused, when it descends
among the people.

Warning of Confucius.

I consider that Confucius uttered his protest
against it, when he said, “ For a man to sacrifice
to a spirit which does not belong to him is
(mere) flattery.”1_ The term employed is that
which represents the spirits of the deceased.

' Analects, II. 24.
Its Worship of the Departed Great. 93

That all should worship the spirits of their
ancestors was an institution of his country,
which the sage himself observed; but to go
beyond the circle of one’s family and worship
was nothing but flattery, a thing unauthorized,
and done with a mercenary aim.!

Had the worship of the spirits of the
departed a good moral influence ?

11. It is time that I should go on to our
next topic, and I will only detain you from it
while I ask, and endeavour to answer, the
question,— Have we reason to think that the
worship of the spirits which has been described
had or has now a beneficial, a moral and reli-
gious influence? Of course, we smile at the
idea of the service having power to bring the
spirits to the tablets from wherever they are ;
but as the significance of the Chinese term,
which has been accepted as meaning sacrifice,
is the having communion and communication
with, we can conceive the sincere worshipper
striving to recall his fathers, and dwelling on
their virtues, till he feels the glow of affection,
and resolves to be good as they were. I have
often talked with Chinese on the subject, but
never got full and satisfactory answers to my

' See Note A.
94 Confucianism :

inquiries. They would assert they were benefited
by the worship, and then refer me to three
classical passages. The first was the language
of Confucius, “ How abundantly do spiritual
beings display their powers! They cause all
men under heaven to fast and purify themselves,
and put on their richest dresses to engage in
their sacrifices. Then, like overflowing water,
they seem to be over the heads, and on the
right and left (of their worshippers).”!

The second was the account of the good
king Wan, in one of the pieces of the Shih :—

“Wan formed himself upon his sires,
Nor gave their spirits pain.
Well pleased were they. Next he inspires
His wife. His brethren fain
To follow there. In every state
The chiefs on his example wait.

In palace see him,—bland, serene ;
In fane,—with rev’rent fear.
Unseen by men, he still felt seen
By spirits always near.
Unweariedly did he maintain
His virtue pure, and free from stain.”?

The third passage was also from the Shih,
from a long and admirable piece in which an

1 Doctrine of the Mean, ch. 16.
? The Shih, III. ii, Ode 6.
Lts Doctrine about Man. 95

aged marquis of Wei admonishes himself to a
virtuous and intelligent course! It is more to
the point, and speaks of the spirits generally,
and not only as intercourse is sought with them
in the temple. Thus it runs :—
‘When mingling with superior men,

In friendly intercourse, oh! then

How mild your face! what harmony !

All wrong and error, how you flee!

When in your chamber, ’neath its light,

Your conscience keep as pure and bright.

Say not, ‘ No one can see me here ;

The place is secret.’ Be in fear.

The spirits come, but when and where

No one beforehand can declare.

The more we should not spirits slight,
But ever feel as in their sight.”

Man is the creature of God.

12. The third topic will now receive our
attention,— What the religion of China teaches
concerning man, especially as to his nature, his
duty, and his destiny.

You remember the prayers at a great solstitial
service of the Ming dynasty, which I introduced
in my former Lecture,—how it was said in them
that all the numerous tribes of living beings
are indebted to God for their beginning ; that
it is He alone, the Lord, who is the true parent

1 [bid., II. iii, Ode 2.
96 Confucianism :

of all things ; that He made heaven and earth
and men. Most of us were acquainted, I suppose,
at one time, with what is called “The First
Catechism,” by Dr. Watts. The first question
in it is—“Can you tell me, child, who made
you?” A Chinese child, familiar with those
prayers, would be likely to answer in the very
words of Dr. Watts, “The great God who made
heaven and earth.” And the answer would be
according to the testimony of some of the oldest
Chinese documents. “Heaven gives birth to
the people,’ said Chung-hui, a minister of the
great T‘ang, in the eighteenth century B.c.; and
the same sentiment is repeated in a poem of
the ninth century B.c.—“Heaven gives birth
to mankind.”? That man is the creature of
Heaven, or God, therefore, is a tenet of the

religion of China.

The most intelligent of all creatures.

In a passage which I adduced from the Sha
it is said that “man is the most intelligent of all
creatures.”* If we ask what there is peculiar
in the constitution of man that gives him this

' The Shi, IV. ii. 2.
2 The Shih, III. iii., Ode 6.
* The Sha, V.i., sect. 1. See p. 30.
lis Doctrine about Man. 97

superior intelligence, these ancient writings do not
tellus. Mencius indeed says that “ that whereby
man differs from the lower animals is but small,
and that the majority of people cast it away,
while superior men preserve it;” but, without
pausing to define the differentiating character-
istic, he goes on to specify the ancient Shun
as one of the superior men. “ Shun,” he says,
“clearly understood the (natures of) things, and
marked the relations of men. He walked along
the path of benevolence and righteousness, not
needing to pursue it as by an effort.”! The
philosopher was not thinking metaphysically
of the difference between men and animals, but
wished to commend the cultivation of moral
qualities to his hearers; and hence Chao Ch'i
of our second century, the great commentator
on his works, says that the difference in question
is “simply the interval between the knowledge
of righteousness and the want of that know-
ledge.” This interval is indeed great, but it
appears that the ancient Chinese held popularly
that man is “the most intelligent of all creatures,”
just as we do when we say of some remarkable
for their depravity that they put themselves
below the level of the brutes.

' Mencius, IV. ii. 19.
98 Confucianism :

The duty required of man is compliance
with his moral nature.

13. On the duty required by God from this
most intelligent of His creatures, and the way
in which man was enabled to fulfil it, we have
the following statements. Thus spake Tang,
whose name must by this time be familiar to
your ears: “The great God has conferred
(even) on the inferior people a moral sense,
compliance with which would show their nature
invariably right. To make them tranquilly
pursue the course which it would indicate is the
work of the sovereign.”! To the same effect is
what we read in the Shih, in a piece, referred to
a little ago, of the ninth century B.c.: “ Heaven,
in giving birth to mankind, to every faculty and
relationship annexed its laws. The people
possess this normal nature, and they (conse-
quently) love its normal virtue.”? Thus every
faculty of man has its function to fulfil, every
relationship its duty to be discharged. The
function and the duty are the laws which man
has to observe. This is the normal nature con-
ferred by Heaven, the moral sense, compliance
with which would show men’s conduct invariably

’ The Sha, IV. iii. 2.
? The Shih, III. iii., Ode 6.
Its Doctrine about Man. 99

right. This moral sense constitutes man in his
various relations “a law to himself.”

Kings and sages appointed to rule and
guide men to fulfil their duty.

14. But men need guidance and help in the
use of their normal nature ; and T‘ang’s idea was
that to define the course of duty and assist men
to keep it was the work of the sovereign. The
editors of the imperial edition of the Sha that
appeared in 1730 pause at this point in the
classic to express their admiration of Tang.
He was the first, they say, to bring out clearly
the doctrine of human nature. It was con-
tained in utterances of the more ancient Shun
to which they refer, but only darkly. T'ang is
worthy of their praise. Let it be borne in mind
that he ascended the throne of China two hun-
dred years before Moses was born according to
our common chronology, and forty-four years
earlier than that event according to the chrono-
logy of Dr. Hales. How grandly he speaks of
our nature as given by God! How nobly he
conceived of the work of the sovereign!

His notion, indeed, of that work was pitched
too high, though it has ruled ever since in
the literature of China. It is the duty of the
100 Confucianism :

sovereign to rule for the good of the people;
and when he has ceased to do so, he has for-
feited his title to the throne. Mencius formu-
lated the doctrine in very striking language
when he said that “the people are the most
important element in a nation, and the ruler is
the lightest.”! But all sovereigns cannot be
expected to teach and guide the people. They
are in the position of authority, but they may
not have either the moral superiority or the
intellectual ability that would fit them to realize
T‘ang’s ideal. His theory was expanded, and
a new factor introduced, which we find stated
by king W4, the first of the Chau kings, in
these words: “Heaven, to help the inferior
people, made for them rulers, and made for them
instructors, who should be assisting to God, and
help to secure tranquillity throughout the realm.”?
This idea as to instructors, though not fully
enunciated by T‘ang, was not beyond the range
of his thoughts. “I, the little child,” said he,
“charged with the decree of Heaven, and its
bright terrors, did not dare to forgive (the
criminal). I presumed to use a dark-coloured
victim bull, and, making clear announcement to
the spiritual sovereign in the high heavens,’—or,
' Mencius, VII. ii., ch. 14.
? The Shi, V., sect. i. 7.
Its Doctrine about Man. IO!

as Confucius quotes the passage, “to the great
and sovereign God,’—requested leave to deal
with the ruler of Hsia as a criminal. Then I
sought for the great sage, with whom I might
unite my strength, to request the favour of
Heaven for you, my multitudes.”?!

Thus the religion of China teaches that God
made men, and endowed them with a good
nature intended to lead them invariably right ;
and to secure this result, He further appointed
for them kings and wise men to rule and instruct
them. Instruction to promote their virtue, and
government to secure their happiness :—these
were what Heaven made provision for in behalf
of mankind.

Man’s moral feebleness makes this necessary.
—View of Confucius and Mencius.

15. But why was it necessary to make such
provision for those who were furnished with so
good a nature? “Heaven,” it was said to Tang
by his minister Chung-hui, “ Heaven gives birth
to the people with (such) desires, that without
a ruler they must fall into all disorders; and
Heaven again gives birth to the man of intelli-
gence to regulate them.” Man with his moral

' The Shi, IV. iii. 2; and Analects, XX. 1.
102 Confucianism :

sense is yet in danger of going astray, is sure to
go astray. Nearly five hundred years before
Tang, the same truth had been indicated by
Shun, when, as related in the Sha, he said to
his chief minister, ‘‘ The mind of man is restless,
prone (to err); its affinity to what is right is
small. Be discriminating, be uniform (in pur-
suing what is right), that you may sincerely
hold fast the Mean.”! The same thing appears
later on in the first stanza of a remarkable piece
in the Shih, where king Wan of Chau is intro-
duced as warning the last sovereign of the
Shang dynasty, and saying to him,
“ How great is God, who ruleth men below !
In awful terrors now arrayed,
His dealings seem a recklessness to show,
From which we shuddering shrink, dismayed.
But men at first from Heaven their being drew,
With nature liable to change.
All hearts in infancy are good and true,
But time and things those hearts derange.”?
Such passages seem to teach a doctrine con-
cerning human nature, not inconsistent with the
teaching of our Christian scriptures. They seem
to teach this; and I believe they do teach it.
For the full exposition of the Chinese view,
however, we must descend to the writings of

' The Shi, II. ii. 2.
2 The Shih, III. iii., Ode x.
Its Doctrine about Man. 103

Mencius, between thirteen and fourteen cen-
turies after T‘ang. Confucius had said that
“man is born for uprightness ; and that, if one
be without uprightness, and yet live, his escape
(from death) is the result of mere good fortune.”!
Mencius, as his manner was, gave his opinion
more distinctly and roundly. “Man’s nature is
good,” he said. “The tendency of man’s nature
to good is like the tendency of water to flow
"2 But he explained these state-
ments, saying, ‘“‘ From the feelings proper to it,
we see that our nature is constituted for the
practice of what is good. This is what I mean
in saying that the nature is good. If men do
what is not good, the blame cannot be imputed
to their natural powers.”* Few who consider
the subject without prejudice will object to this
view of Mencius. In fact, that philosopher, born
rather more than two thousand years before
bishop Butler, developed a theory of human
nature in which he anticipated every important
point insisted on by the Christian prelate. He
admitted, as Chung-hui had done, that man was

downwards.

prone to go astray, and could not be safely left
to himself. By wrong-doing men were violating
the law of their nature, formed for goodness ;

' Analects, VI. xvii.
2 Mencius, VI. i., ch. 1, 2. 8 Tbid., ch. 6.
104 Confucianism :

they must “seek for their lost heart,” and then
keep it by following the example and obeying
the maxims of the sages. His analysis of the
constituents of humanity was correct. When
he came to speak of how men fall short in
their conduct of the ideal which it suggests, and
how they are to regain and keep that ideal, his
teaching was defective.

The course of human duty confined to the
five constituent relationships of society.

16. What now is the course of human duty as
laid down by the sages raised up by Heaven for
the purpose? In answering this question, I will
use the words of a Chinese writer of the last
century. In the year 1670 there was issued in
China what is known as the K‘ang-hsi Sacred
Edict, containing sixteen precepts, by the
second emperor of the present dynasty, for
the instruction of the people. An amplifica-
tion of the precepts was published by his
successor, and portions of this are read and
explained twice a month all over the empire,
approaching more to our idea of sermons than
anything else in Confucianism. The first pre-
cept enjoins filial piety. This is the first and
greatest of the commandments in China. The
seventh is, “Discountenance and put away
Its Doctrine about Man. 105

strange principles in order to exalt the correct
doctrine.” Wang Yd-po, a very able para-
phrast, says on this: “Here is man, with his
head towards heaven, and his feet planted on
the earth, in the midst of all other existing
things. He is endowed with the principle of
rectitude all complete, and outside him there
are the requirements of duty in his lot ;—what
is there wonderful and rare that he has to
attend to? There are the relations of ruler
and subject, father and son, husband and wife,
elder brother and younger, friend and friend,
and the duties severally belonging to them ;—
no one, intelligent or stupid, can dispense with
these for a single day. If besides these, be-
yond your proper lot, you go about to seek
for some refined and mysterious dogmas, and
to engage in strange and marvellous perfor-
mances, you will show yourselves to be very
bad men.”

Such, then, is the whole duty of man in the
religion of China, as expounded by the Chinese
themselves. What the sages have taught are
the duties binding on men in society. The
scheme says nothing about men’s duty to God.
It is true that man’s nature and the consti-
tution of society are from Him, and that a
performance of the duties belonging to the
106 Confucianism :

five relationships is obedience to His will; but
the duties are enforced without any immediate
reference to God. Our Christian catechisms
put the matter differently. The idea of God
stands foremost in them: “ Man’s chief end is
to glorify Him.” In the teaching of the Chinese
religion, man’s duty to God is left to take care
of itself.

The five constituent relationships of society
are mentioned in the canon of Shun in con-
nexion with his appointment of a minister of
Instruction. Mencius refers to the passage in
the Shi, and amplifies it, saying, “To men
there belongs the way (in which they should
go); and if they are well fed, warmly clad,
and comfortably lodged, without being taught
(at the same time), they become almost like
the beasts. This also was a subject of anxious
solicitude to the sage (Shun), and he appointed
Hsieh to be minister of Instruction, and to
teach the relations of humanity,—how between
father and son there should be affection; be-
tween ruler and subject righteousness; between
husband and wife attention to their separate
functions; between old and young a proper
distinction ; and between friend and friend
fidelity.” }

' Mencius, III. i., ch. 4.
Lis Doctrine about Man. 107

Relationships of friend to friend and
of husband and wife.— Position of
woman.

17. I do not know any other scheme of society
which gives so prominent a place to friendship ;
and what is found in Chinese moralists on the
subject is of a noble character. The end of
friendship should be mutual helpfulness, and
especially the promotion of virtue. The separate
functions of husband and wife are—the direction
of all affairs outside the family by the hus-
band, and of all matters inside by the wife,—
the leading of the husband, and the following
of the wife. I do not see that fault can be
found with this account of the duties of
husband and wife; but as social life in China
becomes more like our social life in the west,
it will be found difficult to confine the wife's
attention entirely to her household affairs.
Even now I have often found the strong-
minded wife the regulator of things outside
as well as inside the family. And nominally
at least, during the minority of the present
emperor, as was the case also during that of
his predecessor, the government has been in the
hand of an empress-dowager and the empress-
mother. The condition of woman in China,
108 Confucianism :

however, has always been inferior to that of
man; its religion does not look upon her with
an equal eye. It is not till the wife becomes
a mother—the mother of a son, that she takes
a place in the family and the temple, on a level
with her husband.

Historical view of the position of woman.—
Infanticide and foot-binding.

18. There are two common Chinese characters
with the signification of wife. The older, and
which is also a primitive belonging to the pre-
historic time, is called ch‘i, and denotes “the
woman who is the mate or equal.”! That this
was the most ancient designation of a wife is
satisfactory, and would have been entirely so but
for our having among the primitive characters
one called ch‘ieh, and denoting a concubine.?
Neither the primitive characters of China nor
its written documents disclose to us a state of
society in which the man had, or ought to have,
only one sharer of his bed. The concubine was

1 Chit (#), composed of Ke a female, and another

primitive, meaning—on a level with.

2 Chieh (%). The lower part of this is also

oe a female; the upper is not fully ascertained.
Lis Doctrine about Man. 109

inferior to the wife, and I do not know that
we should call the system that prevailed by
the name of polygamy ; but all Chinese history
testifies to the evils springing from it.

In the “Canon of Yao,” the first document
of the Shai King, the sage Yao gives his two
daughters in marriage at the same time to the
sage Shun, as an experiment by which he might
know whether Shun were fit to occupy his own
place on the throne. Subsequently, as related
also in the Sha, the ruin of both the dynasties
of Hsia and Shang is occasioned by the wicked-
ness of the concubines of their last monarchs.
The Book of Poetry affords us many peeps into
the domestic life at the court of king Wan, the
founder of the line of Chau, and subsequently
at many of the feudal courts. T“ai-sze, Wan’s
queen, is the theme of many pieces, and one
of her noblest qualities is her freedom from
jealousy, and her complacency even in the
well-filled harem of her lord. Many will
think that the force of degradation could no
farther go.

There is a fine poem of the ninth century
B.C. on the completion of a palace by king
Hsiian The author augurs for the king all
happiness in it ; and anticipating in the last two

' The Shih, II. vi., Ode 5.
110 Confucianism :

stanzas the birth of sons and daughters, he thus
sings about them :—

“ Sons shall be his,—on couches lulled to rest.
The little ones, enrobed, with sceptres play ;
Their infant cries are loud as stern behest ;
Their knees the vermeil covers shall display.
As king hereafter one shall be addressed ;
The rest, as princes, in our states shall sway.

And daughters also to him shall be born.
They shall be placed upon the ground to sleep ;

Their playthings tiles, their dress the simplest worn ;
Their part alike from good and ill to keep.

And ne’er their parents’ hearts to cause to mourn ;
To cook the food, and spirit-malt to steep.”

Dr. Morrison understood the line, “ Their part
alike from good and ill to keep,” as saying that
the daughters would be “incapable either of evil
or good,”! but the sentiment is not so extreme as
that. It is simply this,—that a woman ought
to have no mind of her own, and not to take
the initiative either in good or ill. In one piece
a bride is compared to a dove, but not because
of its gentleness and beauty, but because of its
quietness and stupidity? A stanza in a third
poem dilates on the evils caused by “a wise
woman,” in terms which I do not care to quote.’

' See his Dictionary, I.i., p. 601.

2 The Shih, I. ii, Ode 1.
® Tbid., III. iii., Ode ro.
Its Doctrine abjut Man. III

Infanticide has been charged against the
Chinese, as showing their want of natural
affection ; and though it does not exist to the
extent that has sometimes been represented, it
meets you in most parts of the empire, and is
owing mainly to the poverty of the people. The
reason why I refer to it is because the victims
of the unnatural practice are almost invariably
girls. Woman certainly has no occasion to
bless the religion of China. Both Confucius and
Mencius were distinguished for their devotion
to their mothers, and neither of them is open to
the charge of having added a concubine to his
wife; but their married life does not appear to
have been very happy, and no generous sentiment
tending to the amelioration of the social position
of woman ever came from either.

The low opinion entertained of woman in
China may be considered to have found its
strongest expression between nine hundred and
a thousand years ago, when the custom of binding
and cramping the feet of girls commenced. I
once saw a notice condemnatory of it in the
Mohammedan mosque at Canton. It was a
sin, the placard said, against the Supreme Lord,
interfering with and disfiguring His handiwork ;
and Mohammedanism sternly forbade it. I
never succeeded in warming a Chinese father
112 Confucianism :

to enthusiasm against the practice’ It is to the
honour of the second emperor of the present
dynasty that he prepared an edict commanding
its suppression. The representations of his
ministers about the opposition which it would
encounter, however, made him withdraw it.
Among the most furious in the outcry against
it would have been the women themselves.
So powerful is the dominion of fashion and
habit !

Confucianism says nothing explicitly about
the state of man after death.

19. The Confucian religion gives no explicit
utterances on the state of man after death. It
holds, and has always held, that, though dis-
embodied, he continues to live on; but it says
very little, and nothing definite, as to the con-
ditions of his future existence.

! In his “View of China for Philological Purposes,” p. 28,
Dr. Morrison quotes one account of the origin of this
practice, under the date A.D. 916 ; but the Chinese writer
prefaces his narrative with the statement that “it is not
known when the bow (z.e. small) foot of females was
introduced.” Dr. Williams, (Middle Kingdom, II. p. 28,)
mentions three different accounts of its origin ; but does
not say which is the most correct. This is a point
worth the attention of some Sinologue, who has the means
of investigating it.
Its Doctrine about Man. 113

Classical testimonies.

20. I have already quoted in this Lecture! an
ode of the Shih which says that “ Tai, Chi, and
Wan,” three ancestors of the kings of Chau,
“were all in heaven;” and I have also referred
to the case of the duke of Chau, when he prayed
to those same three, and asked that they would
get his death accepted in lieu of that of his
sick brother whose continued life was more
important than his own to the interests of
the kingdom.? Other pieces of the Shih are
available to prove the ancient belief in the
continued existence of the dead. In one of the
books of the Sha, also, belonging to the four-
teenth century B.C. king Pan-kang, irritated
by the opposition of the wealthy and powerful
Houses to his measures, threatens them with
calamities to be sent down by his ancestor,
T‘ang the Successful. He tells his ministers
that their ancestors and fathers, who had loyally
served his predecessors, were now urgently
entreating T’ang to punish their descendants.
Not only, therefore, did good sovereigns continue
to have a happy existence in heaven, but their
good ministers shared their happiness with them,
and were round about them, as they had been

' See p. 78. 2 Page 85.
8
114 Confucianism :

on earth, and took an interest in the progress
of the concerns which had occupied them during
their lifetime. Indeed, the two forms of wor-
ship, the origin of which I have traced to the
prehistoric time—the worship of God and the
worship of the departed—supposed the inde-
pendent existence of spirits and the possibility
of communion with them at the services ap-
pointed in their honour. In the three prayers
which I adduced from those used in the imperial
ancestral temple it is said to the worshipped
dead, “ Your souls are in heaven.”?}

That God is no idle occupant of His throne is
taught in a multitude of passages in the ancient
books. The words of the young king Ch‘ang,
in the twelfth century BC, are of general
application :—

“With reverence I will go

Where duty’s path is plain.

Heaven’s will I clearly know ;
Its favour to retain

Is hard ;—let me not say
‘Heaven is remote on high,

Nor notices men’s way.’
There in the starlit sky

It round about us moves,
Inspecting all we do,

And daily disapproves
What is not just and true.”?

1 Pp. 82, 83. * The Shih, IV. i., Pt. 3, Ode 3.
Lts Doctrine about Man. 115

In illustration of this point I will quote but one
more passage; from one of the appendices to
the Yi King, by Confucius. “The family,” it says,
“that accumulates goodness is sure to have super-
abundant happiness; the family that accumulates
evil is sure to have superabundant misery.”

It may appear that this is descriptive only of
Heaven’s complacency in the good, and anger
at the bad, and of retribution simply in time ;
and that, though we find rewards and dignity
for the good after death, nothing is said of any
punishment of the bad. So it is; and I have
intimated my opinion that the system of ances-
tral worship prevented the development of the
idea of future retribution.?, The tyrant-oppressor
might have his tablet in the temple, and his
spirit be feasted and prayed to as much as if he
had been a great benefactor of the people. One
of the finest poems in the Shih is a prayer by
king Hsiian of the ninth century B.c. in a time
of excessive drought. He prays to his parents
for succour, though his father had been notori-
ously worthless and wicked. Endeavours have
been made to explain away the simple text,
probably from a wish to avoid its seeming to
give honour to one so undeserving of it.’

1 The Yi, App. 7, par. 41. ? Page 92.
3 The Shih, III. iii., Ode 4, St. 4.
116 Confucianism :

More modern view, that retribution takes
place in time.

21. I have selected the illustration from the
scventh appendix to the Yi, because it speaks
of the issues of good and evil in the history of
a family, and so far extends the theory of retri-
bution into the future, just as our second com-
mandment does; but it is still the future of
time. This view did not take definite shape
until about the era of Confucius. The first
distinct statement of it that I can call to mind
was in 535 B.C. by a minister of La, on his
death-bed. Giving orders that his son and
another scion of his clan should become dis-
ciples of Confucius, who was then attracting
the public notice, he referred to several ancestors
of the sage, and said that in him was about to
be verified the frequent saying of an eminent
statesman, that “If a wise and good man do
not get distinguished in his own time, there is
sure to be among his posterity some one of vast
intelligence.” This is the form in which the
doctrine of future retribution is now generally
spoken of by Chinese scholars. Virtue and
vice have their appropriate issues, if not in the

1 See the Tso Chwan, under the seventh year of duke
Ch'4o.
Its Doctrine about Man. 117

experience of the individual, certainly in that
of his posterity.

Four utterances of Confucius on the
subject.

22. We need not be surprised that the old
religion of China should speak thus indefinitely
about the future state of man. Let us be
thankful rather that it recognizes, as it does, his
continued existence after death, and the ascent
of the spirits or souls of the good to heaven.
By the time of Confucius, however,—say in the
fifth century B.C.—men had come to wish for
information more definite and minute. He
himself avoided speaking on four subjects:
extraordinary things; feats of strength; re-
bellious disorder ; and spirits! But he could
not prevent his disciples from questioning him
about them. It was not, after all, much that
they learned from him, but I will close this
division of my Lecture by relating it.

The first of his utterances is well known.
Chi La, one of the foremost of his disciples,
asked him once about the service of the spirits
(of the dead), and he replied, “ While you are
not able to serve men (alive), how can you serve
their spirits?” The disciple went on, “I venture

Analects, VII. xx.
118 Confucianism :

to ask about death;” and he was answered,
“While you do not know life, how can you
know about death?”! Different views have
been taken of these replies. Some find a
profound meaning in them; others merely
the sage’s avoiding unprofitable subjects. This
latter view seems the more correct.

The occasion of the second utterance of
Confucius was the question of Tsze-kung, another
distinguished follower, who asked him whether
the dead had knowledge or not of the services
rendered to them. The master replied, “If I
were to say the dead have such knowledge, I
am afraid that filial sons and dutiful grandsons
would injure their substance in paying the last
offices to the departed; and if I were to say
that the dead have not such knowledge, I am
afraid that unfilial sons would leave their parents
unburied. You need not wish to learn whether
the dead have such knowledge or not. There
is no present urgency about the point. Here-
after you will know it for yourself.”2 The
former utterance was from the Confucian Ana-
lects, and may be accepted as genuine. This
other is from the “Narratives of the School,”
the authority of which does not stand so high.

' Analects, XI. xi.
?The Chia Yi, II., Art 1.
Lis Doctrine about Man. 119

I would hope that, though generally accepted by
the Chinese, it is not genuine. It gives us no
information, and certainly was not the teaching
proper to a sage.

The third utterance is from the ninth book of
the “ Record of Rites,” where Confucius is con-
versing with Yen Yen. He says, “ (By-and-by),
when one died, (his friends) went on the housetop,
and cried out to him by name to come back,
(wishing his soul to return). Afterwards they
set forth by the corpse rice uncooked and crude,
and pieces of roasted flesh. Thus they looked
up to heaven (where the soul was gone), and
buried (the body) in the earth. The body and
animal soul descend, while the intelligent spirit
is on high. Hence the dead are laid with their
heads to the north, and the living stand facing
the south. In all these matters they followed
(the ways at) the beginning (of funeral and
sacrificial rites)! The practice of going on the

1See the Li Yun, Part i. 7. The text, it is supposed
by many, contains a Tdoistic element, surreptitiously
introduced by the compilers under the Han dynasty.
Portions, including this paragraph, are thrown out of
some editions. The name of “the intelligent spirit” is
literally, “the knowing breath.” The character is ch‘f,
and not shin, “the breath” being used like the Hebrew
ruach and the Latin spiritus. A famous commentator,
Ch‘an Hsiang-tdo, says, “The body and animal soul are
120 Confucianism :

top of the house, when a death has taken place
in it, and shouting to the deceased to come back,
is still observed in China. But the importance
of the passage, if it be authentic, about which
there is some doubt, is the testimony which it
gives as to the ancient belief in the separation
of the soul and body at death, and the continued
existence of the former on high.

Much to the same effect is the fourth utter-
ance, found also in the “Record of Rites,” in
the twenty-fourth book. There the disciple Tsai
Wo says, “I have heard the names kwei and
shan, but I do not know what they mean.’
Confucius said, “ The (intelligent) spirit is of
the shan nature, and shows that in fullest
measure; the animal soul is of the kwei
nature, and shows that in fullest measure. It is
the union of kwei and shan that forms the
highest exhibition of doctrine.

“All the living must die, and, dying, return
to the ground; this is what is called kwei.

extinguished, and nothing of them remains. But the
intelligent soul continues to be moved and to move, and
always is.” Comparea passage in Professor Max Miiller’s
“Philosophy of Mythology,” p. 359, ef seg., beginning,
“When man wished for the first time to grasp and express
a distinction between the body, and something else within
him distinct from the body, an easy name that suggested
itself was breath.”
Lts Doctrine about Man. 121

The bones and flesh moulder away below, and,
hidden away, become the earth of the fields.
But the spirit issues forth, and is displayed on
high in a condition of glorious brightness. The
vapours and odours which produce a feeling of
sadness (and arise from the decay of their
bodies) are the subtle essences of animals, and
(also) a manifestation of the shAn nature.” ?

You may think that in this passage, attributed
to Confucius, counsel is darkened by a multitude
of words without knowledge. It is not for me,
however, to attempt an elucidation of every part
of it. I have adduced it to show how he held
that, while man’s body crumbles and returns
to the dust at death, the liberated spirit, “the
breath,” as he phrases it, ascends to a brighter
state. The body and the animal soul cease to
be, excepting as they may mingle with the dust
of matter, but the intelligent soul or the spirit
lives on in the bright heaven. Of its condition
there the Confucian religion says nothing ; nor
does it say how it can come from heaven, when
sacrificed to, and communicate and commune
with its sincere worshippers from the spirit-

‘See Note B.

2 Is there not in this term a groping after what we are
told in Genesis ii. 7, “And the Lord God formed man of
the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living soul ”?
122 Confuctanism :

tablet. That religion teaches the existence of
the soul after death, but nothing of the character
of that existence; and so it does not fan the
flame of faith or hope in regard to the future in
‘its friends and adherents.

Conclusions.

23. I must now leave the subject of the most
ancient or state religion of China,—what I have
called Confucianism,—and give a brief account
of Confucius himself. I have described that
religion from three points of view,—what it
teaches concerning God, concerning spirits, and
concerning man. I have endeavoured to trace
the fundamental ideas of it on these subjects
from the earliest, even from prehistoric, time
down to the present day, and to show how the
worship of God has been a matter of state
ceremonial, and the worship of ancestors has
extended to all the people. I am sorry that
sometimes I may have.seemed to be debating
and arguing, and not simply relating and
describing. There is no help for this. There
are not any subjects, political, historical, or re-
ligious, even here in Europe, however Jong and
extensively they have been discussed, on which
there is an universal agreement of opinion:
it is no wonder that different views should be
Its Doctrine about Man. 123

entertained about the religion of China, a
subject of comparatively recent study. I have
done what I could to form my own opinions
after sufficient research, and to express them
to you clearly and dispassionately, avoiding as
much as I could expressions of praise or blame.
Of the value of the old religion of China, I shall
have to speak when I come to compare it, in
my concluding Lecture, with Christianity. Let
me now direct your attention to Confucius, lest
my account of Confucianism should be thought
like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet himself
left out.

It has become, I have no doubt, sufficiently
clear to you that both the views of Confucianism
which I mentioned at the commencement of my
former Lecture are erroneous. China does not
owe its national religion to Confucius. He
received it, as did others, from prehistoric time,
both in its twofold worship and in its rules of
social duty; and on this point I need say
nothing more. And if Confucius did not
originate the religion of his country, neither
did he discountenance it, or alter it in any
sensible degree. I have quoted his words freely,
to illustrate the ideas and practices of the more
ancient sages, and we have found them pervaded
by religious sentiment. He taught morality,
124 Confuctanism :

but not a morality without reference to the
will of God. He taught ceremonialism, but
not for the sake of the ceremony merely. His
formalism did not content itself with the
outward observance of established rites. These
statements will receive further illustration as I
proceed to give you in brief compass a sketch
of the life and character of the man.

Sketch of the life of Confucius.—His birth
in B.C. 551 to his marriage.

24. Confucius,—that is, K‘ung-foo-tsze,
“the master K‘ung,”—was born in the year 551
B.C., in Ld, one of the feudal states, and covering
a considerable part of what is now the province
of Shan-tung. His father, known to us by the
name of Liang-ho, and an officer remarkable
for his strength, bravery, and skill, was over
seventy years old when the future sage was
born” Their lineage was as distinguished as any
in China could be, for the Kung family traced
its line to the sovereigns of the Shang dynasty,
and back from them, among the mists of hardly
discernible antiquity, to the mythical Hwang Ti,

’ See Note C.

? See the prolegomena to the Chinese Classics, Vol. I.,

for a fuller account of Confucius, and reference to the
authorities for statements here.
Life of Confucius. 125

in the twenty-eighth century B.c. The old
soldier died when Confucius was in his third
year, and his mother, in bringing him up, had to
struggle with poverty. At a later time, when
people were surprised at the many things he
could do, he said, “When I was young, my
condition was low, and I acquired my ability
in many things; but they were mean matters.”
We know little of his youth. Accounts describe
the boy as fond of playing at the arrangement
of sacrificial vessels, and at postures of ceremony.
He tells us himself that at fifteen his mind was
set on learning.

From his marriage to his visiting the court
of Chau, B.C. 533—517.

25. At nineteen he married, and his only son,
Li, was born the year after. About the same
time we find him in charge, but whether in the
service of the state, or merely of one of the
ministers, cannot be determined,—in charge of
some stores of grain, and subsequently of the
public fields. Mencius refers to those employ-
ments in illustration of his doctrine that the
superior man may at times take office simply
for the relief of his poverty, but must in such a
case confine himself to places of small emolu-
ment, and aim at nothing but the discharge of
126 Confucianism :

their humble duties. This was what Confucius
did.

In his twenty-second year he commenced his
labours as a teacher, and his house became a
resort—not for schoolboys, but for young and
inquiring spirits who wished to increase their
knowledge of the history and doctrines of the
past. However small the fee that was given,
he never refused his instructions; but he did
require an ardent desire for improvement and
some degree of capacity.

His mother died in the year B.c. 528, and he
mourned for her with the bitterest grief. Having
raised the coffin of his father from where it
had been laid more than twenty years before,
he had it conveyed, along with that of his
mother, to the place where the K‘ungs had first
found refuge in Lf, and buried the two in the
same grave. To mark the spot, he employed
some of his disciples to raise a mound over
it; and when told that this had fallen down
through a sudden storm of rain, he burst into
tears.

When the period of mourning for his mother
was concluded, he remained in La for ten
more years, pursuing his own literary researches,
studying antiquities and music, and guiding the
studies of others. The chief men of the state
Life of Confucius. 127

were gradually becoming aware that a great
man had risen among them; and in BC. 517,
one of its principal ministers, as I have already
related, gave orders on his death-bed that his
son, and another member of their clan, should
enter the Confucian school. Such pupils in-
creased its reputation in the country, and also
enlarged the master’s means. That same year
he was able to visit the capital, and make fuller
inquiries than he could do at a distance into
the ceremonies and rules of the founders of the
Chau dynasty. There also he is said to have
met with Lao-tsze, the father of TAoism, and to
have had various conversations with him. I may
refer to these in my next Lecture. By the end of
the year he was back in La, and resumed his work
of ‘teaching. His fame was greatly increased,
and disciples came to him from all quarters, till
their number amounted to thousands. We are
not to think of them as forming a community,
and living together. We find, indeed, the master
after this always moving amid a company of
admiring followers, but the greater number
must have had their proper avocations and ways
of living, and would only repair to him when
they wished specially to ask his counsel.

In the year B.C. 516, there were great troubles

' Page 116.
128 Confucianism :

in Ld, and the marquis, worsted in a struggle
with the three great families or clans of the
state, fled from it to the neighbouring state of
Ch'j. Thither Confucius followed him, and there
he would have remained, if he could have done
so with advantage to the ruler of Chil and
his government without compromising his own
character. Finding it impossible to do so, he
returned to Li.

To the end of his brief period of office in
B.C. 495.

26. After this, he continued without official
employment for the long period of fourteen
years. The expelled marquis having died in
Chi, the rightful heir was set aside, and another
member of the ruling House appointed in his
place. The disorder of the state increased,
and the wisdom of Confucius appeared in the
prudence with which he steered his course, so
as not to become the partizan of any of the
ambitious chiefs.

Some say that during this period he divorced
his wife, but the notion that he did do so has
proceeded from an erroneous interpretation of
a passage in the “ Record of Rites.”?

At length, in B.c. 500, when Confucius was

* See Note D.
Life of Confucius. 129

fifty-one years old, some degree of order was
restored, and he became chief magistrate of the
town of Chung-td, and a marvellous reformation
of the manners of the people speedily took
place. The marquis, astonished at what he
saw, asked him whether a whole state could
be governed by his rules, and was assured that
they might be applied to the whole kingdom.
Forthwith Confucius was made assistant-
superintendent of Works, in which capacity he
made many improvements in agriculture. The
office of minister of Crime followed, and the ap-~
pointment was enough to make an end of crime.
There was no necessity to put the penal laws in
execution. No offenders showed themselves.
For three years Confucius held this important
office. The resistance to the supreme authority
which had so much disturbed the state was
possible through the fortified cities held by the
great clans, which served the same purpose as
the castles owned by the barons of Europe in the
feudal ages. Confucius succeeded in dismantling
several of these. “ He strengthened,” we are told,
“the ruling House, and weakened the ministers
and chiefs. A transforming government went
abroad. Dishonesty and dissoluteness were
ashamed, and hid their heads. Loyalty and
good faith became the characteristics of the

9
130 Confucianism :

men, and chastity and docility those of the
women. Strangers came in crowds from other
states.” Confucius was the idol of the people,
and flew in songs through their mouths.

But this success did not long gladden the heart
of our hero. As the fame of his reformations
went abroad, the neighbouring states began to
be afraid. The marquis of Chit said, “With
Confucius at the head of its government, Ld will
become supreme among the states; and Chi,
which is nearest to it, will be the first swallowed
up. Let us propitiate it by a surrender of
territory.’ One of his ministers suggested,
however, that they should first try to separate
between the marquis of La and his wise adviser.
Beautiful women and fine horses were sent to La
as baits, and by them the prince was taken. Con-
fucius and his lessons were neglected. He felt that
he could not retain office, that he ought not to
remain in the state. “It is time for you to leave,”
said Tsze-li to him. Most unwillingly and slowly,
by short stages, he went away. He would have
welcomed a message of recall. But none came.

Till his return to La in B.C. 483.

27. The sage was now in his fifty-sixth year,
when he felt driven to forsake his native La;
and for thirteen years he travelled from one
Life of Confucius. 131

feudal state to another, seeking rest and finding
none, always hoping to meet with a ruler who
would adopt his counsels, and always disap-
pointed. Time would fail us if we were to
follow him and his attendant disciples in all
their wanderings. His fame had gone before
him, and most of the princes whom he visited
received him with distinction, and would gladly
have given him office and retained him at their
courts; but no one was prepared to accept
his principles and act them out. Repeatedly,
in travelling through the country, he and his
companions were in straits, and even in peril
of their lives. Once they were assailed by a
mob, who mistook the master for an officer at
whose hands they had suffered much. While
the others were alarmed, he calmly said, “ After
the death of king Wan, was not the cause of
letters and truth lodged in me? If Heaven had
wished to let this cause perish, I should not
have got such a relation to it. While Heaven
does not let the cause of truth perish, what
can the men of K‘wang do to me?” In the
same way, on another occasion, when they were
attacked by a band employed by a malicious
officer called Hwan Tui, Confucius observed,
“ Heaven has produced the virtue that is in me ;
what can Hwan T‘ui do to me?”
132 Confucianism :

I will mention only two additional incidents of
this period. At one time the whole party was
reduced to great distress by the failure of their
provisions, and even Tsze-li said to the master,
“Has the superior man indeed to endure in
this way?” The reply was, “ The superior man
may indeed have to endure want; but the mean
man, in distress, gives way to unbridled license.”
The distress, it is said, continued seven days,
during which time Confucius maintained his
equanimity, and was even cheerful, playing on
his lute and singing. He retrained, however a
deep impression of the perils of the occasion,
and recurred to them in after years, recalling
the men who had then been his faithful com-
panions.

The other incident is of a different character,
and shows us the sage in one of his lighter
moods. One of the princelets through whose
territory they passed, and who had never seen
him, asked Tsze-lQ how he would describe him.
The disciple did not venture a reply; but when
Confucius heard of the circumstance, he said
to him, “ Why did you not say that Iam simply
aman who in his eager pursuit of knowledge
forgets his food, who in the joy of its attainment
forgets his sorrows, and who does not perceive
that old age is coming on?”
Life of Confuctus. 133

From his return to his death, B.C. 483—
478.

28. It was brought about, how I need not
detail, that he returned at length to Li in
B.C. 483. The marquis and his ministers re-
ceived him respectfully, but he can hardly be
said to have re-entered public life. Only five
more years remained to him, and he devoted
them mainly to the literary pursuits which had
long occupied him. He had in hand also the
compilation of the annals of La that we still
possess under the name of the “Spring and
Autumn.” The year 482 was marked by the
death of his son Li, which did not affect him so
much as that of his favourite Yen Hui, in the
next year. Then he cried out, “Alas! Heaven
is destroying me! Heaven is destroying me!”
The other disciples had to admonish him of the
excessive character of his grief. And in 479,
Tsze-li, perhaps the best loved after Yen Hui,
met with a violent end. The master had fore-
boded that he would do so; but when the
event came, he wept sore. And his own death
was not far off. It took place in the spring of
the following year, B.C. 478.

Early one morning, we are told, he got up;
and, with his hands behind his back, dragging
134 Confucianism :

his staff, he moved about by the door, crooning
over,
“The great mountain must crumble ;

The strong beam must break ;
And the wise man wither away like a plant.”

After a little he entered the house, and sat
down opposite the door. Tsze-kung had heard
his words, and said to himself, “If the great
mountain crumble, to what shall I look up? If
the strong beam break, and the wise man wither
away, on whom shall I lean? I fear the master
is going to be ill.” With this he hastened into
the house, when Confucius told him a dream
which he had had in the night, and which he
thought presaged his death, adding, “ No intel-
ligent monarch arises; there is no prince in the
kingdom who will make me his master. My
time has come to die.” So it was. He took to
his couch, and after seven days expired.

Such is the account we have of the last days
of the great philosopher of China. His end
was not unimpressive, but it was melancholy.
He uttered no prayer, and he betrayed no
apprehension. “The mountain falling came to
nought, and the rock was removed out of his
place. So death prevailed against him, and he
passed ; his countenance was changed, and he
was sent away.”
Life of Confuctus. 135

His disciples buried him with extraordinary
pomp, and many of them built huts, and remained
mourning near his grave as for a father for
three years; and when the others were gone,
the faithful Tsze-kung continued his reverent
and affectionate vigil for another period of the
same duration. Seven years ago J made a
pilgrimage to the tomb of the master outside
the city of Chii-fau in Shan-tung. Musing on
many things, I walked round and rotnd, and
ascended, the large mound of which the dust
of Confucius must now form a part, and where
bushes of the plant that supplies the divining
stalks were growing. I also stood by the little
house which is supposed to enclose the ground
where Tsze-kung built his hut.

Memorabilia of Confucius.—His personal
characteristics.

In the “Confucian Analects,” a compilation
that must have been formed by the disciples,
and in portions of “The Record of Rites,” we
have abundant information of the sayings and
doings of the sage. A whole book of the
Analects is occupied with his personal charac-
teristics ;—his deportment, his eating, and his
dress. It shows him to us at court, in his own
house, in his carriage, in his bed. He was nice
136 Confucianism :

in his diet, but he was not a great eater. He
laid down no precise limit to himself in the use
of wine, or whatever drink was then used at
meals in China ; but he did not allow himself to
be confused by it. Although the food might be
coarse rice and poor soup, he would, with a grave
respectful air, offer a little of it in sacrifice; but
it is not said to whom the offering was made.!
On occasion of sudden thunder or violent wind
he would change countenance; and also when
he saw a person in mourning. When any of
his friends died, if there were no relatives who
could be depended on for the necessary offices,
he would say, “I will bury him.”

From the multitude of these memoranda we
get avery complete idea of the man. At one
time, when I compared them with the different
style of our gospels, I was offended by them. I
have long learned, however, to welcome them.
They are the tribute to Confucius of admiration
and love from those among whom he had for
many years gone in and out.

! This was a practice something like our saying grace.
The offering was made, according to the commentators,
to the worthy or worthies who first taught the art of
cooking. An analogous practice is referred to in two
lines of an ancient poem (Shih, II. v., Ode 2):

“ With a handful of grain I go out and divine,
How I may be able to become good.”
Teachings of Confucius. 137

Confucius did not change or modify the
ancient religion.

29. But have we reason to think, as some
have done,’ that he made any changes in the
ancient religion of China, or modified its records
at all, when they passed through his hands? I
must answer this question in the negative. I
have shown in different works that his labours
on the ancient classics were not so extensive
as has been generally supposed. He studied
them, and exhorted and helped his disciples to
do the same, but he did not alter them, nor even
digest them into their present form.

His enunciating the golden rule.

30. His greatest achievement in the inculca-
tion of morality was his formulating the golden
rule, which is not found in its condensed expres-
sion in the old classics. The merit of it is his
own. We find it repeatedly in the Analects, the
Doctrine of the Mean, and the Great Learning.
Tsze-kung once asked him if there were one
word which would serve as a rule of conduct
for all the life; and he replied, “Is not reciprocity
such a word ?—What you do not want done to

1 Hardwick’s “ Christ and other Masters,” Pt. IIL, pp.
18, 19.
138 Confucianism :

yourself, do not do to others.” Subsequently,
when the disciple told him that he was carrying
this rule into practice, he replied, “ Ts‘ze, you
have not attained to that.” He was thus aware
of the difficulty of obeying the precept, and he
confessed on one occasion that he himself failed
to do so. His words then also showed that the
rule had for him not only a negative form, but
also a positive form. He was unable, he said,
to take the initiative in serving his father as he
would require his son to serve him; and so of
the other relations between ruler and minister,
elder brother and younger, friend and friend.
Chinese critics contend that in so speaking Con-
fucius was only using the language of humility ;
but evidently he was speaking the truth, and
we do not think the worse of him when we find
that, like other men, he was compassed with
infirmity.

So far, therefore, as the morality of the reli-
gion of China was concerned, the sage invigorated
it by this golden maxim. If it be said that he
arrived at it from his analysis of human nature,
and laid it down without a divine sanction, it
must be remembered that with him, as with
T‘ang and others of the great ancients, man’s
nature was the distinguishing endowment given

' “Doctrine of the Mean,” ch. 13.
Teachings of Confucius. 139

to him by Heaven, or God, and that the path
which it indicated was the will of God concern-
ing his duty. There could be no testimony on
this point more express than what we have in
the first sentence of the Doctrine of the Mean:
—“What Heaven has conferred is called the
nature; an accordance with this nature is called
the path of duty; the regulation of this path is
called instruction.”

What is to be thought of him as a religious
teacher.

31. But it is not in the sphere of morality so
much as in that of religion that fault is found
with Confucius. I have complained myself of
his avoiding the personal name of Ti, or God,
and only using the more indefinite term Heaven.
Only one case occurs to me in which he used
the personal and relative name excepting when
he was quoting from the old books; that case
being his vindication, as related in the former
Lecture, of the solstitial services, whether per-
formed at the altar of heaven or that of earth,
as being equally rendered to God. His avoiding
the name Ti seems to betray a coldness of
temperament and intellect in the matter of
religion; and yet when we consider how the
public worship of God was restricted to the
149 Confucianism :

sovereign as the representative of the people
it may have been that Confucius felt himself
fettered, and did not care to use the personal
name. He need not have been so; but that
“ Heaven” was to him the name of a personal
being appears not only from the instances of
his employment of it already adduced, but from
these two others: “He who offends against
Heaven has none to whom he can pray ;” and
again, “Alas! there is no one that knows me!”
to which he immediately subjoined, “ But there
is Heaven ;—It knows me!”

It has been said, again, that the definition of
wisdom which he gave to the disciple Fan Chih
was likely to make him doubt the existence of
spiritual beings, or at least to make him slight
their worship. “To give one’s self,” said he,
“to the duties due to men, and while respecting
spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may
be called wisdom,” But we had occasion to
approve the warning which he gave against
sacrificing to spirits with whom we have no
legitimate connexion.’ It might turn out, if we
knew all about Fan Ch‘ih, that what the master
said to him was to the same effect as that warn-
ing. And indeed the worship of ancestors and
of the departed great was a practice of such

1 Page 92.
Teachings of Confucius. I41

doubtful propriety, and so liable to abuse, that
I am pleased to think that Confucius wished to
guard his disciples and others against the super-
stition and other evils to which it might lead.
No one could be more observant of it when he
believed it to be right, than he was. “ He sacri-
ficed (to the dead),” it is said, ‘as if they were
present; he sacrificed to the spirits, as if the
spirits were present.”

This charge against Confucius, then, must be
dismissed as not proven. Nor was he a mere
formalist, clinging to the dead letter of an
institution when the spirit had all gone out of
it. Generally, no moral teacher ever required
more stringently an inward sincerity than he
did; and the power of example—influence rather
than force—has quite an important place in his
teachings. But he was conservative in his
tendencies, and wisdom existed to his view in
the past. He did not understand how

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”

My meaning will appear from the following
instance. In the end of every year the feudal
princes received from the Court of Chau a
calendar for the next year, and each of them,
on the first day of every month, should have
142 Confucianism :

repaired to his ancestral temple, sacrificed a
sheep to the founder of his line, and requested
leave to go on to the duties of the new month.
But in Confucius’ time the lords of La had long
ceased to do their part in this ceremony, though
the sheep was still sacrificed in the temple.
Tsze-kung in these circumstances wished to
abolish the custom altogether, but the master
said to him, “ You grudge the loss of the sheep ;
I grudge the loss of the ceremony.” That is,
while the form remained, he thought that the
spirit of it might be brought back. The dry
bones might live. In that hope Confucius was
in error, but the instance suffices to show that
his formalism was not for the form’s sake.

Once more, it is said that he discountenanced
the use of prayer; but the passage on which
this charge is based is insufficient to sustain it,
and contains, moreover, Confucius’ own declara-
tion that he did pray. On some occasion when
he was very ill,’ Tsze-l4 asked leave to pray for
him, and when the master hesitated, doubting
whether such a thing were proper, referred to
some book of prayers, and quoted from it to
the effect that prayer might be made to the

1 Analects, VII., ch. 34. Ihave seena statement some-
where that this incident took place during Confucius’ last

illness, but the death of Tsze-li had taken place before
that.
Teachings of Confucius. 143

spirits of heaven and earth. All that Confucius
said in reply was, “ My praying has been for a
long time.” We do not know what he meant.
He may have wished to disabuse the disciple’s
mind of some superstitious notion on the subject
of prayer. The utmost that can be surmised
from it is that his piety was not demonstrative
or effusive.

Two things that lower our estimate of

him.

32. While thus defending Confucius from some
charges that have been brought against him, I
must not be silent about two things that lead us
to think less highly of him than it may seem to
you that Ido. We have rejoiced in his enuncia-
tion of the golden rule ;—Ldo-tsze had advanced
even beyond this in the field of morality, and
said, “Return good for evil.” Some one of
Confucius’ school heard the maxim, and, being
puzzled by it, consulted the master. He also
was puzzled, formed a syllogism in his mind
about it, and replied, “What then will you
return for good? Recompense injury with jus-
tice, and return good for good.” Well, justice is
good, and I do not think that Confucius had any
thought of vengeance when he used the term;
but if we only do good to them that do good
144 Confucianism :

to us, what reward have we? I wish the sage
had risen to the height of the thought that was
put before him. The other thing is the execu-
tion of the historical work called “The Spring
and Autumn,” which contains the annals of La
for two hundred and forty-two years, down to
within two years of Confucius’ death. Mencius
regarded it as the greatest of the master’s
achievements, and says that its appearance struck
terror into rebellious ministers and unfilial sons.
The author himself had a similar opinion of it,
and said that it was from it that men would know
him, and also (some of them) condemn him. Was
his own heart misgiving him, when he thus spake
of men condemning him for the Ch‘un Ch'id? The
fact is that the annals are astonishingly meagre,
and not only so, but evasive and deceptive.
‘ The Ch‘un Ch'it,” says Kung-yang, who com-
mented on it and supplemented it within a
century after its composition,—“the Ch'un Chit
conceals (the truth) out of regard to the high
in rank, to kinship, and to men of worth.” And
I have shown in the fifth volume of my Chinese
Classics, that this “concealing” covers all the
ground embraced in our three English words—
ignoring, concealing, and misrepresenting. What
shall we say to these things? It has been ob-
served that “charges have been brought against
Teachings of Confucius. 145

Confucius of want of truthfulness, but if we
examine them, they dwindle down to the mere
question of what is truth.”! This consideration
ought to silence certain charges that have been
made from unimportant incidents in the sage’s
career, but it does not solve the difficulty in
regard to him that arises from the style of the
Ch'un Ch‘id. No answer can be given to the
question—not a small one—What is truth? that
will meet the case of the historian who ignores,
conceals, and misrepresents events he is writing
about. I often wish that I could cut the knot
by denying the genuineness and authenticity
of the “Spring and Autumn” as we now have
it; but the chain of evidence that binds it to
the hand and pencil of Confucius in the close
of his life is very strong. And if a foreign
student take so violent a method to enable him
to look at the character of the philosopher
without this flaw of historical untruthfulness,
the governors of China and the majority of its
scholars will have no sympathy with him, and
no compassion for his mental distress. Truth-
fulness was one of the subjects that Confucius
often insisted on with his disciples; but the
Ch‘un Ch‘ii has led his countrymen to conceal

1 “Confucianism and Taoism,” (Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge,) p. 146.

10
149 Confucianism :

the truth from themselves and others, wherever
they think it would injuriously affect the repu-
tation of the empire, or of its sages. But I
hasten to bring the Lecture to a conclusion, and
am very sorry to have, in the interest of truth,
to leave Confucius under a cloud. I would only
further remark that there is no valid authority
for a saying often attributed to him that “in the
west the true saint must be looked for and
found.”!

The admiration of Confucius among his
disciples.

One of the most remarkable things is the
impression that the sage made upon his disciples.
Many of them were among the ablest men in
China of their time, “superior men,” mighty in
word and deed; and yet with them originated
the practice of speaking of Confucius as “the
greatest man that had ever lived,” “ far superior
to Yao and Shun,” “like the Ch‘i-lin among
quadrupeds, the phoenix among birds, the T‘ai
mountain among mounds and ant-hills, and
rivers and seas compared with rain-pools.” He
had gained their hearts and won their entire
admiration. They began the pean which has
since resounded through all the intervening ages,

' See Note E.
Listimate of Confucius. 147

nor is its swell less loud and confident now than
it was nearly four-and-twenty centuries ago.

Estimate of Confucius by the government
and people of China.

The “powers that be” in China joined ere
long in the chorus of the disciples. Among
Confucius’ last words, we saw, were these,—
“No intelligent monarch arises; there is no
prince in the kingdom who will take me as his
master.” But he had hardly passed from the
stage of life when the great ones of the nation
began to acknowledge his merit, and to build
temples and offer worship to him. Ch'in Shih
Hwang Ti, the founder of the Ch'in dynasty
in B.C. 221, found the name and followers of
Confucius his greatest obstacles when he wished,
after overthrowing the feudal system, to make a
new empire according to his own ideas. He
wielded the sword and kindled the flame against
them, but in vain. He might have said on his
death-bed, in words analogous to those used by
the Roman Julian, “Thou hast conquered, O
Master K‘ung.”

In A.D. 1 there began the practice of confer-
ring, by imperial authority, honorary titles
on Confucius, and in the year 57 it was
enacted that sacrifices should be offered to him
148 Confucianism :

in the government colleges throughout the
country. At the present day he is worshipped
twice a year on certain days in the middle
months of spring and autumn. Then the em-
peror goes in state to the imperial college in
Peking, and performs his homage, and presents
the appointed offerings, before the spirit-tablets
of Confucius, and four of his most famous dis-
ciples. These are the words of the principal
prayer on the occasion:—“On this month of
this year, I, the emperor, offer sacrifice to the
philosopher K‘ung, the ancient Teacher, the
perfect Sage, and say, O Teacher, in virtue equal
to heaven and earth, whose doctrines embrace
the time past and the present, thou didst digest
and transmit the six classics, and didst hand
down lessons for all generations! Now in this
second month of spring (or autumn), in reverent
observance of the old statutes, with victims,
silks, spirits, and fruits, I offer sacrifice to thee.
With thee are associated the philosopher Yen,
continuator of thee; the philosopher Tsang,
exhibitor of thy fundamental principles; the
philosopher Tsze-sze, transmitter of thee ; and
the philosopher Mang, second to thee. Mayst
thou enjoy the offerings!” So is the sage
K‘ung, who was unreasonably neglected when
alive, now unreasonably worshipped when dead
Teachings of Confuctus. 149

The imperial prayer is the fullest vindication of
my treating of the ancient religion of China
under the name of Confucianism. K‘ung was a
great and wonderful man; but I think that the
religion which he found, and did so much to
transmit to posterity, was still greater and more
remarkable than he.
NOTES ON LECTURE II.

NOTE A, p. 93.

While passing in the Lecture from the subject of sacrifice
or religious worship in the Confucian religion, I subjoin
the following condensed account of it as it existed in the
Chau times, and as with some modifications it exists
still, taken from the Record of Rites, I., Part II. iii.
6, 7:—

“The son of Heaven sacrificed to heaven and earth ; to
(the rulers of) the four quarters, to the (spirits of all the)
hills and rivers ; and offered the five (domestic) sacrifices ;
—all in the course of the year.

“The feudal princes sacrificed to (the rulers of) their
several quarters ; to the (spirits of their) hills and rivers ;
and offered the five (domestic) sacrifices ;—all in the
course of the year.

“Great officers offered the five (domestic) sacrifices,—
all in the course of the year.

““(Other) officers sacrificed to their forefathers.

“ There was no presuming to resume any sacrifice that
had been discontinued (by proper authority), or to dis-
continue one which had been so established. A sacrifice
which it is not proper to offer, and which yet is offered, is
named a licentious sacrifice. A licentious sacrifice brings
no blessing.”

The student who has read the many pages of com-
mentary on these sentences in the imperial edition of the
Notes on Lecture LT. Ler

Li, issued in the present dynasty, will have gained a suffi
cient acquaintance with the bones or skeleton of Chinese
worship, and the differences of native scholars on various
points. All agree in maintaining that the sacrifices to
forefathers were open to all, “‘from the son of Heaven
down to the common people.”

Note B, p. 121.

In J. M. Callery’s translation of an “Expurgated Record
of Rites,” published in 1833, he gives for these sentences,
—“Tsai-wo (disciple de Confucius) dit (@ son maitre),
‘J'ai entendu souvent les noms d’Ame et d’Esprit, mais
yignore ce qu’ils signifient.’ Confucius dit, ‘ La respiration
de Vhomme est une manifestation de l’Esprit, le corps est
une manifestation de VAme. La réunion des mots Ame
et Esprit en une seule expression Kwei-Shan (Ame-Esprit)
est un sujet d’enseignement sublime.’ ”

What follows is not translated, as being expunged from
his text. On the above he has the following note :---
“Confucius semble distinguer dans ’homme deux sub-
stances immatérielles ayant avec le corps des rapports
différents, distinction qui rappelle les subtilités 4 peine
spirituelles de Jh. de Maistre sur l’esprit vital. Mais chez
le philosophe Chinois les théories psychologiques ont peu
d'importance ; il ne les regarde que comme les bonnes a
intimider ou 4 encourager le vulgaire ignorant, et ne les
traite, par conséquent que d’une manitre toute super-
ficielle, s’arrétant plutét aux mots qu’aux idées. C’est un
des faits les plus remarquables dans histoire de l’esprit
humain, que les Chinois n’aient jamais tenté sérieusement
d’approfonder les mystéres de lame.”

I have no doubt that Confucius told his disciple all that
he himself knew of the subject they were talking about.
Whatever “the mysteries of the soul” may be, Confucius
must have come to the conclusion that they were beyond
his ken and research. ~
152 Notes on Lecture IT.

Note C, p. 124.

Dr. Morrison, in his Dictionary, I. i., page 710, says that
“Confucius was a bastard son of Shi Liang-ho, and a
daughter of the Yen family, who cohabited in the
wilderness.” His authority for this statement is the
seventeenth of Sze-ma Ch‘ien’s Histories and Biographies ;
but Ch‘ien’s language is translated with needless harshness.
All that it may mean is that there was some irregularity
in the union of the parties. Chiang Yung (1761) thinks
that the disparity of their age is sufficient to satisfy Ch'ien’s
text. A gloss in the “ Record of Rites,” under II. i. 1,
par. 10, suggests that the phrase refers to some incomplete-
ness or informality in the arrangements for the marriage.
Allthat we can say is that the statement is disrespectful to
Confucius. Considering the Taoist proclivities of Ch‘ien,
I think it was only a gibe on the age of Shi Liang-ho.

Latterly, it has become the practice of some writers to
say that “Confucius himself was born of a concubine”
(Report of the Committee on C. D. Act; Hong-kong,
1879).”. But I do not know of any authority for such
a statement. The account in the “Narratives of the
School” says that Shi Liang-ho, having nine daughters,
and no son, by his wife, and only a son who was a cripple
by his concubine, sought for another marriage, and applied
to a gentleman of the Yen family, who gave him his
youngest daughter to wife (Chia Yi, [X., art. 2). In order
to marry the new wife, Liang-ho must have divorced the
old one, and the fact of her having no son was a sufficient
reason, according to the law of China, for his doing so.
That he actually did so is implied in the paragraph of
the “Record of Rites ” which is discussed in the next note.

The care which Confucius took to bury his mother in
the same grave with his father also implies that they
were husband and wife. The sage was neither a bastard,
nor the son of a concubine. He might have been either
Notes on Lecture IT. 153

without any disgrace to himself, but an impartial student
of history will not readily give ear to reports that will by
many be considered discreditable to his subject.

Note D, p. 128.

In the “Record of Rites,” II. i. par. 4, we have the
following incident of life in the Confucian family :—
“When the mother of Tsze-shang”—great-grandson of
Confucius— died, and he did not perform any of the
mourning rites for her, the disciples of his father Tsze-
sze asked whether the former superior man had not
performed those rites for his divorced mother. Tsze-sze
having replied that he had, they asked him why he did
not make his son do so for hismother. ‘ My predecessor,
the superior man,’ said he, ‘failed in no proper course.
‘When it was proper to behave generously, he did so;
when it was proper to restrain his generosity, he restrained
it. But I cannot attain to this. When she was my wife,
she was my son’s mother; when she was not my wife,
she ceased to be his mother.’ In this way the custom of
the K‘ung family not to mourn for a divorced mother
originated with Tsze-sze.”

Who is meant by “the former superior man” in this
passage? Does it mean Tsze-sze’s father? or his grand-
father? If the former, then Confucius had divorced his
wife ; if the latter, then Shi Liang-ho had divorced his,
as I have contended in the preceding note that he did, and
the mother of Confucius was not a concubine ; but though
a second, yet a proper wife. That “the former superior
man,” who always pursued the proper course, is more likely
to be Confucius than his son Li, may be considered as self-
evident.

The twenty-eighth paragragh of the same book also
bears on the point in hand. It says: “ When the mother
of Po-yii”—Confucius’ son, Li—“ died, he continued to
wail for her after the twelve months ”—proper for such a
154 Notes on Lecture IT.

demonstration of grief—“ were ended.” The master heard
the noise, and asked who it was that was thus wailing.
Being told by the disciples that it was Li, he said,
“Pshaw ! it’s too much;” and when Po-yii was told of
the remark, he ceased to wail.”

The attempts to explain this passage in harmony with
the assumption that Confucius divorced his wife are
unnatural, The editors of the imperial edition of the
Li Chi say upon it that there is nowhere any mention of
such a thing, and that the old view on the subject seems
to be a mistake. As Confucius’ wife did not die till B.c.
485, when he was sixty-six, and had thus been his partner
for nearly fifty years, we do think that he might have had
more sympathy with the wailing of his son for her. He
could show signs of excessive sorrow himself at times, as
when his favourite disciple Yen Hui died ;—the ‘‘ Pshaw !
it’s too much,” does not make us admire him. Still there
is really no evidence that he divorced his wife.

NOTE E, p. 146.

In “The Ten Great Religions,” by James Freeman
Clarke (Boston, U.S., 1871), page 58, the author says :—
“Confucius is a star in the east, to lead his people to
Christ. One of the most authentic of his sayings is this,
that ‘in the west the true saint must be looked for and
found.’ He had a perception, such as truly great men
have often had, of some one higher than himself who was
to come after him.” The only saying having any likeness
to this and attributed to Confucius is in the works of the
philosopher Lieh, a Taoist writer not long posterior to our
sage. His fourth book has the name of “Chung-ni” after
Confucius (that being his cognomen) ; and it is related in
it that a great officer of Ch‘an, having come on a mission
to Li, was told at a private interview with the Head of
the Shi-sun family that there was a sage in the state.
The visitor asked, “Do you not mean Kung Ch‘id (Con-
LVotes on Lecture IT, 155

fucius)?” Being answered in the affirmative, he asked
“How do you know that K'ung is sage?” The chief
replied, “I have heard from Yen Hui that K‘ung Ch‘iti
can dispense with his mind, and use (only) his body.”
The visitor said, “In my state also there is a sage. Do
you not know it?” and went on to say that this sage was
a Kang Ts‘ang, a disciple of Lao Tan, whose tao he had
mastered, so that he could see with his ears and hear
with his eyes. This being reported to the marquis of
La, he was greatly excited, and sent to Ch'in and invited
Kang Ts‘ang to come to him. Mr. Kang accordingly
came to La, and, when received and questioned about
what had been reported of him, said that the report was
incorrect ; that he could see and hear without using either
his eyes or ears, but that one sense could not be made to
discharge the function of another. He then attempted to
explain how he had acquired so wonderful a gift. The
marquis was delighted, and by-and-by related the whole
conversation to Confucius, who, it is said, smiled, and
gave him no reply.

Apparently without any connexion with the above story
there follows an account of an interview between a high
minister of the state of Sung and Confucius. The former
said to the other, “Are youa sage?” ‘How should I
presume to count myself a sage?” was the reply ; “ but I
am extensively learned, and have a memory richly stored.”
The minister then asked if the three kings, the founders
of the dynasties of Chau, Shang, and Hsia, had been
sages ; and Confucius allowed them the merit of wisdom
and valour, yet said he did not know that they were sages.
The cases of the five Ti and three Hwang, stretching
back into the prehistoric time, were similarly disposed of,
till the visitor was struck aghast, and asked, “Who then
can be considered a sage?” Confucius looked moved
for a time, and said, ‘Among the people of the western
regions there is a sage. Without exercising any govern-
156 LVotes on Lecture Ll.

ment, he secures that there is no disorder ; without his
speaking, faith is reposed in him as a matter of course ;
without his transforming, transformation naturally goes
on. How vast (his merit)! The people can find noname
for it. But I doubt whether (even) he be a sage; I do
not know whether he is truly a sage, or truly not a sage.”
The minister of Sung silently reflected in his heart, and
said to himself, “ K‘ung Ch‘id is mocking me.”

This is the whole of the passage, from which is derived
the “‘most authentic saying” of Confucius quoted by
Mr. Clarke. And inquiries have come to me from France
and Germany asking me for information about “the un-
conscious prophecy” of the Chinese sage. The whole
story is from a Taoist mint, and intended to exalt the
tao in the first place. We may safely conclude that Con-
fucius never said anything of the kind. In the sentence
beginning, “Among the people of the western regions,”
and the next one, the verbs may be translated in the
present tense or the past :—“ There is a sage,” or “there
was a sage,” etc., but they cannot be construed in the
future. Among the notes in the “General Mirror of
History,” appended to the eighth year of the emperor
Ming of the Han dynasty, there is one to the effect that
“the name of the sage of the west mentioned in Lieh-tsze
is Budh.” The Buddhists have as much right to claim
“the unconscious prophecy” for Buddha as Christians
have for Christ; that is, neither have any right to
claim it.
III.

TAOISM :
AS A RELIGION AND A PHILOSOPHY.
“Intruding into those things which he hath not seen.”—
Colossians ii. 18.

Me A Kk a+
abl Bh SE 7K a Be LE
‘“*The highest goodness is like water, the nature of which is

near to Tao.”—Zhe Téo Teh King, ch. 8.

“* Whosoever exalteth himselt shall be abased, and he that
humbleth himself shall be exalted.” —Lake xiv, 11.
III.
What is Taoism ?

1.] HAVE often been asked what Taoism is,

and I have no doubt the question is now
in many of your minds, and you are hoping to
receive an answer to it from my lecture. But
the question is a difficult one, and I will not
anticipate myself by attempting a definition of
the name at the outset. It has two different
applications ;—first, to a popular and widely-
spread religion of China; and then to the
system of thought in the remarkable treatise
called the TAao Teh King, written in the
sixth century B.c. by Lao-tsze. In other words,
Taoism is the name ‘both of areligion and a
philosophy. The author of the philosophy is
the chief god, or one at least of the chief gods,
of the religion; but there is no evidence that
the religion grew out of his book. It was
impossible, indeed, as you will see, for it to do
so in many of its aspects. Any relation between
the two things is merely external, for in spirit
160 Taoism:

and tendency they are antagonistic. I will do
my best to describe them both, so far as the
time will allow, and you may be able to fashion
for yourselves a definition of Taoism in both the
applications of the name, if after all I shall not
be able to give it to you in categorical terms.

Before it became the practice to transfer to
other languages the Chinese word Tao, Taoism
was ordinarily called Rationalism,—a name ad-
mirably calculated to lead the mind astray as to
what the religion is. And in the book, “Reason,”
as Dr. Chalmers says, “would be more like a
quality or attribute of some conscious being
than Tao is.”? You will understand from this
that Tao is not the name of a person, but of a
concept or idea. Taoism does not owe its name
to its author, as Buddhism or Mohammedanism
does. I will now endeavour to set forth, first,
the religion, and next, the philosophy.

Legal standing of Taoism in China.

2. Confucianism (as described in my two
former lectures) is the religion par excellence of
China ; but both Taoism and Buddhism have a
legal standing inthe country. Their suppression

‘The Speculations of “the Old Philosopher” (Lao-tsze).
Introduction, p. xi. (Triibner & Co.)
Officially recognized and endowed. 161

has been recommended to the government at
different times, and individual emperors have
felt inclined to attempt it! We saw how the
Mancha emperor of the K‘ang-hsi period pre-
pared an edict against binding the feet of girls
which he never ventured to issue.2 In the same
way he wished to undertake the suppression of
Taoism, but saw reason to abandon the project.
Taoism is among “the strange principles” or
systems which the seventh precept of his sacred
edict commands to be “discountenanced and
banished,” and it is derided in the public expo-
sitions of that edict; but nevertheless, and wisely,
it is tolerated.

Taoism officially recognised and its Chief
endowed.

And it is also officially recognised and en-
dowed. The late Mr. Mayers in his “Manual of
the Chinese Government”? says:—“The Chinese
official system, which allows no condition of the
body politic to remain, in theory at least, un-
provided with means for its control, includes

1 See note A.

2 P., 112,

s “The Chinese Government. A Manual of Chinese
Titles, with an appendix.” By William Frederick Mayers.
P. 77. (Triibner & Co.) See note B.

II
162 Taoism:

among its administrative rules a complete
system of ecclesiastical gradations of rank and
authority in connexion with the priesthood of
both the Buddhist religion and the TdAoist
order. While refraining from interference with
the internal organisation of either of those
bodies, or with the admission of members to
their ranks, the imperial Institutes provide a
framework in harmony with the all-pervading
official system, to be grafted on the hierarchy
as it is found in either case developed according
to its own traditional rules.” I have no occasion
to speak of the framework for Taoism provided
by the Government, further than that it centres
in the pope or hereditary chief of the religion,
whose seat is on the Lung-hd (Dragon-tiger)
mountain, in the department of Kwang-hsin,
Chiang-hsi. His surname is Chang, and he has
the title of “ Heavenly Master.” The headship
of Taoism has been in the Chang family, with
the exception of one period of interruption, since
the first century of our era. The spirit of the
first pope is supposed to have transmigrated
from one chief to another down to the present
time. Since A.D. 1or5 the chiefs have possessed
large tracts of land about the Lung-hi moun-
tain, which were granted in that year as a
perpetual endowment for the family to Chang

¢
Lis Origin and Polytheism. 163

Chang-sui by the emperor Chan-tsung of the
Sung dynasty.". One of the common sayings
which I learned in China nearly forty years ago
was this :—“ However the empire be disordered
and convulsed, the Changs and the K‘ungs have
no occasion to be troubled.” I understood that
the K‘ungs were the descendants of Confu-
cius, whose representative has always the title
of “duke,” and is endowed with extensive
estates; but it was a considerable time before
I ascertained that the Changs were the popes
of Taoism? There are other ways in which
the existence and importance of Taoism are
recognized by the Government, and I hope to
find opportunity to speak at least of one of
them as I proceed with the subject. What I
have now said sufficiently shows that the
religion, though heterodox, has a legal standing
in the country.

Origin of Taoism as a religion. Its
polytheism.

3. We traced Confucianism and its double
worship of God and of ancestors back into pre-

1 “The General Mirror of History ” (Tung chien Kang

Ma), 27 az.
2 See note C.
164 Taoism :

historic time ; but Tdoism as a religion did not
exist until a considerable time after the com-
mencement of our Christian era. There is not
a word in the Tao Téh King, of the sixth
century B.C. that savours either of superstition
or religion. In the works of Lieh-tsze and
Chwang-tsze, followers of Lao-tsze, two or three
centuries later, we find abundance of grotesque
superstition, though we are never sure how far
those writers are sincere and really believed the
things they relate; but their beliefs, if we can say
that they had beliefs, had not become embodied
in any religious institutions. When we come
to the founder of the Ch'in dynasty, bestriding
the Chinese world like a colossus, and waging
fierce war against the memory and followers of
Confucius, we become aware of the powerful
hold that Téoist superstition must have obtained
in the country. He, the subjugator of the
feudal states, extending his dominion over all
the provinces that constitute the present China,
building the great wall, and laying the founda-
tions of the despotic rule that has continued
to the present day,—he fits out expeditions
and sends them to sea in quest of Fang-lai and
the other isles of the Immortals, and to bring
to him from them the herb of immortality,
The records of his brief reign do not tell us
Lis Origin and Polytheism. 165

whether he fully observed the state-worship that
had been paid to God by all the preceding
sovereigns of the kingdom; but we know that
he offered sacrifices to eight spirits, or eight
lords as he called them, unknown before or
since in the sacrificial canons! If Shih Hwang-
Ti had lived much longer, Taoism would have
developed into a religion quite different from
what it has been and is.

When the dynasty of Ch'in passed away, soon
after the beginning of the third century B.c.,
and that of Han took its place, Confucianism
regained its pre-eminence. The superstitions,
indeed, of Taoism had become widely diffused.
The emperor Wd, during the greater part of his
long reign of fifty-six years, from B.C. 140 to
85, was a slave to them; the Taoist pre-
judices of the historian Sze-ma Ch'ien, whose
great work appeared about B.C. 100, are uni-
versally acknowledged. The second and third
emperors of the eastern Han dynasty invited
Chang Tao-ling, the first of the popes or
patriarchs of Taoism, to come to court. Not-

1 See Mayers’ Chinese Reader’s Manual, pp. 337, 338.
It is remarkable that Shih Hwang-Ti’s first God was
called by him Tien Cha, “Lord of Heaven,” the very
name for God now used, by papal authority and command,
by the Roman Catholic missionaries.
166 Taoism :

withstanding these things, Confucianism was
still the sole religion of China; but in the year
A.D. 65 Buddhism was introduced from India.
Its missionaries, bringing with them an image of
Buddha, were received with distinction at court ;
a building was assigned to them for a temple
and monastery ; Buddhism ere long made itself
felt in many parts of the country. Buddhists
and Taoists were from the first drawn together
by various affinities. But the latter also saw
that if they would retain their influence with
the people, they must have temples and monas-
teries and public services like the former. It
has not yet been clearly ascertained when they
began to erect these buildings. The main body
of the literature of China is Confucian, and the
research necessary to obtain information on
subjects lying outside of it is great; but
information on the point in hand will be
forthcoming when the desirableness of it has
been recognized. Of the great and all but
overmastering influence of Buddhism on the
development of Taoism there is no doubt,
and I will content myself here with one illus-
tration of it. You go into a Buddhist temple
in China, and what strikes you most at first
sight is the three gigantic images in the prin-
cipal hall, called the San Pao or “Three Precious
Lts Origin and Polythetsm. 167

Ones.”? You know that in the theory of Bud-
dhism “the three precious ones” are Intelligence
personified in Buddha, the Law, and the Church ;
but an attendant of the temple will tell you that
the images represent Buddha past, present, and
to come. The common people, ignorant of the
esoteric view of a Trinity, cannot understand the
logical abstractions that are thus represented,
and blindly worship what they suppose are three
divinities ; and when you stand, as I have often
done, a long time before the great figures, you
feel that you are sympathizing with their popular
worshippers more than with the philosophers.
You go now into a Taoist temple, and are
immediately confronted by three vast images,
which you mistake at first for the precious
Buddhas. By-and-by you see that they are
different, and understand that they are San
Ch‘ing, “the three Pure or Holy Ones”: “the
Perfect Holy One;” “the Highest Holy One ;”
and “the Greatest Holy One.” Each of them
has the title of T‘ien Tsun, “the Heavenly and
Honoured,” and also the title of Shang Ti or
God, the latter taken from the Confucian or
old religion of the country. The second of the
three is “the Most High Prince Lao,” the usual

1 See Eitel’s Handbook of Chinese Buddhism, p. 150,
Article Triratna.
168 Taoism :

style in speaking of Lao-tsze; but his full title
is “the greatest Holy One, (the Lord) of Tao
and Virtue, the Heavenly and Honoured.”
The first of the three, “the Perfect (literally,
Gemmeous) Holy One, who was at the first
beginning, the Heavenly and Honoured,” is also
called “ P'an-ka, or Chaos.”? P*an-kii is spoken
of by the common people as “the first man,
who opened up heaven and earth.” It has been
said to me in “ pidgin” English that “he is all
the same your Adam ;” and in Taoist picture-
books I have seen him as a shaggy, dwarfish,
Hercules, developing from a bear rather than
an ape, and wielding an immense hammer and
chisel with which he is breaking the chaotic
rocks. You may think that I am caricaturing
the representations in this highest department
of Taoism, but Iam not conscious of doing so.
The utmost that I can discern in them is the
crude notion of a gross mind that the present
visible universe,—“ the heavens and the earth and
all the host of them,”—was fashioned somehow
out of a previously existing chaos. But when
Taoism ranks Chaos, “anarch old,” as one of

? Morrison’s Dictionary, I. i., p. 15 ; “ View of China for
Philological Purposes,” p. 111 ; and Chalmers’ “ Collec-
tion of Taoist Words and Phrases,” in Doolittle’s Vocabu-
lary and Handbook, II., p. 235.
Lis Origin and Polytheism. 169

its Trinity of great Gods, we are prepared to
find what is fantastic and unreasonable in its
system. Is Chaos any better than Chance,
“that unspiritual God and miscreator”? The
“three Holy Ones” are styled “Gods of void
non-existence.” Next to them is Yii Hwang
Shang Ti, the “gemmeous sovereign, God,”
who has in a great measure displaced the others
from the public mind, superintending, as he is
supposed to do, all human affairs, and also exer-
cising a control over the physical world. He is
styled “the God of mysterious existence.” The
TAoists contend that he is the same with the
Shang Ti of the classics, forgetting that that
Shang Ti was worshipped by the sage Shin,
more than two thousand years before TAoism
had assumed the form of a religion. And more
than this. The original of this popular idol
was a magician of the Chang family that has
given so many patriarchs to Taoism, whose
deification cannot be traced higher than the
T‘ang dynasty, in our seventh or eighth century.
The most extravagant legends are written about
him. He and another magician called Lid, rode
a race on dragons up to heaven, which was
won by Chang.)

1 Essay by Dr. Edkins, read at the Missionary Con-
ference, Shanghai, in 1877.
170 Taoism:

Taoism has many more “gods,” “supreme
gods,” “celestial gods,” “great gods,” and
“divine rulers.” The name Ti, or God, which
Confucianism never abused and prostituted to
such an extent, never indeed abused at all
without calling forth some protest and in the
end correction of the error, is given to scores
of the Taoist deities. No polytheism could be
more pronounced, or more grotesque, with hardly
a single feature of poetic fancy or esthetical
beauty.

What TAoism was before Buddhism came
into China,—a mass of superstitions and
sacrifices not digested into any system.
Illustrated by the case of the Han
emperor Wi.

4. It is evident that the influence of Buddhism
did much to mould the form that Taoism as a
religion took. To understand the subject fully we
must get some idea of what it was as a super-
stition or congeries of superstitions before it
came into contact with the system from India;
and that you may do this I will translate an ac-
count that we possess of the emperor W4, of the
Han dynasty, whom I have already mentioned.
Having succeeded to the throne at an early age
in B.C.140, he was admonished by a distinguished
As a Congeries of Superstitions, 171

scholar to hold fast to Confucianism, and avoid
prevalent superstitions.1 But the warning proved
of no avail. “The young sovereign,’ it is said,

was naturally addicted to reverence and
worship spiritual beings; and when Li Shdo-
chiin discoursed to him about the sacrifice to
(the spirit of) the furnace and the art of
keeping back the approach of age, he per-
formed the sacrifice himself, and sent magicians
to sea to search for the isle of Fang-lai. At
the same time he engaged in alchemical studies,
and attempted to transform cinnabar and other
substances into gold. After a long time Shdo-
chiin fell ill and died, but the emperor would
not believe that he was really dead. He said
that he had simply been transformed and gone
away as an Immortal, and employed men to
carry on the exercise of his arts.

“The year after, Shdo-wang, a man of Chi,
represented that he was possessed of wonderful
arts, and was favourably received. Just at that
time a favourite inmate of the harem died, and
Shdo-wang contrived to make a spirit, in form
resembling the deceased, appear to the emperor
at night, who was so pleased that he gave the
magician the rank of General with the title of
“the accomplished and complete,” and treated

1See note A,
172 Taoism :

him as an honoured guest. Before two years,
however, his arts had become feeble, on which
he got an ox to swallow a piece of silk witha
writing on it prepared by himself, and told the
emperor that it had been made known to him
that the animal had a wonderful document in
its belly. The ox was killed, and the silk
found, but the emperor recognized the hand-
writing, and “the accomplished and complete ”
was put to death.

“Not daunted by the death of this charlatan,
a former fellow-student of his, called Lwan T4,
boasted to the emperor about his science, and
affirmed that his master had said,—That other
metals might be transmuted into gold; that
the medicine of immortality might be obtained ;
and that the Immortals might be made to
appear. The emperor raised him also to the
rank of General, and gave him a noble lady in
marriage, so that the empire rang with the good
fortune of the adventurer; but having spoken
incautiously of seeing his master, and his arts
all proving unsuccessful, he also was put to
death.

“In the winter of that same year there was
a Kung-sun Ch'ing, who was looking out for
spirits in Ho-nan, and reported that he had
seen the footprint of an Immortal on the wall
As a Congertes of Superstitions. 173

of Hau-shih. On this the emperor repaired
to the east, and along the sea-coast offered
sacrifices to the eight spirits which Shih Hwang-
Ti had formerly worshipped. He also prepared
many vessels, and, filling them with several
thousand men who said that in the ocean
there were isles peopled by spirits, sent them
to find Fang-lai and its inhabitants. He him-
self meanwhile returned to Fang Kao; and
while there he raised a tumulus on mount Tai.
At that time there was neither wind nor rain,
and the magicians said that it was just the
season to get hold of the spiritual beings
of Fang-l4i. Joyfully the emperor turned
his face again to the east, full of hope to
have his wishes fulfilled every hour, and from
the shore looked out for his longed-for visitors ;
but it was all in vain.

“Five years after, he again went and sacrificed
on mount Tai, and in the course of twelve years
had gone all round to the five great mountains
and four great rivers, sacrificing ; but of all that
the magicians promised from their looking out
for spirits and seeking on the sea for the isle
of Fang-lai, not a single thing came to pass.

“In the year B.C. 99, the emperor, after
ploughing the imperial field at Chii-li, repaired
to mount T“ai, and performed the usual services
174 Tioism:

there, saying at the close of them, to his atten-
dants, “Since I ascended the throne, by wild
and unreasonable practices I have greatly
distressed the empire. I regret the past, but
cannot repair its errors. Henceforth, however,
I will do away with everything that is injurious
to the common people, and wastes the resources
of the country. T‘ien Ch‘ien-ch‘it, chief of the
court of ceremonies, said, “The stories of the
magicians about spirits and Immortals are
very numerous, but not one of them has been
made good. Your majesty should make an
end of them.” “Tvien’s words are good,” said
the emperor. His commands were issued
accordingly, but ever afterwards he would
often say to his ministers with sorrow, “Alas
that I was so led astray by the magicians!
Are there anywhere such Immortal beings as
they speak of? Their talk is all extravagance
and folly. If we are temperate in our diet,
and use medicine, we may make our illnesses
few. That is all we can attain to,”?

The above is a condensed account of the
Taoist practices of the emperor Wad. It might
have been very much enlarged, and I am sorry

‘Liang Yen-nien’s Illustrated edition of the K‘ang-hsi

Sacred Edict, with a little addition from the “ General
Mirror of History.”
Origin of the Present System. 175

it does not mention the astrological superstitions
to which he gave heed. His Taoist masters told
him that “among all the spirits of heaven, the
highest in rank was the one dwelling in the
star T‘di-yi (in Draco); that the five heavenly
rulers were on his left; and that, in accordance
with ancient custom on the part of the Head
of the State, he should sacrifice to T‘ai-yi."
Wd, otherwise a powerful ruler, was so infatuated
about these men, that he complied with their
request. He believed in their astrology, as he
did in their alchemy, their herb and elixir of
immortality, their stories about Immortals, and
their communications with spiritual beings.

The origin of the present Taoism.

5. We are now in a position to understand,
so far as such a subject can be understood, the
forms which a system so different from the
views and worship of the state religion, as seen in
Confucianism, assumed during the Han dynasty
and the changes that it has subsequently under-
gone.

The superstitions that constitute the sub-
stance of the system were indigenous, and had

1 See a Paper by Dr. Edkins in the “Companion to the

Shangh4i Almanac,” for 1857, on the Chinese worship of
the Stars.
176 Taoism :

existed and been growing from a very early
date. Our study in the first Lecture of a few
of the primitive written characters showed us
a belief in God, and even a monotheism, when
they were formed; but there were at the same
time ideas of which the outcome was likely to
be Sabaism, and the traces of a system of
divination were still more marked. Those ten-
dencies to superstition could have been checked
and corrected only by a healthy and general
development of the doctrine of God ; and this
did to some extent take place. But the effect
of it was marred by the restriction of the divine
worship to the Head of the state as the repre-
sentative of the people. Religious worship, as a
power to invigorate piety and stimulate morality,
was thus “cribbed, cabined, and confined.” Men,
debarred from communion with the Great Spirit,
resorted more eagerly to inferior spirits, to the
spirits of their fathers, and to spirits gene-
rally. One passage in the Shi King, referring
to a very early time, not later certainly than
that of the sage Shun, speaks of “communica-
tions between earth and heaven, and descents
(of spirits),”? which required the interference of
government. The accredited worship of ancestors,
with that of the departed great added to it, was

1 The Sha, V. xxvii. ch. 1.
Position of Confucius to Téotsm. 177

not enough to satisfy the cravings of men’s
minds. They wanted to have to do with spirits,
not as paying to them the cold tributes of
filial piety and admiration, but as receiving from
them what they were supposed to be able to
impart according to the activity of their nature.
As a contemporary of Confucius, trying to ex-
plain the passage of the Shai to which I have
just alluded, said, “The people intruded into
the functions of the regulators of the spirits and
their worship. They abandoned their duties
to their fellow-men, and tried to bring down
spirits from above. The spirits themselves, no
longer kept in check and subjected to rule,
made their appearance irregularly and disas-
trously.”! In this explanation there was super-
stitious error on the part of the statesman who
offered it; but it shows what was the natural
result of the relation between the Chinese people
and the religious constitution of their country.

Position of Confucius to the growing Taoism
of his time.

There is no doubt that for two thousand
years many fantastic and gross superstitions

1 « Narratives of the States” ; see Chinese Classics, II.
593, 594.
iz
178 Taoism :

had been growing in China, when Confucius
appeared upon its stage. And the position
which he took up in regard to them is very
characteristic of the man. I drew attention in
my last Lecture to his advice to “respect the
spirits but to keep aloof from them,” which has
been objected to as showing the non-religious-
ness of his nature; but we receive a different
impression from it when we know what the
latent Taéoism of his day was. Both it, and
the other saying that “to sacrifice to a spirit
with whom one has no proper connexion was
flattery,” were directed against the superstition
that was by-and-by to have so portentous a
development. Again, the first of the four sub-
jects on which he eschewed conversation was
“extraordinary things.” The account I have
given you of the emperor Wd of Han shows
of what character those extraordinary things
were. The sage evidently thought that super-
stition was best combated by. taking no notice
of it,—that speech might be silvern, but silence
was golden. There are times when that is the
case. I do not think Confucius’ time was one
of them. Nor was he the man in whom silence
was justifiable when the interests of truth were
concerned.
National Degeneracy after Confucius. 179

Rapid degeneracy after Confucius.

After the death of Confucius, the intellectual
and social degeneracy of the nation went on
morerapidly. The picture which Mencius draws
of its state in the fourth and third centuries B.c.
is frightful. ‘“ Unemployed scholars indulged
in unreasonable discussions.” Heresiarchs were
numerous. Mencius did his best to hold up the
standard of Confucian truth. Lieh-tsze before
him, and Chwang-tsze, his contemporary, were
not afraid to ridicule the master. Dr. Chalmers
has happily said that they used him, as the
Philistine lords used Samson, “to make sport for
them.” It is remarkable that Mencius does not
mention these philosophers by name and enter
the arena against them; but it was probably
their mockery of Confucius which made him pile
together the opinions of others and himself that
among mortal men there had never been that

sage’s equal.

From Mencius to the rise of the Han
dynasty.

In the third century B.C. there occurred the
death of Mencius, the extinction of the dynasty
of Chau, the subjugation of all the feudal states
amid “hideous ruin and combustion,” and the
180 Taoism :

establishment of the empire of Ch'in. We have
seen already how the founder of that empire
was a blind and devoted believer in Tdoist
superstitions. His line happily terminated with
his son. The foundations of the dynasty laid in
the ground soft with the blood of millions of the
people could not last longer. The Han empire
dates from B.c. 206. The old Confucianism
was at a low ebb. Its books had been burnt.
Many of its most distinguished adherents had
been buried alive. A reaction soon commenced,
but the work of reconstruction was tedious.
Though the founder of the Han visited the
master’s tomb in B.c. 194, and offered an ox in
sacrifice to him, nearly two centuries elapsed
before his first title as “the all-complete and
illustrious” was conferred on him by the em-
peror Ping. During all this time, Taoism had
the field very much to itself, and with what
result we have seen in the history of the emperor
Wa. The superstitions of more than 2000 years’
existence came to a head and _ effloresced.
Chang Téo-ling attracted the imperial notice
in the first century of our era; and a popedom
or patriarchate of the system has existed in the
line of his descendants to the present day. With
all this Taoism was not then a religion, with
temples, and liturgies, and forms of public
Flow it copied from Buddhism. 181

worship. It only became so after Buddhism
began to have free course in China. The
shaven representatives of Buddhism, and the
wearers of the “yellow caps”! of TAoism—for
I do not like to call either the one class or the
other by the name of priests—are now constantly
seen associated in the same service, and repeated
attempts have been made to amalgamate them
into one class? Though these were resisted on
both sides, yet Taoism, in organizing the forms
of its worship and liturgies, borrowed more from
Buddhism than Buddhism did from it. Its pro-
fessors, however, have always persisted, in oppo-
sition to Buddhism, and in spite of the efforts of
the Government, in refusing to submit to the
yoke of celibacy.

1 Dr. Chalmers says : “They are called Yellow Caps,
because they wear the style of caps instituted by Hwang
Ti, the Yellow Ti.” But the thing made of yellow wood,
and helping to bind up the hair in a knot, can hardly be
called “a cap.” I had one for years in my possession,
—given to me by its owner on his receiving Christian
baptism. “Top” would be a better name for it; crown
is a term of too much dignity.

?It is related, for instance, in the “ General Mirror of
History,” under A.D. 555, that the emperor of the Chit
dynasty, that there might no longer be two systems,
commanded all “the Yellow Tops” to become shaven
Shamans. Some of them refusing, it is said, four were
put to death, and there was a general compliance with
the decree !”
182 Téotsm :

Connexion of Taoism with what are called
the State gods.

6. When Confucianism was the’ sole religion
of China, there was no idolatry in it ; and while
the name of Ti or God has been given by the
Buddhists to Indra, and perhaps to other Indian
deities and there are multitudes of Taoist idols
who are called gods, great gods, and supreme
gods, an image has never been fashioned of the
god of the old classics. Indeed, it was not till
after the image of Buddha was brought to the
capital, in A.D. 65, that images or statues of
Confucius and other great men of the past began
to be made.

But when Taoism and Buddhism had made
good their footing in the empire, and were
recognized by the Government, it was possible
to multiply idol-deities indefinitely, and this
has been done in what are called the state
gods. Of these the three principal are the
fathers of Medicine (for Fé-hsf and two others

1 Dr. Medhurst, in his “ Dissertation on the Theology
of the Chinese,” pp. 248, 249, says, “In the Buddhistic
classic, Chang Tao Chi, we have Ti, frequently prefixed
to Shih, and used in the sense of the God Shih Kia-
mun-a.” But Ti Shih is the God Indra (Shakra). I do
not know that the name is given to Shakyamuni or Gau-
tama Buddha.
Connexion with the State gods. 183

are associated under this name), Kwan Yii (a
hero of our third century, the most likeable
character in the famous romance known as
“The History of the Three Kingdoms”), the
god of war, a special favourite of the Mancha
emperors ; and Wan-ch‘ang, the god of litera-
ture, a star deity, whose seat is in a constellation
which forms part of Ursa Major. Wan-ch‘ang
is a dangerous rival to Confucius as the patron
of literature, and Kwan-Ti was in 1856 appointed
to receive the same divine honours of worship
that are given to the sage, because the year
before he had manifested himself, and made the
imperial troops grandly successful in an engage-
ment with the T‘di-p‘ings. And it was not the
first time that he had appeared turning the tide
of battle, as Castor and Pollux did for the
Romans at Lake Regillus. A special officer,
representing the emperor, with a suite of atten-
dants, repairs to the temples of these deities
twice a year, and on behalf of the emperor
presents the appointed offerings and reads the
prayers.

But while these are the principal state gods,
the number of others less exalted is very great.
It was said to Judah of old time, “ According to
the number of thy cities are thy gods;” and much
more than this is true of China. The cities and
184 Téovsm :

smaller towns all have their tutelary deities,
which are appointed by the government, and
the local authorities render the imperial homage
at the set times. The number of deities and
temples, moreover, increases every year, for the
pope does not canonize on so large a scale as
the emperor of China. Now the temples of all
the state gods are in the hands of the ministers
of Taoism ; and if you would see the system in
its glory, or rather in its shame, you must visit
the temple of the tutelary deity of one of the
provincial capitals. If your choice has fallen on
a good day for the visit, the place is crowded
with worshippers and loungers. There are astro-
logers, diviners, geomancers, physiognomists, e¢
zd genus omne, all plying their trades, or waiting
to beasked to doso. Each shrine has its visitors
and suppliants. The whole place is grimy, and
the air is loaded with odours that are anything
but perfumes from Araby the blessed. There,
too, you shall see in “the chamber of Horrors”
frightful representations of the punishments of
Hades,—of what is being transacted in the
courts of the other world.

The moral teaching of Taoism.

7. But I will not enter on any description of
these until I have first given you some idea of
Lts Moral Teaching. 185

the moral teaching of the system. This is
communicated to the public for the most part in
what we should call tracts or pamphlets, pub-
blished as exhortations under the name of the
state gods and other deities. They contain a
great deal of good advice derived from the
Confucian books, with an intermixture of what
is queer and grotesque. The most popular and
characteristic of all the Taoist practical works
is “The Book of Actions and their Retributions,”?
ascribed to “The most High,” which is com-
monly taken as meaning Lao-tsze. The name
of the treatise, however, occurs first in a cata-
logue of the Sung dynasty. The writer was
familiar with the ethics of Confucianism and
Buddhism as well as those of his own religion;
and while the teaching of the latter predominates,
there is nothing contrary to the doctrines of the
other two. Commencing with the general state-
ment that “ There are no special doors (in men’s
lot) for calamity and blessing, which come as

' This treatise was all translated, with many illustra-
tive anecdotes, by the late Stanislas Julien, and several
versions in English have since appeared, done from Julien’s
version more than from the original text. Julien rendered
the title by “Le Livre des Récompenses et des Peines.”
That which I have given is more correct, but ‘‘ Actions”
must be taken as including thoughts and purposes though
unacted.
186 Taoism:

men themselves call them, and that their recom-
penses follow good and evil, as the shadow
follows the substance,” the treatise says that
there are spirits which take note of men’s trans-
gressions, and according to their lightness or
gravity, curtail the term of life. Several of
those spirits are then enumerated, some whose
seat is in the stars, three that reside in the
human body, and the spirit of the furnace. The
last four on certain days go up to the court of
heaven, and report the results of their observa-
tion. Great transgressions cost a man twelve
years of life, and small ones a hundred days.

After this preamble there follows the descrip-
tion of a good man, one whose characteristics
would make us all acknowledge that he should
be called such; and the result to him is that
“Men respect him, and Heaven protects him,
and Spirits defend him, and whatsoever he does
shall prosper;—he may hope to become an
Immortal.” If he be ambitious to be “an Im-
mortal of heaven,” he must give the proof of
thirteen hundred good deeds. If he be content
to be “an Immortal of earth,” three hundred will
suffice.

There is then given at much greater length
the description of a bad man. More than two
hundred traits of character are stated, which
Lts Moral Teaching. 187

we should all condemn more or less severely.
Others had better have been omitted, and
several are wrong only because they are contrary
to the superstitions of the system. A man,
é.g., Must not sing and dance on the last day
of the moon or of the year; must not shout
and get into a passion on the first day of the
moon or in the morning; must not weep, spit,
or be guilty of other indecency towards the
north; must not sigh, sing, or cry in front of
the furnace; must not spit at a shooting star,
point at a rainbow, or look long at the sun or
moon.

In the case of crimes such as are enumerated,
the spirit in charge of the perpetrator’s life,
according to a righteous decision, takes away
from his appointed time periods of twelve years
or of a hundred days. When the term of life is
exhausted, death ensues. If at death there still
remain guilt unpunished, the judgment extends
to his posterity.

Finally, the treatise thus concludes: “When
one’s mind is directed to good, though the good
be not yet done, the good spirits are in attend-
ance on him; and when one’s mind is directed
to evil, though the evil be not yet done, the bad
spirits are in attendance on him.

“If he has done the wicked thing, and after-
188 Taoism :

wards alters his way, and repents, not doing
anything wicked, but endeavouring to do every-
thing that is good, after a time he will obtain
good fortune and prosperity: this is what is
called changing calamity into blessing.

“The words, looks, and deeds of the good
man are all good. If all the three are seen to
be so every day, after three years Heaven will
surely send down blessing on him. And the
words, looks, and deeds of the bad man are all
evil. If all the three are seen to be so every
day, after three years Heaven will surely send
down calamity on him. Should you not exert
yourself to do what is good?”

Such is a specimen of the moral teaching of
Taoism. You can form your own judgment of
it. One sentence which I quoted says that “If
at death there still remain guilt unpunished, the
judgment extends to the culprit’s posterity.”
This is the view of retribution of which I spoke
in my second lecture on Confucianism,—that it
works itself out for good or ill in the descendants
of the individual. If he himself have any
punishment to receive after this present life,
Confucianism says nothing about it. And the
author of “ Actions and their Retributions” was
equally silent.
lts Purgatory and Ffell. 189

The purgatory and hell of Taoism.

8. But since he wrote, Taoism has received a
new and frightful development, which in great
measure has come to it from Buddhism quite
as evidently as its doctrine of a Trinity or the
three Holy Ones. It is the belief in trans-
migration in its grossest form, made still more
gross in the process of its adaptation. The
Taoist is now called on to believe ina purgatory,
consisting of ten courts of Justice situated at
the bottom of a great ocean which lies down
in the depths of the earth. Pictures of the
punishments inflicted in these courts are ex-
hibited in the temple of the spirit of “the
Eastern Mountain,” which forms a part of the
temple of the greater tutelary deity of each
provincial city, and receives consequently from
foreigners the name of “The chamber of
Horrors.” A full account of this purgatory is
contained in a work, of which a translation is
given by Mr. Herbert A. Giles in an appendix
to his “ Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio,”
published only in January this year,’ and I

1 “ Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Translated
and Annotated by Herbert A. Giles, of H.M.’s Consular
Service (Thomas De La Rue and Co.).” I had often

wished that some one would take the trouble to translate
all these stories. They are mainly Taoist, though Bud-
190 Téoism :

freely avail myself of the results of his toil.
The title of his original is—“ The Divine Pano-
rama, published by the mercy of Yu-Ti,’ that
men and women may repent them of their
faults, and make atonement for their sins.”
The description of the courts is preceded by
a recital of which this is a part. “On the birth-
day of the saviour P‘t-sa,? as the spirits of
purgatory were thronging round to offer their
congratulations, the ruler of the infernal
regions spake as follows:—‘My wish is to
release all souls, and every moon, as this day
comes round, I would wholly or partially remit
the punishment of erring shades, and give
them life once more in one of the six Paths.?

dhism and Buddhist monks frequently appear. If we had
only an equal collection of the “extraordinary things”
“about which Confucius would not speak !

1 This may be called the Taoist seal on the document.
Yii-Ti is the Yii Hwang Shang Ti of p. 169.

? P‘i-sa is an abbreviated form of the Chinese characters
for the Sanskrit Bodhisattva, meaning one whose
essence has become intelligence, and who has only once
more to pass through human existence before he attains
to Buddhaship (Eitel). The name is entirely Buddhistic,
but it is used in Chinese generally for a deity. The P‘i-sa
here would seem to be the ruler of the Infernal Regions.

8 The six gati, or paths of transmigration, the six con-
ditions of sentient existence: devas, men, asuras, beings
in hell, prétas, and animals. The last three of these
conditions are the “three States *subsequently mentioned.
Lts Purgatory and Hell. IgI

But alas! the wicked are many, and the virtuous
few. Nevertheless the punishments in the dark
region are too severe, and require some modi-
fication. Any wicked soul that repents and
induces one or two others to do likewise shall
be allowed to set this off against the punish-
ments which should be inflicted’ The judges
of the ten Courts then agreed that all who lead
virtuous lives from their youth upwards shall
be escorted at their death to the land of the
Immortals; that all whose balance of good
and evil is exact shall escape the bitterness of
the three States, and be born again among
men; that those who have repaid their debts
of gratitude and friendship, and fulfilled their
destiny, yet have a balance of evil against
them, shall pass through the various courts of
purgatory, and then be born again among men,
rich, poor, old, young, diseased or crippled, to
be put a second time upon trial. Then, if they
behave well, they may enter into some happy
state; but if badly, they will be dragged by
horrid devils through all the courts, suffering
bitterly as they go, and will again be born,
to endure in life the uttermost of poverty and
wretchedness, in death the everlasting tortures
of hell.” There follows a good deal of explana-
tion, but this relaxation of the severity of the
192 Taoism :

punishments, thus agreed upon by the judges
of the ten Courts, was approved by the ruling
P‘i-sa, and then on a certain day submitted
by the whole eleven of them to Yu-Ti. Yu-Tt
also approved and said, “Good! Good! Hence-
forth let all spirits take note of any mortal
who vows to lead a virtuous life, and, repenting,
promises to sin no more. Two punishments
shall be remitted to him. And if, in addition
to this, he succeeds in doing five virtuous acts,
then he shall escape all punishment and be
born again in some happy state ;—if a woman,
she shall be born asa man. But more than five
virtuous acts shall enable such a soul to obtain
the salvation of others, and redeem wife and
family from the tortures of hell. Let these
regulations be published in the Divine Pano-
rama, and circulated on earth by the spirits of
the City Guardian.”

Thus ends the preamble of the account of the
courts of purgatory. We see the lenient con-
stitution under which men are placed since the
meetings in purgatory and heaven, which the
document describes, were held,—placed with
regard to the purgatory and hell in the future!
The day and month in which the Powers of
purgatory laid their counsels before Yi-Ti in
heaven are stated, but not the year. I shall be
Lis Purgatory and Fell. 193

anxious to know what it was, and also whether
the publication is guaranteed by the Heavenly
Master Chang, the pope of Taoism on earth, as
well as by Yii Hwang, its God in heaven. But
with this document in circulation, Dr. Edkins
did well to speak as he did at the Missionary
Conference in Shanghai in 1877:—“ Among
statements which I made years ago and have
now to correct as imperfect or erroneous is
this, that the Tdoists have no hell, but only a
heaven.”

After the preamble of which I have spoken
there follows a description of each of the ten
courts of purgatory, with their punishments and
the crimes for which these are inflicted. The
ninth court, for instance, presided over by His
Infernal Majesty, P‘ing Tang, is a vast, circular
gehenna, many leagues in breadth, enclosed by
an iron net, and subdivided into sixteen wards.
“In the first the wicked souls have their bones
beaten and their bodies scorched. In the
second, their muscles are drawn out and their
bones rapped. In the third, ducks eat their
heart and liver. In the fourth, dogs eat their
intestines and lungs. In the fifth, they are
splashed with hot oil. In the sixth, their heads
are crushed in a frame, and their tongues and
teeth are drawn out. In the seventh, their

13
194 Téowm :

brains are taken out and their skulls filled
with hedgehogs. In the eighth, their heads
are steamed and their brains scraped. In the
ninth, they are dragged about by sheep till
they drop to pieces. In the tenth, they are
squeezed in a wooden press and pricked on
the head. In the eleventh, their hearts are
ground in amill. In the twelfth, boiling water
drips on to their bodies. In the thirteenth,
they are stung by wasps. In the fourteenth,
they are tortured by ants and maggots; they
are then stewed and finally wrung out (like
clothes). In the fifteenth, they are stung by
scorpions. In the sixteenth, they are tortured
by venomous snakes, crimson and scarlet.”
Sed ohe! jam satis. I will not weary you
with more of the horrible details of the “ Divine
Panorama.” I have quoted from it so largely,
that there might be no doubt as to the recent
development of a purgatory and hell in the
system of Taoism. The impulse leading to
that development was derived evidently in
the first place from Buddhism. But for the
Indian belief in metempsychosis or transmigra-
tion, the TAoists would never have fashioned their
courts of purgatory; but I am not aware
that Buddhism maintains an unending suc-
cession of transmigrations ; and still less that
Lts Purgatory and Fiell. 195

when transmigration has done its best and
there is no good result, there is afterwards an
everlasting hell to which irremediable souls are
consigned. This seems to be a tenet peculiar
to Taoism, that the soul must live on for ever in
its individuality. A sentence of the preamble,
which I did not quote above, deals with the
unbelief of many who say that “when a man
dies, there is an end of him; that, when he has
lost his skin (that is, in Shakspearian phrase,
‘shuffled off this mortal coil’), he has already
suffered the worst that can befal him; that
living men can be tortured, but no one ever
saw a man’s ghost in the pillory; that after
death all is unknown, and so on.” In reply to
such unbelievers it is said, “ Truly these men do
not know that the body alone perishes, but the
soul lives for ever and ever; and that whatsoever
evil they do in this life, the same will be done
to them in the life to come.” Taoism perhaps
derived this tenet from some Christian source ;
it certainly teaches in the “ Divine Panorama ”
the everlasting existence and misery of the
irreclaimably bad. But it says also that
some get to be “Immortals” without passing
through the fires of purgatory, and others who,
after being subjected to them, have conducted
themselves aright in a new and transmigrated
196 Taoism :

life. Is their immortality also everlasting? I
presume the system would say so, though no
texts occur to me that expressly affirm it, or
speak of any advance in eternity from one
degree of brightness and happiness to another
and higher.

Taoism as a magical power in conflict with
malevolent spirits.

10. I must bring my description of Taoism
as a religion to a close; and in order to do so,
I withdraw with you from the shades of the
infernal world, and return to the realm of light
and mortal life. But the system seems to dog
our steps, and to let loose millions of malevolent
spirits to trouble and afflict us. Though we see
them not, hosts of them may be all about us,
seeking opportunity to inflict various injury.
They may assume the forms of snakes and
foxes, of men and women, and entrap the unwary.
Or they may take demoniac possession of their
victims, and produce pining sickness, mooning
melancholy, and wild frenzy. They haunt
houses, and frequent thickets. Their sounds,
weird and eerie, are heard in the darkness of
the night, when the wind is howling about the
roof, or the rats and mice are holding revel on
the floor, or behind the wainscot in the crevices
Lis Power against Spirits. 197

of the walls. The dread of spirits is the night-
mare of the Chinaman’s life, and to this dread
Taoism panders. It encourages it by its teach-
ings, and lives in a great measure by it. This
is the prevailing characteristic of the system at
the present day.

My impression is that the alchemy which was
cultivated in the Han dynasty pretty well wore
itself out in five or six centuries. The quest for
the herb and preparation of the pill of immor-
tality held their ground longer. The writer of
the popular paraphrase of “The sacred Edict”
appeals to his hearers against the good doctors
of Tao, who, in the deep recesses and caves of
their mountains, occupy themselves with refining
the vital spirit, and talk about becoming Immor-
tals. “Who,” he asks, “ever saw them fly up
into the air in broad daylight? Their preten-
sions are a farce.” But while other superstitions
may have been modified in the course of time,
that about the existence of spirits and their
interference with men is as powerful now as
ever it was, and from the pope or Heavenly
Master downwards, every “yellow Top” is
gifted in consequence with the powers of a
magician, who with charms and liturgies fights
against the malevolent demons. Of course no
one is equal to the pope. The sword that has
198 Téoism:

come down from our first century is very power-
ful. He can even imprison the spirits, and it
is said that about his residence on the Lung-hi
mountain there are thousands of jars in rows, all
tenanted by demons whom the great magician
has shut up in them.

But every member of the order has his own
ability, and makes more or less by writing
charms and preparing amulets. The charms
are figures, and characters, single or combined,
drawn and written in grotesque forms. The
myriads of doors on which you see them pasted
shows the thriving trade that their writers must
have. A few years ago, over a large extent of
the country, men were startled by the sudden
and unaccountable disappearance of their tails
or long cues. An invasion of cholera could not
have frightened the people more. It was the
work of malevolent spirits! There was a run
upon the charm-manufactories. It was thought
that four characters, mysteriously woven together
and wrapped up in the cue, warded the spirits off.

Taoism thus becomes at times dangerous to
the peace of the community. Its adherents will
generally be found making common cause against
foreigners with the literati. Both fear the advance
of science and general knowledge, as threatening
their prestige and their means of living; and in
Its Geomancy and Worship of the Dead. 199

the populace, inflamed by Taoist superstitions,
a scheming scholar will find, not a host that
will take arms against its own government or
foreign soldiers, but a mob that in blind fury
will commit the most frightful deeds of violence
and outrage.

Geomancy and the worship of the dead.

11. The only other features of TAoism which
I think it necessary to mention are the
superstition of geomancy, and the views which
it teaches the people to take of their departed
relatives, and the duties to be paid to them.
And even on these two features I can touch but
slightly ;—to treat exhaustively of geomancy
would require more than one lecture for itself.
The common name for the thing in Chinese is
fang-shui, “wind and water.” Dr. Yates says
that “it is never used except with reference to
the repose of the dead, or the influence of the
dead upon the happiness and welfare of the
living.” I would extend this account of it, for
it has to do with the selection of sites for the
habitations of the living, as well as of graves for
the dead. The aim of the Tdaoists, however, is

1! Yates’s Paper on Ancestral Worship at the Conference
in Shanghai.
200 Taoism:

especially to provide the proper spots for the
graves. Only adepts in the system can be
relied on to do this, and large sums are often
paid for their services. If a coffin be interred
in an improper spot, the spirit of the dead is
made unhappy, and avenges itself by causing
sickness and other calamities to the relatives who
have not taken sufficient care for its repose. I
have known bodies kept unburied, lying in their
large and carefully cemented coffins, for a long
time, from the difficulty of selecting the best
site for the grave. I have known great excite-
ment and expenditure in connexion with the
removal of a coffin from a grave which had
turned out unpropitious, to one that was likely
to enable its tenant to rest in peace, and leave
his family circle unmolested.

With regard to the dead whose graves have
been selected in harmony with geomantic
principles, Taoism teaches that each one has
three souls, one of which remains with the
corpse, and one with the spirit-tablet, while
the third is carried off to the purgatory, of
which I gave you some description a little ago.
Offerings must be presented at the grave,
before the spirit tablet, and in the temple of
the tutelary deity of the city. Special services,
often very expensive, may be held also either
Begotten by Buddhism. 201

by Buddhist monks or by TaAoist, or by both
together as I have often seen, to deliver the soul
from purgatory. Whether, when the deliver-
ance has been in any case effected, the three
souls are then reunited for an ascent to the
region of the Immortals, or for a new career
of trial upon earth,—that I have never found
discussed in any Taoist book that I have read.
But what a falling off in these services to the
dead, and the fear of calamity if they be not
performed, from the Confucian worship of
ancestors, and the filial piety of which it is
represented as the fulfilment! To serveits own
mercenary purposes, Taoism seems to convert
the souls of all the dead into malevolent spirits,
and to cause what is done by their descendants
for them to be done from fear and not from
love.

I have done with the religion of Taoism.
Much research is still required from Chinese
scholars to make clear everything connected
with it and trace the process of its development,
so as to satisfy the critical inquirer. But 1 am
satisfied that I have given its general attributes
fairly. It is not an ancient religion like that
followed, illustrated, and transmitted by Con-
fucius. It was begotten by Buddhism out of
the old Chinese superstitions. Its forms are
202 Taotsne :

those of Buddhism ; but its voice and spirit
are from its mother-superstitions, fantastic, base,
and cruel. I have thought while setting it forth
of Milton’s description of sin :—

“¢ The other shape,
If shape it might be called, that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ;
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed ;
For each seemed either. Black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart.”

It has proved too strong for Confucianism,
though acknowledging to a great extent the
social system and duties enjoined by the sage;
the government, holding only Confucianism
to be orthodox, has yet been compelled to
recognize and endow it, as well as Buddhism ;
it will long rage against the progress of Chris-
tianity. But the more that the truths of real
science are disseminated in China, the weaker
will be the hold of Taoism. A time must come
when its errors will exist only in dark corners
and benighted minds, as is the case in Chris-
tendom with the alchemy, astrology, palmistry,
belief in witchcraft, and other superstitions
which long tried to maintain themselves even in
the Christian church.
As a Philosophy. 203

Taoism as a philosophy.

12. We must turn now to Taoism as a philo-
sophy. After I have done my best to describe
it to you, so far as I profess to know it myself,
you may think that a humbler name than
philosophy would have been more suitable for
it; but the discussion will not come to so lame
and impotent a conclusion as the consideration
of the religion has done. What I have to attempt
is to give you some idea of the contents of the
Tao Teh King, which is our only text-book in
the case. No other writing has come down to
us from the pencil of Lao-tsze, its author. It
will not take long to put you in possession of
everything about him that claims to rest on a
historical foundation.

Historical account of L&o-tsze.

13. Lao-tsze is, probably, a title of respect,
equivalent to “the Old or Venerable Philoso-
pher.” The two characters may also be trans-
lated “ Old Boy,” and it is a popular fancy that
the philosopher was so called, because he was
not born till his mother had carried him in her
womb seventy-two years, or, according to some
accounts, eighty-one years. No wonder that
the child should have had white hair,—an “old
204 Taoism :

boy ” of about fourscore years! That, of course,
is an extravagant legend, and is found among a
mass of similar stuff in the “Record of Spirits
and Immortals” by Ko Hung, a writer of our
fourth century, between nine hundred and a
thousand years after the birth of our subject.
Sze-ma Ch‘ien, however, commences a_ brief
record of his life with this title, which must
therefore have been in common use in the second
century B.c. His surname was Li, and his name
&, meaning “ear,” which gave place after his
death to Tan, meaning “Flat-eared;” from which
we may conclude that there was some peculiarity
in the form of his ears. His birthplace was in
the east of what is now the province of Ho-nan,
and he was one of the Sze, “ Recorders,” or

Historiographers,” at the royal court of Chau,
his special charge being that of a librarian In
the year B.C. 517, as we saw, Confucius visited

1 Lao-tsze was in charge of the tsang shih, “the
storehouse,” or “house of deposit.” In 1861 I interpreted
this as meaning that he was “‘a treasury-keeper.” Julien
made him “keeper of the archives.” Professor Douglas
has met with a statement that Confucius visited him “to
hand him a book to be placed in the archives (Confucian-
ism and Taoism, p. 176).” Chi Hs? says that Lao-tsze
was in charge of the tien-tsf and shi-tsi, “Canons and
Records,” or generally “Writings.” Some make the
“Canons” to have been those of the three lines of
sovereigns before Fi-hstf!
Account of Léo-tsze. 205

the capital, his object, according to Ch'ien, being
to make inquiries of Lao-tsze on the subject of
ceremonies. Whether this were the motive of
the sage’s journey or not, the two men then met.
“Those whom you talk about,” said Lao-tsze
to the other, “are dead, and their bones are
mouldered to dust ;—only their words are left.
Moreover, when the superior man gets his time
he mounts aloft; but, when the time is against
him, he moves as if his feet were entangled. I
have heard that a good merchant, though he
has rich treasures deeply stored, appears as if
he were poor, and that the superior man, though
his virtue is complete, is yet to outward seeming
stupid. Put away your proud air and many
desires, your insinuating habit and wild will.
These are of no advantage to you ;—this is all
that I have to tell you.” Confucius at this time
was thirty-five years old, and Lao-tsze was eighty-
eight, if his birth, as is commonly believed, took
place in B.C. 604. The difference of their age
may be pleaded as justifying the style that
Lao-tsze employed in addressing his visitor.
Confucius is made to say, after the interview,
to his disciples, “I know how birds can fly,
fishes swim, and animals run. But the runner
may be snared, the swimmer hooked, and the
flyer shot by the arrow. But there is the
206 Taoism:

dragon ;—I cannot tell how he mounts on the
wind through the clouds and rises to heaven.
To-day I have seen Lao-tsze, and can only
compare him to the dragon.”?

Ch‘ien adds, “Ldo-tsze cultivated the tdo
and virtue, the chief aim of his studies being
how to keep himself concealed and remain un-
known. He continued to reside at (the capital
of) Chau, but, after a long time, seeing the
decay of the dynasty, he left it, and went away
to the gate leading out of the state on the
north-west. Yin Hsi, keeper of the gate, said
to him, ‘You are about to withdraw yourself
out of sight: I pray you to compose for me
(first) a book.” On this Lao-tsze wrote a book
in two parts, setting forth his views on Tao and
virtue, in more than five thousand characters.
He then went away, and it is not known where
he died: He was a superior man who liked to
keep himself unknown.”

Ch'ien finally traces Ldo-tsze’s descendants
down to the beginning of the first century B.c.,
and concludes by saying, “Those who attach
themselves to the doctrine of Lao-tsze condemn

1 Then did the practice of calling Li R Lao-tsze originate
with Confucius? If so, the sage would have reference in
the title to Li’s great age, and the reverence due to him
in consequence.
Account of Léo-tsze. 207

that of the literati, and the literati on their
part condemn L4do-tsze, verifying the saying,
“Parties, whose principles are different, cannot
take counsel together.’ Li & taught that trans-
formation as a matter of course follows the
doing nothing (to bring it about), and rectifi-
cation in the same way ensues from being pure
and still.”

This morsel is all that we have of historical
narrative about Lao-tsze. There is nothing in
it to make us think that he was more than a
man of superior character, devoted to the study
of the tao and of virtue. There is no reason
for us to doubt that the book which he wrote at
the request of Yin Hsi, and for his special
benefit in the first place, was the Tao Teh King,
which we still possess. The students of the
tao had in the time of Sze-m4 Ch'ien become
a school distinct from the adherents of the
orthodox Confucianism, and opposed to and by
them. But there is no account of Lao-tsze’s
deification, nothing of his pre-existence, and
nothing of his travelling to the west and
learning there doctrines which he embodied in
his work. He goes through the pass out of the
royal domain, alone, unattended ; and nothing
more was ever heard of him.

Doubts have been thrown on the interview
208 Taoism :

between him and Confucius, and I do not accept
it myself with entire confidence. Allowing it,
however, to be true, there is a remarkable
similarity between the position and language of
Lao-tsze in it and those of the recluses that
come before us in the Analects. They rate the
sage much as he did for not withdrawing from
the world altogether, and deride him for his
unceasing attempts, “hoping against hope,” to
arrest the degenerate tendencies of the time.!
But for the Tao Teh King, Lao-tsze would have
been to us simply as one of them. Confucius
saw as clearly as he that, if things went on’ as
they were doing, the kingdom of Chau must
fall;? but he said, “If right principles pre-
vailed through the land, there would be no
need for my services.” A sense of duty kept
him at his post, while Lao-tsze and the others
abandoned the struggle and withdrew into
obscurity. I will make no further reference,
however, to Ch'ien’s brief narrative, nor to
the legends, drawn for the most part from
the legend of Gautama Buddha,’ but will call
your attention to the Tao Teh King.

» Ana. XVIII. vi.
? Confucianism and T4oism, p. 178.
3 See note D.
Lhe Tio Teh King. 209

Errors in the interpretation of the Tao
Teh King.

14. The preceding narrative would seem to
fix the preparation of this treatise after the year
B.C. 517. Containing but few more than five
thousand characters,! it is about twice as long
as the “Sermon on the Mount,” though a good
translation in English will take more space,
owing to the condensed style of the original.
It ought not to be difficult to analyse thoroughly
so short a piece, and determine the meaning
of its several chapters, but experience proves
the reverse. Both native commentators and
foreigners have been forward to acknowledge
how hard it is to open the shell and bring out
the meaning of the text. And the errors into
which some scholars of great attainments and
with the best intentions have fallen, in regard to
some of its most important chapters, show us
with what accuracy and caution our study of it
should be prosecuted. I will illustrate this by
two or three instances.

i. Father Prémare and other Roman Catholic
missionaries about the beginning of last century
made it their object to find in the old books of

1 In the T‘ai Shang hwun yiian Tao Teh Chan King,
published at Shanghai, I have counted 5330 characters.

14
219 Téoism:

China passages on which they could insist as
in wonderful harmony with the teaching of our
sacred scriptures. They-did so especially in the
Tao Teh King. Montucci of Berlin, a partizan
of their school of interpretation, writing on
“Chinese Studies” in 1808, said, “Many things
about a Triune God are so clearly expressed in
it, that no one who has read this book can
doubt that the mystery of the Most Holy
Trinity was revealed to the Chinese five centuries
before the coming of Jesus Christ.” I need
hardly say that there is nothing in Lao-tsze’s
work which can be wrested into a declaration of
the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

ii, Father Amiot, however, thought that he
found such a passage in the first paragraph of
the fourteenth chapter ;—to him there appeared
in it the three persons of the Trinity. He
translated it thus :—“He who is as it were
visible and cannot be seen is called Khi (should
be ); he whom we cannot hear and who does
not speak to the ears is called Hi; he who is
as it were tangible, but whom we cannot touch,
-is called Wei.”

It was reserved for Rémusat to outdo Amiot
in his study of this text. A very considerable

* See Julien’s Translation of the Tao Teh King,
Itrodnuction, p. iv.
The Tao Teh King. 2It

Chinese scholar, and the first occupant of a
Chinese chair in Europe, he found the Hebrew
word Je-ho-va in the three syllables I, hi, wet;
and he published in 1823 his “Memoir on the
Life and Opinions of Lao-tsze,” to make known
and vindicate his discovery. All Europe was
startled by it. To find a Hebrew word,—the
great and incommunicable name of God,—in a
Chinese writing of the sixth century B.c.: how had
the name been carried to the east? what a part
might not the Tao Teh King yet play in the
christianization of China! I became acquainted
with the view in 1838 from one of archbishop
Wiseman’s Lectures on the “Connexion between
Science and Religion,” and bought a copy of
Rémusat’s memoir; I studied it during my
voyage to the east in 1839, and for two or three
years, whenever there was occasion to use the
name Jehovah in Chinese tracts issued under
my superintendence,. it was represented by the
three syllables {-hi-wei. The delusion did not
last long. When Julien’s translation of the Tao
Teh King, published in 1842, in which he ex-
posed the error of his predecessor in the Chinese
chair, came into my hands, I was prepared to
agree with him.

The whole fourteenth chapter may be trans-
lated as follows. It is a favourable specimen
212 Taowm :

of the contents of the book. “We look at it,
and do not see it: it is named the colourless.
We listen for it, and do not hear it: it is named
the soundless. We (try to) grasp it, and do not
get hold of it: it is named the incorporeal.
With these three qualities it cannot be investi-
gated and defined; and hence we blend them
together and form a unity.

“Its upper part is not bright; its lower part
is not obscure. Ceaseless in its action, it (yet)
cannot be named. (Finally) it returns, and
again becomes nothing. This is what is called
the form of what is formless, the image of the
invisible. This is what is called being incapable
of determination.

“We meet it, but we do not see its front; we
follow it, but we do not see its back parts.
When we grasp the T4o that was of old so as
to deal with the existences of the present, and
are able to know the old beginnings, this is
what is called having the clue of Tao.”

The writer in all this was speaking of his
Tao, and not of any personal being. Many of
his expressions are remarkable and tantalizing.
They promise to conduct us to the brink of a
grand prospect, and then there is before us but
a sea of mist. If Lao-tsze found it thus difficult
to express his own idea of TAo, it is not to be
The Tio Teh King. e183

marvelled at, that students of his book, nearly
2500 years after him, should shrink from the
attempt to define it.

iii. In his fourth lecture on “the Science of
Religion” (pp. 249, 250), professor Max Miiller
quotes the greater part of the twenty-fifth
chapter of the Tao Teh King as an instance
of the exalted character of the teachings to
be found in the sacred books of other religions
besides our own. The first sentence of his
version is, “ There is an infinite Being, which
existed before heaven and earth.” The sequel
shows clearly that this being was the Tao,
Lao-tsze’s great theme. Of course professor
Miiller was translating from Julien’s French
version of the original, and that misled him
as to the word “being,” instead of “thing.”
Julien says, “Il est un étre confus;” but when
“confus” is exchanged for the English “infinite,”
we get too high an idea of the thought that was
in the mind of Lao-tsze. The verb, moreover,
should be translated in the past tense! The
whole of the chapter is this:—“There was
something chaotic and complete before the birth
of heaven and earth. How still it was and

7

1 Dr. Chalmers’ version of the sentence is,—“ There was
something chaotic in nature which existed before heaven
and earth.”
214 Taoism :

formless, standing alone, and undergoing no
change; proceeding everywhere, and in no
danger (of being exhausted)! It may be re-
garded as the mother of all things.

“T do not know its name, but designate it
the Tao! (the Way); and forcing myself to
frame a name for it, I call it the Great.

“Great, it passes on, in constant flux; so
passing on, it becomes remote; when remote, it
comes back.

“Therefore T4o is great; Heaven is great ;
Earth is great; the (sage) King is also great.
In the circle of being there are four that are
great, and the (sage) King is one of them.

“ The (sage) man has for his law the earth;
the earth has heaven for its law; heaven has
Tao for its law; and the law of T4o is its
own spontaneity.”

Things that are taught in the book.

15. I have dwelt sufficiently on errors into
which European scholars have fallen in their

1 Chalmers says here ;—“ I know not its name, but give
it the title of Tao.” Julien’s version is to the same effect.
The term which they translate by “title,” “entitle,” is
that indicating the name or designation given to a man
in China on his marriage. What it is important to ob-
serve is this :—that T4o is not the name of L&o-tsze’s
subject, but a descriptive designation of it.
Lhe Tio Teh King. 215

illustration of what is taught in the Tao Teh
King. I have ventured to point them out
simply as a helpful preparation for our study
of what the book does really teach. It is not
without a feeling of the difficulty of the under-
taking that I proceed to tell you some of the
results to which such a study conducts us.
There are two translations of the work, whose
merits I gladly acknowledge :—one by the late
Stanislas Julien, published at Paris in 1842; and
the other by the Rev. Dr. Chalmers of Canton,
published here in London in 1868. I am in
possession also of a version in German, by
Victor von Strauss, published at Leipzig in
1870. There is a second and later version, also
in German, by Reinhold von Planckner, that I
have not yet seen. During the last two years
I have myself made two versions of the original,
and advanced a considerable way with a third.
Notwithstanding the succours afforded by Julien
and Chalmers, I undertook the labour of trans-
lating afresh for myself, transcribing at the
same time the original and the happiest portions
of Chinese commentary on it, because I have
learned by experience that such a process gives
one most readily a mastery of the old books of
China. Their meaning and spirit soak gradually
into the mind. My long dealing with them has
216 Téotsm :

not yet enabled me to make them throw open
their gates at the first summons. After all my
pains with the Tao Teh King I am still waiting
for more light on many chapters. IJ think, how-
ever, I have attained to the practical drift and
aim of the old moralist and mystic.

i, Let us hear what he says of himself in
contrast with the majority of other men.

“Tf we could give up (constantly adding to)
our knowledge, we should have no anxieties.

“There is not much difference between the
Yes (with which we answer a question), and
the Yea (with which we give a flattering assent
to the views of others); but how far separate
are the good and evil (to which these responses
lead) !

“What all fear is indeed to be feared; but
how immense is the number of things (which
our increasing knowledge will thus make us
fear) !

“ All men look pleased, as if enjoying a full
banquet, as if mounted on a tower in spring. I
alone am still and indifferent, my desires not
having yet shown themselves ;—I am like an
infant that has not yet smiled. I look forlorn,
as if I had nowhere to go to.

“All others have enough and to spare; I
alone look as if I had lost everything,
The Tio Teh King. S17

“My mind is that of a stupid man; I am in
a state of chaos.

“The common people look very intelligent ; I
alone am very dark. The common people are
full of discrimination ; I alone have none.

“TI am drifted about as on the sea; I am
carried by the wind, as if I had nowhere to rest.

‘All others have their amount of capacity; I
alone am stupid, like a rude borderer.

“(Thus) I alone am different from other
men, and what I value is the nursing mother.”!

The “nursing mother” is the Tao, and in
order to enjoy her care and nurture one must
have the emptiness of mind and freedom from
desires and ambitions which the writer describes
as characteristic of himself.

ii. It is self-evident that emptiness, or free-
dom from preoccupation, is a condition of
receptivity ; Lao-tsze also teaches that such
emptiness is necessary to usefulness, Take
the following chapter in illustration of this :—
“The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but
it is on the empty space (for the axle), that
the use of the carriage depends. Clay is
fashioned into vessels; but it is on its empty
hollowness that the use of a vessel depends.
Doors and windows are cut out to form apart-

' Ch. 20.
218 Taoism:

ments, but it is on the empty space in them
that the use of an apartment depends. There-
fore what has a positive existence serves for
profitable adaptation, and what has no positive
existence for the actual use.”*

iii. Both in the processes of nature, spoken of
as the action of heaven and earth, and in the
activities of man, what corresponds to this
emptiness is a freedom from all selfish mo-
tive, or purpose centering in self. It is said,
“The sage deals with affairs (as if) he were
doing nothing, and performs his teaching
without words. (In the same way, in nature),
all things shoot up (in spring) without a word
spoken, and grow (in summer) without a claim
for their production. They go through their
processes (in autumn) without any display of
pride in them, and the results are realized,
(in winter) without any assumption of owner-
ship.”?

So again: “Heaven and earth have no (pur-
pose of) love (in bestowing their favours): they
deal with all things as the dogs of straw (in
sacrifice) are dealt with. The sages have no
(purpose of) love (in their action); they deal
with the people as the dogs of straw (in sacrifice)
are dealt with.

' Ch. 11. 2 Ch. 2.
The Tio Teh King. 219

“ May not the space between heaven and earth
be compared to the bellows of a forge? It
becomes empty, and yet is not exhausted ; it is
moved (again), and sends forth air the more.

“ Many words produce speedy exhaustion (of
the breath) ; there is nothing like keeping that
which is within.”*

“The book often speaks of doing nothing,
desiring nothing, and so on, while the greatest
results follow from the quietude ; but in all such
instances we are to understand “on purpose,”
or “with a motive.” Thus it is said :—“ States

~are-fuled by (measures of) correction; war is
carried on by craft; (but) it is only by doing
nothing (with design) that the kingdom can be
made one’s own. Therefore the sages said, ‘We
will do nothing (with purpose), and the people
will of themselves be transformed ; we will love
quietness, and the people will of themselves be
rectified; we will take no measures, and the
people will of themselves become rich ; we will
free ourselves from desire, and the people will of
themselves become simple-minded.’ ”?

From the three points which I have stated we

1 Ch. 5. ‘‘ Figures of straw made like dogs” were used
at services of prayer for rain, but after the service was
over, they were of no account. The reference to them is
not very happy. ? Ch. 57.
220 Téoism :

begin to get an idea of the meaning of the
word Téo in the treatise. Of the three English
terms that suggest themselves for it,—the Way,
Reason, and the Word,'—the Way, in the
sense of Method, is the one that is suitable.”
Tao is the style of action, which Ldo-tsze
wished to recommend and inculcate,—action
proceeding from a mind in a state of calm
repose according to the spontaneity of its
nature, without bias of partiality or hypocrisy.
If Methodism and Methodist had not been so
well appropriated in English, I should have
recommended their employment for Taoism and
Taoist.

iv, As might be expected from the above
principles, humility has a distinguished place
in the teachings of Lao-tsze. He says :—“ The
incomplete becomes complete; the crooked.

? Chalmers’ Translation, p. xi.

* Professor Douglas (Confucianism and Taoism, p. 189),
in his careful account of the Tao Teh King, says, “If we
were compelled to adopt a single word to represent the
Tao of Lao-tsze, we, should prefer the sense in which it
is used by Confucius, ‘the way,’ that is pédodos.” But
there does not lie behind the name as Confucius uses it
the same view of what constitutes the proper method.
Ratio in Latin has also the meaning of method, and if
the word rationalism carried in it that signification (which
it does not), its use for Taoism would not be objection-
able.
The Téo Teh King. 221

becomes straight; the hollow becomes full;
the worn out becomes new; he who desires
little gets much; he who desires much goes
astray.

“Therefore the sage holds (this) one thing
(of humility) in his embrace, and is a pattern
to the world. He is free from self-display, and
so he shines; from self-assertion, and so he is
distinguished ; from boasting, and so his merit
is acknowledged; from  self-conceit, and so
his superiority is allowed. It is because he is
thus free from striving that therefore no one
can strive with him.

“That saying of the ancients, that ‘the
incomplete becomes complete’ was not vainly
spoken. All real completion is comprehended
in it.”?

Water is a favourite emblem of the Tao with
the author. Thus he says:—‘The highest
goodness is like water. Water is good at
benefiting all things; and without striving (to
the contrary), it occupies the (low) place, which
all men dislike. Hence its (nature) is near to
that of Tao. It is because it does not strive
(against its natural tendency) that there is no
murmuring against it.2 And again :—“There
is nothing in the world more supple and weak

1 Ch, 2, Ch. 8.
222 Téoism :

than water, and yet, for dealing with things
that are hard and strong, nothing can surpass
it: let no one try to ‘change it for anything
else. Every one in the world knows that the
soft overcomes the hard, and the weak the
strong, but none can carry it out in practice.
Therefore a sage has said, ‘He who accepts
the reproach of a state becomes the lord of
its altars; he who accepts the misfortunes of
his state becomes the king of all under
heaven,’ ”!

v. There are other chapters which I should
like to quote on the virtue of humility, but
the want of space and time compels me to
leave them out. Hear our author on his three
precious things.

“All in the world say that my T4o is great,
but that I seem to be inferior to others. Now
it is just this greatness which makes me seem
inferior to others. Those who are deemed
equal to others have long been—small men.
/” “But there are three precious things which I
prize and hold fast. The first is gentle com-
passion ; the second is economy; the third is
(humility), not presuming to take precedence in
the world. With gentle compassion I can be
brave. With economy I can be liberal. Not

' Ch. 78.
The Téo Teh King. 223

presuming to claim precedence in the world, I
can make myself a vessel fit for the most dis-
tinguished services. Now-a-days they give up
gentle compassion, and cultivate (mere physical)
courage ; they give up economy, and (try to be)
lavish (without it) ; they give up being last, and
seek to be first :—of all which the end is death.

“Gentle compassion is sure to overcome in
fight, and to be firm in maintaining its own.
Heaven will save its possessor, protecting him
by his gentleness.”+

vi. But there is in the Tao Teh King some-
thing even higher and nobler than this. Léao-
Tsze had attained to the conception of returning
good for evil. I give you the whole of the
chapter in which he mentions that as an element
of his system.

“(It is the way of Tao) not to act from any
personal motive; to conduct affairs without
feeling the trouble of them; to taste without
being aware of the flavour ; to account the great
as small and the small as great ; to recompense
injury with kindness.

“(The follower of Tao) anticipates things
that would become difficult while they are easy,
and does things that would become great while
they are little. The difficult things in the world’

1 Ch. 67.
224 Taoism :

arise from what are easy, and the great things
from what are small. Thus it is that the sage
never does what is great, and therefore can
accomplish the greatest things.

“He who assents lightly will be found to
keep but little faith He who takes many
things easily is sure to meet with many difh-
culties. Hence the sage sees difficulty in (what
seem) easy things, and therefore never has any
difficulties.”?

The sentiment about returning good for evil
was new in China, and originated with Lao-tsze.
We saw in the second Lecture how Confucius
was consulted about it by some of his disciples
whose notice it had attracted. The sage, 1 am
sorry to say, was not able to take it in.

vii. There are other points of Lao-tsze’s teach-
ing which I should like to bring before you,
but it is high time that the lecture came to
a close. He seems to condemn the infliction
of capital punishment ;* and he deplores the
practice of war. With the progress of
knowledge and society, however, as we think
and speak, he had no sympathy. He looked
back to an early time of Arcadian innocence
and enjoyment, and regretting that it had

" Ch. 63. ? Chh. 73, 74.
3 Ch. 69.
The Tio Teh King 225

passed away, would gladly have reproduced it
on however small a scale. In his last chapter
but one he says: “In a small state with a
few inhabitants, (I would so order it that) the
people, though supplied with all kinds of im-
plements, would not (care to) usethem; I would
make them look on death as a most grievous
thing, but not go away to a distance (to escape
it). Though they had boats and carriages,
they should have no occasion to ride in them.
Though they had buff coats and sharp weapons,
they should not don or use them. I would
make them return to the use of knotted cords
(instead of written characters). They should
think their (coarse) food sweet, their (plain)
clothing beautiful, their (poor) houses places of
rest, and their common (simple) ways sources
of enjoyment.

“There should be a neighbouring state within
sight, and the sounds of the fowls and dogs
should be heard from it to us without inter-
ruption, but I would make the people to old
age, even to death, have no intercourse with
it.”

It is difficult to suppose that these sentences
were written seriously. The thoughts are those
of a hermit, and not of a philosopher. Would
Lao-tsze really have been glad to abolish writing,

+)
226 Taoism:

and go back to the use of quippos? Would he
have had neighbouring peoples live all their lives
without any intercourse? He was a dreamer,
a “glorious dreamer,” if you like, but after all
only a dreamer.

viii. There is but one more point in his system
of thought, to which I wish to draw attention.

Does the Tao Teh King recognise the
existence of God ?

Professor Douglas says that “ Ldo-tsze knew
nothing of a Personal God, so far as we may
judge from this treatise ;” adding, “ And indeed
a belief in such a being would be in opposition
to the whole tenor of his philosophy.”! To
me the point is by no means so clear. The
ancient Chinese, we saw in the first Lecture,
calling the visible sky by the name tien, used
the same term to express their concept of a
Supreme Power, under Whose rule they were?
Now, Ldo-tsze does this just in the same way
as Confucius. “The way of Heaven” occurs
five or six times with no adjunct that would be
strange in the ShQ or the Shih® We read

’ Confucianism and Taoism, p. 211.
* Pp. 8, 9.
*£-g., Chh. 47, 73, 77) 79, 81.
Lhe Téo Teh King. B25

such expressions as “the correlate of Heaven,”
“Heaven saves,” “governing men and serving
Heaven.” !

But when it is said, as in ch. 1, that “Tao,
(conceived of as) having no name, is the be-
ginning of heaven and earth; and (conceived
of as) having a name is the mother of all
things;” or, as in ch. 6, that “the door of
the abyss-mother is the root of heaven and
earth,” does it not seem that Lao-tsze made his
Tao prior to Heaven? He certainly makes it
prior to heaven and earth, which is a phrase
denoting the totality of material existences ;
but he does not make it prior to Heaven, in
the usages of that name of which I have just
spoken. “Heaven and earth” seems to be used,
we saw, in the Confucian books, as a dualistic
name for the one Heaven, but it has not that
application in the Tao Teh King, and because
of such predicates of the Tao as are before us
I do not feel called on to admit that Lao-tsze
did not believe in God.

There remains, however, one chapter, which
has been understood as showing that “there is
no room for a Supreme God in his system.”?
That chapter is the fourth, and says: “Tao is

1Chh, 68, 67, 59.
* Confucianism and Taoism, p. 211.
228 Téoism :

(like the) emptiness (of a vessel), and the use
of it, we may say, must be free from all self-
sufficiency. How deep it is, as if it were the
author of all things!

““We should make our sharpness blunt, and
unravel the complications of things ; we should
attemper our brightness, and assimilate our-
selves to the obscurity caused by dust. How
still and clear (is T4o), a phantasm with the
semblance of permanence !

“JT do not know whose son it is. It might
appear to have been before God.”

The term employed here for God is Ti, the
personal name for the conception of Heaven as
the ruling Power,—a term whose origin, as we
saw in the first lecture, was in the prehistoric
time. Now, Lao-tsze does not say that he
does not believe in God. On the contrary, he
accepts the fact of His existence. The sentence
does not intimate any negation. All that can
be argued from it is that our author makes God
posterior, and so inferior, tohis Tao. But he does
not really do so. He does not say that Téo
was before God, but that it might appear to
have been so. In no chapter does the nature of
TAo as a method or style of action appear more
clearly. It has no positive existence of itself;
it is but like the emptiness of a vessel, and the
The Tio Tech King. 229

manifestation of it by men requires freedom
from self-sufficiency. Whence came it? Whose
son is it? He cannot tell; but it was probably
the perception of this quality in the processes of
nature that gave rise to the ideas of God, and
led to the use of the name for heaven as the
personal Ti.

Such is the interpretation of this difficult
chapter in which, after long musing, my mind
has found rest. In harmony with it I reply in
the affirmative to the question whether the Tao
Teh King recognizes the existence of God.

16. But while the existence of God is not
denied, there is no inculcation of religion in the
book. Lao-tsze’s Taoism is the exhibition of
a way or method of living which men should
cultivate as the highest and purest develop-
ment of their nature. That the name of the
system of thought and of the man should be
identified, as they are, with the base religion
described in the former part of the lecture, is a
mystery at present inexplicable. But Taoism as
a discipline for the mind and life has not been
without fruit. There have been many who under
its influence have withdrawn entirely from the
world, and many more who, unable to do that,
have endeavoured to keep themselves, while in
the world, from the vortex of its ambitions and
230 Taoism.

passions, seeking after its three precious things,
with the stillness of the soul, the simplicity of
motive, and the sympathy with virtue and
happiness which it commends.!

1 In a recent and excellent work, “The History of
Corea,” by the Rev. John Ross (J. and B. Parlane, Paisley),
the author says that Taoism, which divides Chinese
attention with Buddhism, is almost unknown in Corea
(p. 355); and in the same chapter he quotes from a
native treatise on religion that they have “the Religion
of Reason, whose teaching is summed up in the two words
‘Clean’ and ‘Empty.’”? Mr. Ross thinks that this Tao
is meant for Buddhism; but the Taoism of Corea is
simply that of the Tao Teh King, while the Tdoist
religion is happily unknown.
NOTES ON LECTURE III.

NoTE A, p. 161.

IN B.c. 140, Tung Chung-shi, one of the ablest scholars
of the time, replied to a mandate of the emperor Wii with
the following counsels :—“ The Ch'un Ch‘ii magnifies
unity of rule and order to show that such is the constant
method of heaven and earth, acknowledged to be right
in ancient times and the present. Now-a-days every
teacher has his own peculiar ways, and every man his
own peculiar reasoning. There are a hundred schools
with their various arts, all differing in aim and idea, and
your Majesty has no means of pursuing any uniform
plan, and your regulations are frequently changed, so
that your officers and people do not know which to keep.
In your servant’s humble opinion, all studies not in the
six departments of knowledge and other arts sanctioned
by Confucius, should be strictly forbidden, and the future
proposal of them interdicted. The depraved and perverse
talk which we hear will then cease, your regulations may
be made uniform, your laws and statutes will be clearly
understood, and the people will know what to follow.”—
“The Illustrated Explanation of the Sacred Edict,” by
Liang Yen-nien, 1681, on the 7th precept.

Tung’s counsel, directed specially against the Taoism
of the day, did not displease the emperor. He raised
him to high office, while yet for many years he threw
himself blindly into the arms of the charlatans that
o32 Notes on Lecture I1l.

swarmed to the court. His eyes at length were opened
and he bitterly deplored his folly.

NOTE B, p. 161.

In the China Review for May and June last year,
there is an able and interesting notice of a proposal for
the “Reformation of Missionary enterprise in China.”
The plan suggested is that, taking advantage of the
official arrangements for the regulation and control of
heterodox religions, missionaries should become natu-
ralized Chinese subjects, in which case the author of it
thinks that “China would be found quite ready to issue
the strictest instructions to all authorities to treat them
with the utmost justice and consideration, and to put
them on the same footing as all scholars and as other
priests.”

Since 1842 all missionaries have made “treaty rights”
the basis of their operations. These give them liberty
to preach and make converts, and secure toleration for
their converts, and that they shall not be persecuted
simply because they have become Christians. This was
agreed to by the Chinese government, of course “by
constraint, and not willingly.” Errors have been com-
mitted occasionally by missionaries in trying to extend
the protection of the treaties to men who had deceived
them, and whose profession of Christianity was only a
mask behind which they hoped to secure other ends ;
and consuls and foreign ministers have found enforcing
compliance with the tolerating article a troublesome affair.
I can conceive that some of them would hail the trans-
ference of their missionary countrymen with their Chinese
converts to the kind and generous hands of the Chinese
government! But such a reformation of the missionary
enterprise is a vain dream. The Chinese government
could not be expected to deal with different societies and
Notes on Lecture LIT, 233

different individuals in detail, and the representatives of
different churches and nationalities will not band them-
selves together to negotiateas one body. Missionaries are
content with their position as it is. They know it, and
only wish to make the best of it. To the promoters of
the proposed scheme, they will only say, “Let well alone.”

NOTE C, p. 163.

I hope that some Sinologist will by-and-by, through his
researches, be able to give an account of many of these
popes of Taoism. The following jottings, made in the
course of my own reading, are not without interest, but
I introduce them here to illustrate the extravagance of
the system.

The first of the men was Chang T4o-ling, born in A.D.
34 at T‘ien-mi hill in Cheh-chiang, and said to have been
a descendant in the eighth generation of Chang Liang, or
the marquis Lid, a friend and helper of the founder of
the Han dynasty. Having learned the art of prolonging
life, he retired among the hills, refusing to come forth,
though repeatedly invited to court by the emperors
Chang and Ho (A.D. 76—105). For a long time he
wandered about, visiting famous hills, and at last came
to the rivulet of “Roseate Clouds” in Hsing-an in the
east, and followed it up till it brought him to the cave
of the same name,—a grotto with its rocks, fit for an
Immortal. There he prepared his pill for three years,
while green dragons and white tigers wheeled about
above him. Having eaten the pill, though he was then
sixty years old, he looked younger than ever. He also
got a mysterious volume from which he understood the
changes and transformations of spirits, and could drive
away and destroy imps and demons. Afterwards he came
to the peak of Yun-t‘di in Shi, and thence ascended to
heaven, leaving his books, talismans, and charms, his
sword and seal to his descendants.
234 Notes on Lecture LT.

The above details are from Yi’s Biographical dictionary
of 1793. Many others have been collected by Edkins
and Chalmers. The latter says (Article on TAoism in
China Review, 1873):—“Once he slew a million
devils with one stroke of a vermilion pencil; and on
the humble intercession of their six kings, who were not
quite dead, he raised them all to life again in the same
way, on condition that they should go away to the western
countries, and no longer infest China.”

Tao-ling’s descendants enjoyed the presidency of
Taoism till A.D. 424, when K‘du Hsién-chih, a famous
member of the body, intrigued with a favourite at the
court of the Northern Wel, and got himself appointed as
the patriarch with the title of “ Heavenly Teacher.” Of
this K‘du the dictionary tells us that he had met with an
immortal called Ch'ang Kung-hsing, and rambled about
with him, eating the medicine of the immortals. He
then lived retired in Sung-yang till a.D. 424, when he
went to court. One day he told a disciple that he had
dreamt the night before that Kung-hsing had called him
from the palace of the Immortals on the central mountain,
on which he was transformed and could fly. A pure
vapour, like a pillar of smoke, issued from his mouth, till
he had got half-way up the sky, when it melted away, and
his body gradually contracted. People said that in this
way he had got rid of his body ; and afterwards he was
seen on the hill of Sung, with his body of the colour of
silver, bright and shining, so that people knew that he
had become an Immortal.

I suppose the presidency continued in the line of this
K‘au till a.D. 748, when the emperor Hsiian of the T‘ang
dynasty, distinguished for a time for his Taoist proclivi-
ties, restored it to the Changs. None of them come
prominently before us till A.D. 1015, when the Sung
emperor Chan Tsung, as stated in the text of the lecture,
endowed Chang Chang-Sui for himself and his posterity
Notes on Lecture LIT. 235

with the freehold of all their lands about Lung-hti hill,
and built for him likewise a hall and temple.

The emperors of the Mongol or Yiian dynasty were
favourable to Taoism. Jenghiz Khan himself, indeed, sent
for Ch'id Ch'ang-chun, a very famous professor of the
system, to instruct him in it, in 1220, There is a long
and interesting account of Ch‘it’s travels to Persia, where
Jenghiz was at the time, and of his return to China, with
all the interviews and intercourse between them, in Dr.
Bretschneider’s Notes on Chinese Medizval Travellers
to the West (Shanghai, 1875), from which we receive a
high impression of the man. He belonged, indeed, to the
school which professes to “refine the heart,” and not the
pill. Jenghiz granted a decree, releasing all professors of
the T4o from the payment of taxes. These would only
be those belonging to “the order.” Jenghiz’s visitor,
however, was not a Chang.

The pope Chang Tsung-yen was invited by Kublai, the
first Yiian emperor, in 1276, after he had completed the
reduction of Chiang-nan, to visit him in that province.
The emperor received him with distinction, and said,
“ Formerly I sent Wang Yi-ch‘ing to consult your father,
who returned to me for answer that in twenty years the
empire would be united under one rule. The words of
the mysterious Immortal have been fulfilled.” He then
ordered his visitor to be seated, and feasted him. He
gave him also a cap gorgeous with ornaments of jade,
and a seamless robe of cloth of gold, styled him “the
true man, proficient in the Tao, whose doings were effi-
cacious, the ideal of harmony,” and appointed him teacher
of Taoism in Chiang-nan. Giving him a seal of silver, he
told him to produce the seal of jade and the precious
sword, which had been transmitted from his ancestor.
Looking on these, the emperor said to his ministers in
waiting, ‘I know not how many changes of dynasty there
have been, but this sword and this seal have been handed
236 Notes on Lecture II,

down from father to son to the present day; certainly
the spiritual intelligences have guarded them.” He then
built a temple to the father of his visitor in the capital,
and ordered him to take up his residence at it, but after a
year Tsung-yen begged leave to return to his hill, where
he died in 1292.

The notice in the Biographies goes on to trace the
history of the Changs through several successions, amid
constantly repeated tokens of the imperial favour.

The present Head of Taoism was in Shanghai a few
years ago, when several foreigners had interviews with
him. Dr. Edkins was one of them, and asked him
how long it was since the Chang deified as Yi Ti and
Yii Hwang Shang Ti (p. 169) first received that title.
The answer was—“ From the beginning of the uni-
verse!”

NotE D, p. 208.

In the F4 Lun King, there is an account of nearly
twenty different appearances of Ldo-tsze, from the earliest
prehistoric time that the Chinese imagination has con-
ceived down to the time of Confucius. It says: “In
the time of king K‘ang (B.C. 1078—1053) when he was
known as the philosopher Kwo Shi, he went out by the
pass on the west, and returned across the desert to
instruct Confucius (B.C. 517) on the subject of cere-
monies.” It then states who were his teachers in heaven
and among men, and adds : “ When L4o-tsze was born, he
jumped up and took nine steps in the air, while lotus
flowers sprang up under his feet. Pointing to heaven
with his right hand and with his left hand to the earth,
he said, ‘In heaven above and earth beneath only the
Tao is honourable.” When Shakyamuni was born, he
jumped up and took seven steps in the air, pointing with
one hand to heaven and with the other to the earth, and
Notes on Lecture 11. 237

saying, ‘In heaven above and earth beneath, only I am
honourable.” The author then naively remarks that
“the two incidents ought not to have been so much
alike!” Of course they ought not. Neither of them
occurred. Both are legends, and that about Lao-tsze is
modelled from the other.
IV.

THE CHINESE RELIGIONS, AS COM-
PARED WITH CHRISTIANITY.
SEE 58 VW lin Se

“‘Discountenance strange principles in order to exalt the
correct doctrine.” —A‘ang-hst Edict, 7th Precept.

“‘God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in
time past to the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days
spoken to us by His Son.” —£pistle to the Hebrews, i. 1, 2.
IV.
Object and method of this lecture.

HAVE endeavoured in three lectures to
describe the two indigenous religions of
China,—if, indeed, we may say that Tdoism,
which, as a religion, has borrowed so much
from Buddhism, is indigenous. My object in
this concluding lecture will be to treat of both
Confucianism and Taoism as compared with

I.

Christianity. JI assume, you will perceive, that
you are all acquainted with Christianity, and
do not need to be instructed by me as to its
facts and principles. The name which first
occurred to me for the course of four lectures
was “Confucianism, Taoism, and Christianity,”
but I soon felt that that required modifica-
tion. It was right that I should teach you
what the first two systems are, having spent
more than half my life in making myself
acquainted with them, and in endeavouring to
bring over their adherents to the faith of
Christ; but it would not be congruous, nor
is it needful for me, to set forth to you in
16
242 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

the same way what Christianity is. Most of
you know your Bibles as well as I do; and
there are those among you at whose feet it
would be proper for me to sit as a learner
concerning the history and doctrines of our
religion.

I will conduct the argument in this lecture,
therefore, on the assumption that you are ac-
quainted with Christianity ; and I will compare
what you have now learned about the Chinese
religions with what we have all known, more
or less fully, about the other from our early
years. It may be said that my reasoning
will proceed from and conduct to a foregone
conclusion. To some extent it must and will
be so. I cannot make my mind a ¢adula rasa
in regard to the faith in which I was brought
up, and which, in mature years, after not a
little speculation and hesitancy, I embraced
for myself, with an entire conviction of its
truth. At the same time, the more that
a man possesses the Christian spirit, and is
governed by Christian principle, the more
anxious will he be to do justice to every other
system of religion, and to hold his own without
taint or fetter of bigotry. Looking abroad
on the various forms of belief in the world,
and including his own among them, he will
Object and Method of the Lecture. 243

endeavour to fulfil the counsel of Paul, to
“prove all things and hold fast that which
is good.”

So far as the Confucian, T4oist, and Christian
systems are concerned, this is what I now wish
to do with you. Of course I shall freely state
my own views on the various subjects on which
I touch. They will not jar much, if at all, on
those which you have been accustomed to hold.
If some of you should think that my trumpet
gives now and then an uncertain sound, or if
my sentiments shall seem here too narrow and
there too wide, I ask from you the exercise
of your charity. The field of Christian truth
is very large. There is space in it for agree-
ment of opinion; and round every doctrine
there is a margin where allowance can be
made for differences of conception and state-
ment. I think we are of one mind in this.
In this special application of his words, we
say with Horace,

“Scimus, et hanc veniam petimusgue damusgue vicissim.”

I will proceed therefore to compare, it may
be to contrast, various points in Confucianism and
TAéoism, but especially in Confucianism, with the
teaching of Christianity on the same subjects.
Having done this, I will direct attention to
244 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

Christian doctrines that are peculiar, and con-
sider whether the study of the religions of China
should make us thankful for such doctrines or
the contrary. I will not plunge, however, into
the sea of theology or Christology, but be
guided, as to the topics which I take up, by
the study which I have pursued with you of
the two Chinese systems. I may be allowed in
conclusion to insist on two practical issues to
which our discussions should lead.

Preliminary points of agreement in the three
religions.

2. Before entering on the comparison or con-
trast which I propose, there are three things in
which the religions agree, that are very important,
and which it is desirable to specify.

i. There is the existence of God. The first
verse of our Bible declares this :—“In the begin-
ning God created the heaven and the earth.”
We discovered the divine name as familiar to
the Chinese in the earliest of their historical
documents. We were able even to satisfy our-
selves that that name was familiar to them at
a period long anterior to any of their written
books. Neither in our Bible nor in the books
of Confucianism is an attempt made to prove
Points of Agreement. 245

the divine existence. In the book of Isaiah
Jehovah says, “I am Jehovah, and there is none
else. There is no God beside me.” The Con-
fucian books do not contain a similar declaration ;
but we saw how the monotheism of prehistoric
time in China has always striven, and not
without success, to assert itself against attempts
to corrupt it. In Taoism, which is polytheistic,
the name of God is of course common; but
Lao-tsze himself often spoke of God, so far as
the term T‘ien, “Heaven,” employed in a
non-material sense, could do so, and on one
occasion he used the name God itself. The
existence of God is assumed in the three
religions.

ii. The idea of the possibility and the fact
of revelation is also common to them all. We
are familiar with the opening words of the
epistle to the Hebrews :—“ God, who at sundry
times and in divers manners spake in time
past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath
in these last days spoken to us by His Son.”
Among the primitive written characters of the
Chinese there was one, we saw, which was the
symbol of manifestation or revelation coming
from above. That God should speak or make
known His will to men did not seem strange to
the Chinese fathers, and in the Shih we read
246 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

that “God spake to king Wan,” just as we
read in the Old Testament that “God spake
to Moses.” Hundreds of Taoist tracts also are
circulated in China, each one purporting to be
the teaching of this god or that, “to warn,” or
“to advise mankind.” The idea of revelation
therefore is held in the three religions.

iii, And so is the idea of the supernatural.
I do not know that I am able, and certainly I
will not attempt, to talk learnedly or philo-
sophically of supernaturalism. We have to do
here with the simplest conception of it,—the
occurrence of events in which we recognise the
immediate presence and operation of God. I
spoke in the first lecture of the view of
Confucius about the ever-changing phenomena
of the material universe’ He thought they
were produced by the mysterious spiritual opera-
tion of God. Such a theory may be right or
wrong. If it mean more than that the pheno-
mena occur in accordance with and by means
of general laws established by God and within
the range of His omniscience, it seems to be
needless and only to cumber us in our study of
nature. But events so happening are not super-
natural. When, however, we read in the Shih
King that the mother of Hau-chi happened to

1 Pp. 42, 43.
Points of Agreement. 247

tread on a toe-print made by God, and in
consequence became pregnant, and in due time
gave birth to her wonderful son,! we have passed
from the region of the natural into that of the
supernatural.

But so many of the things regarded and
related as supernatural have, upon careful in-
vestigation of them, been demonstrated to be
the delusions of error and superstition, or the:
fabrications of deceit, having nothing about them,
if they really occurred, which did not admit of
natural interpretation, that we are often inclined
to reject the idea of the supernatural altogether.
On the other hand, when we have admitted the
fact of the divine existence, and of the interest
that God retains in all His handiworks as the
product of His power, and especially in men as
the most intelligent of His creatures and the
special objects of His love;—when we have
admitted these things, we dare not deny the
possibility of God’s supernatural, or rather extra-
ordinary, interference both in nature and in pro-
vidence. When any such interference is asserted,
we dare not disbelieve without examination.
Did it take place or not? The conclusion of
our judgment allows its possibility ; the yearning
of our hearts suggests its probability. The

1 Shih, III. ii., Ode 1.
248 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

question comes to be one of evidence, and we
are not without sufficient tests of truth to guide
us to a conclusion in which we feel assured our
minds will be able to repose. At any rate,
Christianity, Confucianism, and Taoism, all
allow the element of the supernatural, all assert
the fact of revelation, all acknowledge the exist-
ence of God. On each of these points there are
great differences in the three religions when we
go into detail; but the things themselves are
admitted by them all.

Comparison as to the doctrine and worship
of God.

3. The first lecture on Confucianism was
devoted to its doctrine and worship of God.
We were glad to find in the Shi and Shih so
much about God and His government of men
which we could without hesitation accept as
true. At the same time, whatever of this kind is
to be found in these and the other classical books
exists only in shreds and patches. The contrast
between them and the overflowing fulness of the
Old and New Testaments on the same theme is
remarkable. Our sacred writers excel themselves
when they dilate on God. Very often what we
read in them professes to be the word of God
about Himself coming to us by them. In no
The Doctrine of God. 249

other volume does human genius soar so grandly
in its attempts to rise to the height of its great
argument. Chapters in Job, many of the Psalms,
the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, and many other
portions of prophecy, cause us to be still, and
know that God has brought Himself nigh, and
is speaking to us by and through His servants.
We can only bow our heads and worship.
Nature and providence also seem to become
alive in the Bible, and add their voices to the
testimony concerning God :—“ The heavens de-
clare His glory; the firmament showeth His
handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech;
night unto night showeth knowledge.” The
declarations and doxologies of the New Testa-
ment, briefer than those of the Old, have yet a
depth and force peculiar and unrivalled. Take
for instance those two short sentences in the
first epistle of John,—“ God is light,” and “ God
is love.” You will search in vain all the Confu-
cian literature of China for anything approaching
to them.

But as you saw, for the fullest expression of
the Confucian doctrine of God, we must have
recourse not to the classical writings, but to the
solstitial prayers. They are to be found in the
rituals and statutes of the empire generally ;
but these are not intended for popular reading.
250 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

And the prayers occupy but a small portion
of those great collections, and, if not specially
sought for, are likely to be overlooked. Here
and there a scholar may have made himself
acquainted with them, but to the masses of
the people they are as if they were not. They
have not been taught them at school, and it is
improbable that their attention was called to
them after they left it. How different it is with
the doctrine of God as delivered in the Bible!
That doctrine is the chief thing in it. We
cannot read many pages of it thoughtfully
without receiving more or less of it into our
minds. And our sacred scriptures appeal to
us, claiming to be read and studied. The
possession of them is our greatest privilege.
The young man is told that he should cleanse
his way by taking heed to it according to them.
They are intended to be to every man his
delight and counsellors ; a lamp to his feet and
a light to his path. “Search the scriptures” is
an injunction that resounds through both the
Testaments. As the Christian doctrine of God
is fuller and more exalted than the Confucian,
so the provision made for men’s becoming
acquainted with it in the different character
of the books of the two religions is incom-
parably greater.
The Worship of God. 251

I go on to speak of the worship of God in
them. Here Confucianism is very defective.
The formal organized worship is restricted to
the emperor. The occasions for it are few,
and of the people there are none with him. It
is indeed a wonderful fact to think of, that a
worship of the one God has been maintained
in the vicinity of their capitals by the sovereigns
of China almost continuously for more than
four thousand years. I felt this fact pro-
foundly when I stood early one morning by
the altar of Heaven, in the southern suburb of
Peking. It was without my shoes that I went up
to the top of it; and there around the central
slab of the marble with which it was paved,
free of flaw as the ccerulean vault above, hand
in hand with the friends who accompanied me,
I joined in singing the doxology, beginning—

“ Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”

I rejoice in the imperial worship of God, but
I can never sufficiently regret that this shaped
itself even in prehistoric time into a repre-
sentative worship by the Head of the state,
instead of being extended throughout the
nation, and joined in by the multitudes of the
people. They know that the worship is per-
formed, but they have not seen it, nor taken
252 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

part in it. There is for them only in general
the inarticulate reverence of Heaven, with
groans and appeals to It, or to God in heaven,
when they are suffering under oppression or
other calamity. I have seen “the upward
glancing of the eye” to the sky above, and
“the falling of the tear” in the bitterness of
grief, and I have seen them with satisfaction
and thankfulness. But what a pity that the
Chinese were not taught from the first to
draw nigh to God, in all the changes of their
lot, as their King, their Shepherd, and their
Friend!

The worship of God in ancient Israel was a
truly national worship. From all parts of the
country the people went up on their great
occasions to the place where God had recorded
His name to offer their sacrifices, perform their
vows, and present their supplications. When
Solomon inaugurated the services of the temple,
“he stood before the altar of the Lord in the
presence of all the congregation of Israel,
and spread forth his hands towards heaven.”
“Hearken Thou,” he said, “to the supplication
of Thy servant, and of Thy people Israel, when
they shall pray towards this place.” Solomon’s
petitions went up also for other men, who were
not of the people Israel,—for the stranger who
The Worship of God. 253

should come and pray towards the temple.
“Hear Thou,” he said, “in heaven Thy
dwelling-place, and do according to all that
the stranger calleth to Thee for, that all people
of the earth may know Thy name to fear Thee
as do Thy people Israel.” From the first it
was intimated that the house of God in
Jerusalem should be “called an house of prayer
for all people.”

This intention regarding the worship of God
in Israel began to be fully realized after the
institution of the Christian Church. The time
then came when not alone in Jerusalem, or in
any other locality, should men worship God.
A true spirit of devotion converts every spot
into an altar whence prayer and praise may
arise to heaven. Wherever men seek Him,
God is found. The way of approach to Him
is open to individuals, to families, to great
congregations. The worshipping sovereign will
pray for his people; the worshipping people
will pray for their sovereign. Add to this the
liberty of worship which Christianity proclaims
to all, and its various solemnities ;—the setting
apart one day in seven specially for them,
the reading of the Scriptures, the hymns
of praise, the exercises of prayer, the word of
instruction and exhortation :—before all this
254 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

the worship of God in Confucianism fades away
into a small and imperfect thing.

Qnce again, on this topic. The worship of
Ged in Confucianism is vitiated by an inferior
worship paid to a multitude of spirits, either
by the emperor in person, or by some minister
commissioned by him. It is true that this does
not amount to polytheism, for those spirits do
not receive the divine name, are not called
gods. It is true also that the functions ascribed
to them arise from offices with which they are
supposed to be intrusted by God for the
promotion of the welfare of men. And as we
saw from the prayer addressed to them by an
emperor of the Ming dynasty to which I drew
your special attention in the first lecture, they
act as intercessors with God on behalf of His
worshippers. But the thought that such inter-
cession is necessary tends to separate between
men and God, making them think of Him as
severe and dwelling in too great state to be
approached by them directly. The supposition,
moreover, that such spirits have the government
of parts of the world and the care of human
affairs committed to them, prevents the Chinese
from rising to the full conception of the divine

" Pp. 44—46.
The Worship of Inferior Spirits. 255

omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence,
I always found it so in my intercourse with the
people. They would say that God must have
His ministers in different places, carrying on
His administration in the spiritual sphere, just
as the officers of the emperor were distributed
throughout the nation. Much more is this
apparent in the T4oists’ account of providence,
where the spirit of the furnace and the three
spirits of the person repair every month to the
court of Heaven, and give in their report of the
individuals under their surveillance.

Now the Christian worship of God is free
from this depraving admixture of the worship
of inferior spirits. It is so certainly in Pro-
testant churches. Spiritual beings, angels, come
before us in both the Old Testament and the
New. We have “the ministry of angels” in
connexion with the giving of the law by
Moses; we have the same in connexion with
the leading many sons to glory by the Captain
of our salvation. But while enough is told us
to encourage trust in God, there is nothing
to gratify a prurient curiosity, and nothing to
make us have recourse to angels as mediators
between us and God, or pay any kind of
worship, however inferior, to them. In this
respect, as in the former, the worship of God
256 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

as taught by the Christian church is superior
to that practised in Confucianism.

Comparison as regards filial piety and the
worship of ancestors.

4. I proceed now to compare Confucianism
and Christianity in regard to their views on
filial piety and the worship of ancestors. It is
a standing charge, based of course on ignorance
and prejudice, with the Chinese people against
our religion that it is contrary to filial piety.
A name of reproach given to a convert is—
“Unfilial renegade.” I have heard a hundred
fierce controversies on the subject closed by
the Confucianist’s triumphant appeal, as he
considered it, to the fact that Christians do
not worship their fathers and ancestors. And
I have heard missionaries as unjustly and
provokingly taunt their Chinese hearers with
the charge that their filial duty did not begin
to show itself till after their parents were
dead.

The filial piety taught by Confucius, as I
described it in the second lecture, contains
much that commands our warm approval.
The sage again and again, in his conversations
with his disciples, protested against the view
that the requirements of the duty were satis-
Lirtial Piety. 257

fied, when a sufficient material support was
given to the parents. He did se, IJ believe,
in order to correct a tendency in men’s minds
to think that they had done all that was
required of them for their parents when they
had ministered that support; and I believe
further that the same error was in the mind
of the Chinese fathers when they fashioned
the character which represents the word hsido,
or filial piety. I pointed out the peculiarity
of its structure,—‘an old man seated on, or
supported by, his son.” The idea of the duty
in China from the very first subjected the son
too much to his father. Confucius felt this,
and many of his utterances on the subject
were designed to exalt the conception of the
virtue. He would have approved of the
language in which it is enjoined in our fifth
commandment: “Honour thy father and thy
mother.” It is hardly necessary for me to say
that that honour involved the idea of support,
as was finely declared by Paul, when he wrote,
“ Honour widows that are widows indeed. But
if any widow have children or nephews, let them
learn first to show piety at home, and to requite
their parents ; for that is good and acceptable
before God.” Both Confucianism and Chris-
Itianity enjoin filial piety. The fundamenta

17
258 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

conception of it in the former system is a
ministration of support; in the latter, a ren-
dering of honour. The Christian conception
is the higher of the two.

There is another saying of the apostle Paul
that throws light on the different views in
regard to filial piety in the two religions. He
wrote to the Corinthians—“ The children ought
not to lay up for the parents, but the parents
for the children.” I never quoted these words in
a circle of Chinese friends without their encoun-
tering a storm of opposition. When I tried to
show that the sentiment was favourable to the
progress of society, and would enable each
generation to start from a higher standpoint,
I found it difficult to obtain a hearing. Even
in a matter like this the different tendencies
of the Chinese and Christian races manifest
themselves. The third chapter of the Bible
sounds a note of hope to be realized in the
future. Confucian literature only directs its
readers to the past. “ Onwards and upwards,”
is the motto on the Christian banner. The
Chinese banner in the Confucian camp bears
on it, “Back to the times of the early sages ;”
that in the Taoist camp says, “Back to the early
Arcadian simplicity.”

Christianity knows nothing of the outcome
Ancestral Worship. 259

of filial duty which appears in the Confucian
worship of parents and of ancestors generally.
It accepts with silent sorrow the fact that they
have gone from the circle in which they moved
on earth. The thought that God has taken
them away intensifies the worship of Him and
the prayer to be enabled reverently to submit
to His will and doing; but as to the departed,
there remains only the remembrance of them
treasured in the loving heart. Their bodies
cannot be brought back, nor their spirits. It
is vain to try to have communion with them
over any religious feast, though the recollection
of them will often be most vivid in the hours
of intensest religious exercise. But Christianity
has no worship of the dead, and its belief
and practice in reference to them are more
healthy and true than those of Confucianism.
T cannot but think, indeed, that Confucius him-
self stood in doubt about the worship of the
dead which he inherited as an ancient institu-
tion of his people. He was not sure about it ;
he strove to be sincere in his own observance
of it; but he had no complacency in it, and
repressed the curious questions which it naturally
awakened in the minds of his more thoughtful
disciples.

The religion of Taoism takes an attitude to
260 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

the dead very different from that of Con-
fucianism. It believes about them it knows
not what. It requires a vast expenditure from
their surviving friends to secure rest for them
in their graves, and to deliver them from the
courts of the horrible purgatory through which
they have to pass. Of course Christianity is as
much opposed to all this as it is to the Confucian
worship of the dead. That worship also is a
superstition, only not so repelling as the horrors
which Taoism “imagines howling.” Inculcating
filial piety in its highest and widest legitimate
meaning, Christianity keeps itself clear of all
the abuses connected with it in the Chinese
religions.

Comparison as regards the teaching of
morality.

5. At this point I take up the consideration
of the merits of the three religions as regards
the morality which they inculcate. It might
seem more natural to treat here of what they
teach about a future state, as belonging to
the sphere of religion or the exhibition of
our relations with the invisible; but I wish first
to compare their moral teaching, because the
subject of a future state will lead me away, for
Their Teaching of Morality. 261

a time at least, from the Chinese systems to
what is peculiar to Christianity.

Its inculcation of human duty has been
regarded as the glorious distinction of Con-
fucianism from the time that the Roman
Catholic missionaries made the Chinese sage
and his lessons known in Europe. Pope gave
him his place in the temple of fame because of
the way in which he “taught men to be good.”
And there is much that is admirable in the
Chinese view of the constitution of human
society, and the duties belonging to its several
relationships. ar be it from me to say a word
or insinuate a thought against it! I have been
forward for many years to profess my agree-
ment with its doctrine of human nature as being
formed for goodness ; for, if it were not so, I do
not see how man could be exhorted, under any
system of religion, “to eschew evil and do good.”
Confucius believed that he had a mission from
Heaven in connexion with the cause of truth,
and there is no reason why we should hesitate
to accept the belief. He for the most part well
fulfilled the trust. He unfolded the moral teach-
ings of the earlier sages, bringing out the spirit
of them while he maintained the letter ; requiring
an inward sincerity in all outward practice, and
pouring scorn on the pharisaism which contents
262 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

itself with the cleansing of the outside of the cup
and platter. Even though we are obliged to
admit his own great deficiencies in the “ Spring
and Autumn” annals, we need not shrink from
allowing that he was a messenger from God to
his countrymen for good, for it never was the
way of God to reveal all truth at once by His
chosen instruments, or to make them by their
calling infallible, so that they should not err in
judgment or stumble in practice.

Certainly Confucius discharged his duty as a
guardian of morality when he delivered the
golden rule, even in the negative form in which he
always gave it. His countrymen are as familiar
with it as we are with the form in which it is
presented in the Sermon on the Mount; and
from other lessons that he left them, they under-
stand it not only as a negative, but also as a
positive rule.

If we turn now to Lao-tsze, while we do not
find the golden rule in the Tao Teh King, we
have there noble exhibitions of the virtue of
humility, of the casting out from the breast every
taint of selfish motive, and of the power of meek-
ness to overcome evil; all culminating in the
precept, which even Confucius could not receive,
to return good for evil. The morality of Taoism,
as now taught in millions of copies of the “ Book
Ther Teaching of Morality. 263

of Actions and their Refributions,” while not
unaffected by the grotesque characteristics and
superstitions of the religion, still bears on it
the stamp of the “venerable philosopher.” All
honour to him and his contemporary !

But we have the precepts that give glory to
the two men from the lips of the one Christ.
He said, “ All things whatsoever ye would that
men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.”
He said also, and in the same discourse, “ Love
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for them
that despitefully use you and persecute you.”
I do not say, “ Take his crown from Confucius,
take his crown from Ldo-tsze, and give them
both to Christ.” On His head are many crowns,
and this one among them,—the crown of the
best and noblest teacher of morality.

It has been said, indeed, that Confucius’ rule
and also Lao-tsze’s precept were given in the
sixth century before our era; but Christ sub-
joined to his version of the rule that to the
same effect was the teaching of “the law and
the prophets,” and we may consider it as but
another form of the injunction, “Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself,” which was as old
as Moses. Nor was the teaching of the great
issue of the tao in our Bible less ancient ; we
264 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

read in the book of Proverbs, “If thine enemy
be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be
thirsty, give him water to drink.” J refer thus
to the antiquity of the sentiments in our Scrip-
tures simply as a matter of fact, and not from
any wish to detract from the merit of the
Chinese philosophers in giving expression to
them. That we find their definite enunciation
of them, shows to what a height in moral
science human nature is capable of attaining ;
it shows how deeply God has written the work
of His law in the hearts of men, and fitted
them thereby to be a law to themselves.
And it is with no unkindly feeling that I
call attention, in connexion with this topic of
morality, to Confucius’ confession that he was
unable to take the initiative in carrying out his
own rule, and to the fact that Lao-tsze gave
up the struggle with the evil of his times,
and withdrew into obscurity? The sage’s
acknowledgment of his moral feebleness, and
the philosopher’s hiding himself from the
evils that he could not remedy, do not lessen
our regard for them and our appreciation of
their worth; but nothing of the kind can be
referred to in the history of Christ. “He did
no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth;

* Page 138. ? Page 207.
The Place of Woman in them. 2605

when He was reviled He reviled not again;
when He suffered He threatened not. He
went about doing good, leaving an example
that we should walk in His steps. He worked
while it was day, nor ceased till the night
came when no man can work.” He was both
a perfect teacher and a perfect exemplar of
what He taught. K‘ung and Li were good
men, but the thought never arises of their being
anything more than men. Before Christ, on
the other hand, we feel that we are in the
presence of one whose participation of our
human nature we do not doubt, while we are
often ready to exclaim, “ Never man spake or
did as He!”

Place of woman in the three religions.

I shall not find a better place than this, at the
close of what I have to say on their teaching of
morality, to speak of the different places in the
social scale given by the three religions to woman.
No special mention is made of her in the Tao
Teh King; but I quoted in the last lecture,
when treating of the Taoist purgatory, a brief
but emphatic sentence from the “ Divine Pano-
rama,” which speaks volumes as to the estimate
formed of her. A woman who escapes some
266 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

of the tortures of purgatory in consequence
of her virtuous deeds, and is allowed to return
to life and the world for another period of pro-
bation, “shall be born,” it is said, “as a man.”
The sentiment and even the words are of Bud-
dhistic origin, but Taoism has made them its
own. In Confucianism the position of woman
has always been an inferior one, and I will not
repeat the illustrations which were given of it
in the second lecture. It is only Christianity
that vindicates for woman a position of equality
with man. As in the Christian church, in respect
of privilege, there is no distinction of nation or
race or rank, so also there is none of sex. “In
Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.”
His religion, indeed, still leaves the husband the
head of the family, as he is to fight the battle
of life in society and be the bread-winner ; but
even the feebler frame of the wife, which renders
this subordination necessary, is turned in the
New Testament to her advantage. How fine is
the language of Peter, “Ye husbands, dwell with
them according to knowledge, giving honour to
the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being
heirs together of the grace of life, that your
prayers be not hindered”! And still finer, per-
haps, is the language of Paul. Having required
that wives be subject in all things to their
The Place of Woman tn them. 267

husbands, as the church is subject to Christ,
he adds, “Husbands, love your wives, even as
Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself
for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it,
that He might present it to Himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such
thing ; but that it should be holy and without
blemish.”

The account of the formation of Eve, and
the union of her and Adam, given in the
second chapter of Genesis, is expressive and
instructive. It follows from it that monogamy
was intended to be the rule of human marriage.
It came to pass that this ordinance was set
aside at a very early time, and divorce and
polygamy were permitted even in the Jewish
state, though its prophets were commissioned
to testify that Jehovah had made but one
wife for one man at the first, and that “He
hated putting away.” ‘Still the evil continued,
but it was not permitted to pass into the
Christian church. As He did not in regard
to any other social institution, Christ took in
regard to marriage the position of a legislator,
and insisted that the original intention should
be enforced. Only by one act of guilt on the
part of the wife, in itself a repudiation of the
marriage bond, could divorce be made possible.
268 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

Apart from that, what God had joined man
must not put asunder, When Christian
churches began to be formed in different
places, Paul proclaimed the law of Christ
concerning marriage, that “every man have
his own wife, and every woman her own
husband.” In China again, the wife enters
into the patriarchal system of her husband’s
family virtually a servant to his mother,
whereas Christ in this respect also proclaimed
the original rule, “A man shall leave father
and mother, and shall cleave to his wife.”

I need not dwell longer on this topic. It is
only by Christianity that woman has accorded
to her a place of equality by the side of her
husband, his honoured and cherished com-
panion, and the one mistress of his household.
It is only, moreover, under Christianity that
she can move with freedom in society, and
exert her legitimate influence in favour of all
that is good and beautiful and pure. In every
department of morality, in a word, our religion
is superior to the religions of China.

Comparison as regards the teaching about
a future state.

6. There is but one more of the subjects
dwelt upon in my former lectures on which
Teaching about a Future State. 269

I have to compare the other two religions
with Christianity; and it will be found that
the result is as favourable to it in this as in
the other cases. The subject is their teaching
about a future state.

The old religion of China says very little
about this. The primitive term for spirit,! and
that for the manes of the deceased,’ tell how
the fathers believed that man consisted of body
and soul, and that, when he died and the body
mingled with the dust, the soul continued to
live on. Passages in the classical books say
further that the soul ascends on high. One
ancient sovereign, a man of heroic virtue and
sagely wisdom, is spoken of in the Sha as being
in heaven, and attended there by the spirits of
the ministers who had served him on earth,
while both he and they took an interest in what
was happening in the kingdom that they had
left.2 Another sovereign, whose earthly career
had been marked by every excellent quality, is
represented in the Shih as ascending and de-
scending on the left and right of God in heaven.*
These are special cases, and I cannot call to
mind any general statements in the Confucian
classics as to the state of the dead.

'Pp. 11, 12. Ps 13)
5 Pp. 113, 114. ‘The Shih, iii. i, Ode 1.
270 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

The ancient belief of the continued existence
of the soul or spirit found its expression, even
in prehistoric time, in the worship of parents
and ancestors, taking, we saw, the form of a
feast as the symbol of a family reunion. When
Confucius appeared and devoted his life mainly
to the study of antiquity, and inculcating the
lessons which he thus learned on his disciples,
he added nothing to these scanty hints about
futurity. Connecting the worship of the dead
with filial piety, he derived additional motives
with which to enforce the cultivation of that
virtue. At the same time he rather evaded the
questions that were put to him about the state
of the dead, and avoided, as much as he could,
speaking at all on the subject. The truth is,
he could not tell what he did not know, he
could not instruct others in what he had not
learned for himself. I do not blame him for
his silence. But the Chinese are left by the
Confucian religion with a very limited and
uncertain knowledge of futurity, with merely
a hint or two that the souls of their departed
friends are in heaven ; with no account of what
sort of a place or state heaven is ; with no intima-
tion of a discriminating retribution for the good
and evil of the life on earth in the life beyond.

No doubt the barrenness of their religion in
Teaching about a Future State. 271

this respect disposed the Chinese to give heed
to the teachings of Buddhism about transmigra-
tion, and to fall victims to the cruel representa-
tions of Taoism in its courts of purgatory and
the horrors of hell. We cannot tell how Taoism
got its trichotomy of the human spirit, with one
soul cleaving to the tablet of wood, another
haunting the grave, and the third hungry and
naked, a starved and homeless ghost shivering
somewhere in the air, or tortured in purgatory ;
but the care of their dead thus multiplied is too
great a burden for the living to bear. And it is
little comfort they receive from the hope that
their friends may have got to be Immortals
of heaven with three thousand good deeds at
their credit, or even Immortals of earth at the
low price of three hundred. All in Taoism
about futurity is too fantastic or too horrible to
be of use for comfort to the intelligent mind in
distress, or for encouragement and guidance in
the pursuit of virtue.

When we turn to the New Testament, we
read in it that “ Jesus Christ abolished death, and
brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel.” The temple of Christ’s own body
is destroyed, and in three days He raises it up
again. While put to death in the flesh, in the
activity of His spiritual nature, He goes and
272 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

preaches to the spirits in prison. The parable
of the rich man and Lazarus shows that, imme-
diately on death, there is a separation of the
good and the bad; that each class goes to its
own place, and that retribution commences
according to the character of the life. Christ
also proclaimed that “the time is coming when
all that are in their graves shall hear His voice
and come forth: they that have done good to
the resurrection of life, and they that have done
evil to the resurrection of condemnation.”

Christianity thus teaches that there is a
future life for man; that the consciousness of
the spirit is not interrupted by the event of
death; and that, according to the character
of the life that has been lived, there is an imme-
diate experience of good or evil in the invisible
world ; that a time is coming in the future when
there will be a resurrection of the dead, to be
followed by a public and general judgment;
that “the Lord will bring to light the hidden
things of darkness, and make manifest the
counsels of the hearts ;” and finally, that every
true servant of Christ shall then have his proper
meed of praise, and every other who, weighed in
the balance of the divine judgment, has been
found wanting shall receive according to the ill
desert of his deeds.
Disclosures of the Future by Christianity. 273

Peculiarities in the disclosures of the future
by Christianity.

7. Such are the teachings of Christianity. I
will not adduce many texts in proof and illus-
tration of the points which I have indicated.
The time is not sufficient for me to do so; and
I said at the outset that you were all acquainted
with the sacred books of our religion. But in
the presence of these things about the future
which are most surely believed among us, we
feel that there ceases to be comparison any
longer between the religions of China and
Christendom. Confucianism has next to no-
thing to show about futurity. Taoism would
still less deserve our regard in this respect but
for the lurid light in which it has placed its
courts of purgatory and an everlasting hell.
Without stopping to touch here on this recent
development of it, I wish at this stage in the
lecture to point out two things.

The positive element in the Christian repre-
sentation of future blessedness.

The former of them is the one positive
element in which the New Testament sums up
the blessedness of his future being to him who

18
274 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

has died in the faith of Christ ;—it is the “being
with Christ.” How shall a positive idea of
heaven be conveyed to us? Paul tells us that
“he knew a man in Christ, who was caught up
(whether in the body or out of the body he
could not tell)—caught up into paradise.”
Surely that man told him much about the
glories of the blessed state. No; what he
heard there were “unspeakable words, which it
is not lawful for a man to utter.” We are all
aware how the figures of earthly things are
employed to give us an idea of heaven by being
divested of the temporal and changing character
that belongs to them here. When heaven is
called, for instance, “an inheritance,” it is one
that is “incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth
not away.” An endeavour is made to give us,
by means of those negations, some conception
of the better world. But here is this one
positive idea of “being with Christ.” Christ
Himself took the lead in putting this forward.
He said to His disciples, “In my Father’s
house are many mansions; I go to prepare
a place for you. And if I go and prepare a
place for you, I will come again and receive
you to myself, that, where I am, there ye may
be also.” On the cross He said to the penitent
by His side, “To-day shalt thou be with me
Posttive Element in the Christian Future. 275

in paradise.” “Absent from the body, present
with the Lord,” is the apostle Paul’s description
of the future; and he tells the Philippians that,
if it lay only with himself, he would die at once
rather than live, for to die would be “to depart
and be with Christ, which was far better.”
Similarly, after the resurrection and the judg-
ment, “we shall be ever with the Lord.” This
great element of the heavenly bliss is most
important. It is apprehensible by all. People’s
thoughts about heaven will differ according to
the varieties of their earthly experience and
attainments; but as the hearts of all His
disciples burned within them when they com-
muned with Jesus on earth, so all can under-
stand how sweet it will be to have unending
companionship with Him, and to be guided
and led by Him to all which infinity and
eternity have to show and to give. May I be
allowed to illustrate the subject here by the
case of a Chinese female convert? She had been
“a wise woman,” a professor among her country-
women of Taoist superstitions. I forget how
she was brought to the faith of Christ, but I
remember clearly her earnest, useful life as a
member of the church. Her previous occupa-
tion had sharpened her faculties. Of her own
accord she went about among her neighbours
276 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

telling them of the gospel. She was taken ill,
and I visited her repeatedly at the house of the
married daughter with whom she lived, and
was refreshed by her conversation. When I
went in one forenoon, the daughter was seated
on a stool with her mother in her lap, and
was putting on her her best clothes. “She
is unconscious,” she said, looking up at me;
“and while her limbs are yet supple, I am
putting on her her best clothes, that she
may be in readiness for the coffin.” While
I was saying something in reply, my voice fell
on the ear of the dying woman. She opened
her eyes, turned her face to me, and tried to
speak, but could only give vent to a low,
indistinct murmur. “ Death is near at hand,”
I said; “but is your faith firm in Jesus? Do
you feel that, departing, you will be with
Him?” A light of intelligence irradiated her
sunken features. Again she tried in vain to
speak. Turning her eyes upwards, and raising
her forefinger, she pointed towards heaven ;
and while she was in this attitude, the spirit
passed away. You will not wonder that my
eyes were suffused with tears, and that, as I
left the house, I was thinking of the death of
Stephen, when he, looking up steadfastly to
heaven, said, “Behold, I see the heavens
Results of Comparison thus Far. 277

opened, and the Son of man standing at the
right hand of God.”

The Christian revelation of futurity rests
on the resurrection of Christ.

The second thing which I wish to point out
here, in connexion with the disclosures of the
future by Christianity, is, that they all rest on
the event of our Lord’s resurrection, which the
New Testament writers assert in the most
direct and positive terms. The supernatural
element in our religion here comes out promi-
nently; and if the record in our books con-
cerning it be admitted as true, a most important
distinction between Christianity on the one
hand and Confucianism and Taoism on the
other is established. THEY are of men and
by man,—not without God indeed, but with
Him only as all things are included in the
circle of His knowledge and ordination; IT
is of God, and by God, specially revealed to
make known the path of duty and the way of
life.

Results of the comparison thus far, and
further pursuit of the subject.

8. The results of the comparison thus far
conducted have all been favourable to Chris-
278 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

tianity. Confucianism is both more ancient and
of a higher type than Taoism; but Christianity
far transcends Confucianism in all the points
which we have considered. What is good in
Confucianism appears more full and complete
in it; what is wrong in Confucianism is cor-
rected in it; what is defective in Confucianism
is supplied in it. And now the train of my
reasoning has brought us face to face with the
questions:—Is the difference between Chris-
tianity and the religions of China in kind and
not merely in degree? Is it THE religion while
each of them is merely A religion ?

We shall have made an important step to-
wards answering these questions in the affirma-
tive, if we accept the resurrection of Christ,
related in the New Testament, as having
actually taken place. And I for one do not
hesitate to do so. Some one will say that
the resurrection would have been a_ super-
natural event; but as no supernatural event
is possible, therefore the record of it must be
rejected as false. But I cannot grant the
postulate that no supernatural event is possible.
God is the author, upholder, and arranger of
nature. The antecedents and consequents in
its phenomena occur in the order which He
prescribes, and according to laws which He
Possibility of the Supernatural. 279

has ordained. But when He had finished “the
heavens and the earth and all the host of
them,”—when He had given existence to the
various tribes of living things “with,” as the
Chinese say, “their reproducing power,’”—He
did not withdraw, if I may venture so to speak,
into the solitude of His own being, and make
a law for Himself never to reappear, and never
to interfere, whatever disorders might arise,
whatever danger there might seem to be of
His purposes in creation being frustrated. God
is and must be free to act, according to His
wisdom and the resources of His nature, when
and how it seems good to Him. Action on the
part of God is what I call the supernatural.
No argument of metaphysical reasoning and
no inference from the facts of physical philo-
sophy have ever shaken for a moment my
belief in the possibility of the supernatural or
miraculous.

Confucianism and Taoism, as we saw, do not
deny the supernatural. There is no dispute
between them and Christianity as to miracles.
Taoism, indeed, runs riot in its multitude of
them, grotesque, unsubstantiated, aimless. They
are ridiculed by the Confucianists, as in the
passage which I quoted in the second Lecture
from Wang Yi-po’s paraphrase of the amplifi-
280 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

cation of the K‘ang-hsi edict. But Confucian-
ism itself asserts supernatural events. When
we cast out the marvellous legends that grew
up round the life of the sage, there are still
certain statements by him concerning the
formation of the diagrams of Fi-hsi, and the
use of the Yi King in divination, which bear
the stamp of the supernatural,—a supernatural
that we are constrained to reject just as we
reject the “strange stories” of Taoism. But
neither religion, as I said, will quarrel with
Christianity for allowing the possibility and
even the occurrence of supernatural events.
Indeed, the primitive character shih, to which
I called attention in the first Lecture as the
symbol of revelation or manifestation from
above,’ carried the belief of such possibility
from the minds of the prehistoric fathers into
those of their posterity through all time.

The evidence of the resurrection of Christ.

g. We are free therefore, so far as the reason
of the thing and the religions with which I am
comparing Christianity are concerned,—we are
free to consider whether the evidence of the

» See the Great Appendix to the Yi, Pt. i. p. 73.
2 Pp. 12, 13.
Evidence of the Resurrection of Christ. 281

resurrection of Christ is satisfactory. I cannot
of course attempt anything approaching to a
complete exhibition of that evidence. It must
suffice to indicate the considerations on which
my own mind rests in believing that the event
took place.

1. Christ, while He was yet alive, expected
and foretold both His death and resurrection.
At a certain period in His history, He “began
to show to His disciples how that He must
go to Jerusalem and be killed, and be raised
again the third day.” He said, “I have power
to lay my life down, and I have power to take
it again.” It was well known in Judea, to
His enemies as well as His friends, that Christ
had spoken such things, and that He expected
and intended to rise again after He was put to
death, for when the chief priests and Pharisees
went to Pilate to ask that the sepulchre should
be made sure, the ground of their application
was, “ We remember, that that deceiver said,
while he was yet alive, ‘After three days I will
rise again.’”

That Christ was Himself deluded in the
expectation that He would rise again, or that
He meant to deceive others about the matter, is
to me equally inconceivable. And yet on the
assumption that the supernatural is impossible,
282 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

He expected what could not be, and said that
He would bring the impossibility to pass!
Could this be in the case of Him, the greatest
of moral teachers in the long line of all the
ages, and “Who did no sin”? If it were so,
we should have in Him an inexplicable pheno-
menon. If His word failed,

“ The pillared firmament is rottenness,
And earth’s base built on stubble.”

Because Christ said that He would rise again,
I cannot doubt that He did do so.

ii. The fact of the resurrection is confirmed
to us by abundant evidence. Never was an
event testified to by witnesses more entitled to
credit from their general character, or who had
better opportunities of knowing what they re-
lated, or who persevered more firmly in their
testimony, notwithstanding the disadvantages
and even the risk of death to which it exposed
them.

iii. I cannot understand how, if the resur-
rection were not a fact, the story of it came to
be palmed successfully on the Christian church.
I have never read an attempt to account for
this which seemed to me worthy of a refutation.

When an objector therefore asserts that the
resurrection of Christ was a physical impossibility,
Revealed Character of our Scriptures. 283

and that the record of it is not to be believed, I
reply that the declaration of Christ that it would
take place, and the testimony of many that to
their personal knowledge it did take place, and
the cordial acquiescence of the church in their
witness, are three moral impossibilities, if our
Lord did not indeed rise from the dead. I place
my three moral impossibilities against his one
physical impossibility. I myself acknowledge
no such physical impossibility. The objector
errs in asserting it, not knowing the power of
God. Atany rate, I believe, and you all, I think,
believe with me, that Christ “both died, and
rose and revived.” The fact of His resurrection
accounts for the disclosure of the future state
of the Christian believer as a being with Christ,
and places Christianity as a religion in a dif-
ferent category from the religions of China.

The Christian scriptures claim to contain
a divine revelation.

10. Our acceptance of the record in the New
Testament concerning the resurrection of Christ
will not satisfy all the demands of Christianity
as to the peculiar character of its sacred books ;
—it claims farther that as a whole they contain
a revelation from God. Here again is a broad
284 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

distinction between them and the books of the
Chinese religions. I need hardly speak of the
books of Taoism. The Tao Teh King, which
is the only written document we have from Lao-
tsze, makes no pretension to be anything but
the thoughtful production of its author. The
Divine Panorama, from which I quoted largely
in my last lecture, carries on its front the refu-
tation of its claim to be in any sense a divine
revelation. The classical or Confucian books,
from the Shi down to the Analects, extending
over about 1800 years, and the product of many
different writers, have “no organic unity, no
internal cohesion other than belongs to human
writings produced in the same nation in the
course of many centuries.”* It is different with
the writings of the Old and New Testaments,
for Jesus Christ is Himself the theme of them
from the first to the last. I will not speak of
prophecy in general, though there are prophecies
in the Old Testament about individuals, cities,
and nations, which must have come from Him
to whom “all His works from the beginning of
the world are known.” It is sufficient for me,
in the limits to which I must restrict my remarks,
to insist on the unity of the Bible as proved by

' Rogers’ “ Superhuman Origin of the Bible, inferred
from itself” P. 162.
The Unity of the Bible. 285

its teaching about the person and work and
kingdom of our Lord. I believe that all of us
have often wished that we had been in the
company of the three men travelling to Emmaus
on the evening of the day of the resurrection,
and had listened to the discourse with which
one of them reproved the doubts and cheered
the hearts of the other two. You remember
how He said to them, “O fools and slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have
spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things, and to enter into His glory?”
And then, “beginning at Moses and all the
prophets, He expounded to them in all the
scriptures the things concerning Himself.” The
speaker on that occasion was the risen Lord.
He believed in the unity of the sacred writings
through their testimony to Himself; and I will
assume it therefore as a fact which it is not
necessary for me to illustrate any further. In
contemplating the fact, we may well adopt the
language of the late professor Henry Rogers :—
“ Shall we say that it is all a dream,—that the
book has no such unity, or that all who thought
so have gone mad together? If this be thought
incredible, then how shall we account for the
delusion? By chance? Who can compute the
chances against it? By concert of the writers ?
286 Chinese Religions and Christiantty :

The mode in which it was constructed, its
gradual composition, makes this impossible.”?
To my own mind this unity of the Bible has
always appeared “an infallible proof” that it is
a book “ sud generis,” in which I am constrained
to recognize the hand of God. I must hold that
it contains a revelation from Him, and that the
religion which it discloses will be different from
Confucianism, Taoism, and the other religions
current among men,—different as bearing the
stamp of divine authority, and revealing truths
to which we could not otherwise have attained.

Bearing of the revealed character of Chris-
tianity on the comparison between it
and other religions, and on the study
of its sacred books.

11. This divine stamp on Christianity must
not be supposed to imprint the brand of false-
hood on other religions. They are still to be
tested according to what they are in themselves.
We will approve what is good; we will note
what is defective; and we will disapprove what
is wrong. The study of them continues to be
a duty, full of interest and importance. The
results of it will throw light on the religious

} Superhuman Origin of the Bible, p. 171.
flow Revelation affects the Argument. 287

nature and wants of man, and show how adapted
Christianity is to supply those wants and satisfy
that nature. They will even help to give us, I be-
lieve, a better understanding of Christianity itself,
and a more vivid apprehension of its doctrines.

The divine stamp, however, rebukes the view
of some that, by the study of the Chinese and
other religions, we shall find one truth of import-
ance here and another there, and that, bringing
these together, we may by an eclectic process
frame a universal religion that will supersede
Christianity itself. I must think that the
comparative study of religions will dissipate
this imagination, and prove it to be an unsub-
stantial hope.?

It must be borne in mind also that when
we have concluded that Christianity is the
revealed religion, this does not relieve us from
the task of searching the scriptures diligently,
and finding out their meaning by all legitimate
methods of criticism and interpretation. The
books of the Old and New Testaments have
come down to us just as the Greek and Roman
and Chinese classics have done, exposed in
the same way to corruption and alteration, to

1 See two volumes on “Oriental Religions and the

Relation to Universal Religion.” By Samuel Johnson
(Boston, United States).
288 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

additions and mutilations. The text of them
all has to be settled by the same canons of
criticism ; the meaning of the settled text has
to be determined by similar or corresponding
processes of construction. The fact that we
have in the Christian scriptures a revelation
does not affect the method of their study. I
shall be told that they were inspired, and I
freely grant that they were so; but this only
requires from us the stricter and more reverent
adherence to rule in finding out what they say.
I have never formulated to myself a theory of
inspiration. I know it by its effects, and I
fail to see how, in accordance with what our
Lord said to Nicodemus about the operation
of the Spirit, it can be known in any other way-
Any inquiry, however, into the manner of its
communication lies outside the subject of which
I am treating; and I hasten to complete the
comparison, or what we must now call the
contrast, of the Chinese religions with Chris-
tianity. Some of you may think that, since
I began to speak of the peculiarity in the
disclosures of the future by Christianity, I have
been digressing from the proper business of the
lecture. It seems otherwise to myself. I had
taken nearly all the topics with which the
description of Confucianism and Taoism supplied
Doctrine of the Death of Christ. 289

me, and compared them with the teachings of
Christianity. The course pursued had brought
us into contact with the supernatural event of
the resurrection of Christ, as alleged in the New
Testament. It was necessary to consider the
evidence for it, and we were led on to touch
on the claim of our sacred books generally to
be received as the oracles of God. I felt that
if we accepted the fact of the resurrection and
allowed the inspiration of the Bible, it would
be necessary thenceforth to contrast any other
points in Christianity which the former lectures
suggested to me with the silence or all but
silence. of the Chinese religions on the same
subjects. Such has been the logic of my mind
in the line of argument and illustration which
I have followed, anxious that my treatment
of the three religions should be perfectly fair,
and as complete as a single lecture would
permit. I will only further call your attention
to the Christian doctrines of propitiatory sacri-
fice and future punishment.

The Christian doctrine of the death of
Christ as a propitiatory sacrifice.

12. Towards the close of my first lecture, I
observed that the oblations at the worship of
God in the great religious services of the Con-

19
290 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

fucian religion were thank-offerings, and not
propitiatory sacrifices; and that not even the
idea of self-consecration or self-dedication on
the part of the worshipper was symbolised
by them. It was pointed out that the idea of
vicarious substitution was not unknown in very
early times in China. Tang the Successful, and
Tan the duke of Chau, were both prepared to
die, the former for all the people, and the latter,
in lieu of his brother, for the good of their
dynasty! Similarly, all along the course of
time, on occasion of great calamities, a feeling of
their own feebleness has been awakened in the
Chinese government and people, and a conviction
that their sufferings were a punishment for their
wickedness. The sovereign, as the representa-
tive of the people, has humbled himself at such
times under the mighty hand of Heaven, made
confession of unworthiness and guilt, declared
his repentance, vowed a more complete devotion
to the discharge of his duties, and asked for
forgiveness and relief. But this has taken place,
still takes place, only on special occasions, when
the deep places of the soul are broken up by
the blows of affliction and trouble ;—the idea of
propitiation or expiation is not found in the
regular worship of Confucianism.

Pp. 54, 85.
Doctrine of the Death of Christ. 29%

During the period embraced in the work
called “The Spring and Autumn,” many cove-
nants were made among the feudal princes,—
made over the blood of a victim, with which
each covenanting party smeared the corners of
his mouth, while an appeal was addressed to the
invisible Powers to inflict vengeance on all whe
should violate the conditions agreed upon. Such
a sacrifice might be called imprecatory.

The sacrificial offerings at the worship of
ancestors are simply the materials of a feast, at
which the living and the dead are supposed to
meet together.

The TAoist services to the dead may be called
deprecatory. Their object is to please or
appease the spirits of the departed. They are
not, as in Confucianism, the expression of filial
piety by surviving children and relatives, seeking
in this way still to manifest itself to the de-
ceased and maintain communion with them;
but they are on the contrary sacrifices made to
avert evil,—to give relief and deliverance to the
suffering or tortured ghosts indeed, but still
more to save the offerers from the spite that
will be wreaked on them, if they do not task
themselves to the utmost to perform whatever
may be required of them on behalf of the dead.

Thus in the religions of China there is
292 Chinese Religions and Christiantty :

nothing corresponding to the idea of propi-
tiatory sacrifice as unfolded in our scriptures.
The sacrifices prescribed by the laws of Moses
have been divided into that of self-consecration
or dedication, symbolised by the burnt-offering ;
those of thanksgiving, represented in the meat-
offering and peace-offering; and those of ex-
Piation, in the sin-offering and trespass-offering.
There underlies all these forms of sacrifice the
idea of a close relation between men and God.
His we are and Him we ought to serve, so that
in all our doings of mind and body we should
be living sacrifices, devoted to Him. Life and
all its blessings are His gift to us, and hence
there are due to Him the sacrifice of praise
continually, the fruit of our lips, and the ardent
love and gratitude of our hearts. But we are
far from loving and serving God as we ought
todo. Weare under the dominion of a carnal
mind that is enmity against Him, and refuses
to be subject to His law. The more we retain
the consciousness of our ideal selves, and the
apprehension of what we ought to be towards
God and towards our fellow-men, the more
deeply and acutely do we realise our unworthi-
ness and guilt, the more ready are we to
exclaim, “O wretched men that we are! who
shall deliver us from the body of this death ?”
Doctrine of the Death of Christ. 293

Here comes in the sacrifice of expiation,—that
which was symbolised by the sin and trespass
offerings of the laws of Moses, that which was
offered on Calvary when Christ bore our sins
in His own body on the tree and died, the
just for the unjust, bringing us to God. By
the sacrificial death of Christ the wall of sepa-
ration between the Holy God and sinful men
is removed; the handwriting of ordinances that
was against them is blotted out, and nailed to
the cross, where it hangs fluttering and showing
to the moral universe how mercy has triumphed
over justice, and justice has been glorified and
made more august thereby.

It has been said to me that Paul and the
other apostles did indeed look on the death of
Christ in this way as sacrificial and atoning,
but that they took this view of it from their
Jewish training, and could hardly avoid doing
so, while we need not regard it as more than
the greatest instance and example of self-
consecration. Bishop Butler in his “ Analogy
of Religion” has dealt with this representation.
“Whereas it is objected,’ he says, “that all
this ”—the reference to Christ as a priest and
an expiatory victim—“is merely by way of
allusion to the sacrifices of the Mosaic law, the
apostle on the contrary affirms that the law
294 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

was a shadow of good things to come, and
not the very image of the things (Heb. x. 1);
and that the priests that offer gifts according
to the law serve unto the example and shadow
of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished
of God, when he was about to make the
tabernacle: ‘For see, saith he, ‘that thou
make all things according to the pattern showed
to thee in the mount’ (Heb. viii. 4,5); ze, the
Levitical priesthood was a shadow of the priest-
hood of Christ, in like manner as the tabernacle
made by Moses was according to that showed
to him in the mount. The priesthood of Christ
and the tabernacle in the mount were the
originals ; of the former of which the Levitical
priesthood was a type, and of the latter the
tabernacle made by Moses was a copy. The
doctrine of the epistle, then, plainly is, that
the legal sacrifices were allusions to the great
and final atonement to be made by the blood
of Christ; and not that this was an allusion
to them.” The view that bishop Butler thus
substantiates is but one conclusion from the
organic unity of which I spoke as running
through the books of Scripture, and proving
them to be a revelation from God.!

1“The Analogy of Religion,” Part II., ch. v., “Of
Redemption by a Mediator.” Bishop Butler accepted the
Doctrine of the Death of Christ. 295

The operation of this doctrine, the sacrificial
death of Christ, is most powerful and beneficial.
In the strength of it I draw near to God. He
is still to me the holy and righteous upholder
of all moral government, but I have ceased to
fear Him as vengeful and inexorable, for herein
IIe commendeth His love, giving up His Son
to die for sinners; and with faith in Christ there
comes into my breast peace with God, and
the Spirit of adoption through whom I cry
to Him, “ Abba, Father.” It is no apprehension
of an arbitrary forgiveness that relieves me
from the sense of sin, and enables me to rise
superior to the threatenings of the law:—I am
a new creature in Christ Jesus; His death is
my most powerful stimulus to a holy life. As
from the first Adam I derived a natural life
and a carnal mind, so from Christ, the second
Adam, I derive a spiritual life, to develope by
the help of the Holy Spirit into likeness and
conformity to Him.

Such is an imperfect exhibition of the nature
and operation of the death of Christ ; the little
that I have said about it may suffice for my
purpose of comparing or contrasting the Chris-
Epistle to the Hebrews as having been written by Paul ;

but the question of its authorship does not affect the
value of its evidence, so long as we receive it as canonical,
296 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

tian system with Confucianism and Taoism. As
I have remarked more than once, neither of
these religions knows anything of propitiation
or expiation in their sacrifices. The knowledge
of God in Confucianism, which has become
a heritage of the Chinese people, is very
precious; but the restriction of the worship
of Him to the sovereign has prevented the
growth and wide development among them of
a sense of sin. The doctrine of the goodness
of human nature, again, may be held so that it
shall not conflict with the teaching of our scrip-
tures on the same subject, but its tendency is
to lead the scholarly class to think too highly of
themselves as capable, unhelped from without,
of all virtuous achievement, and to resent the
suggestion that our religion is better than their
own. There is, in a word, no bringing down of
God to men in Confucianism in order to lift
them up to Him. Their moral shortcomings,
when brought home to them, may produce a
feeling of shame, but hardly a conviction of
guilt. Taoism, as a system of superstitions, is
antagonistic to Christianity; but where its
professors confine themselves to the study of
the Tao Teh King, and cultivate the humility
and abnegation of self which are there so
strongly inculcated, they are more prepared
Doctrine of the Death of Christ. 297

than the Confucian literati to receive the
message of the gospel. So I found it in the
case of one Tdoist dignitary who visited me
in Hong-kong, when he was more than four-
score years old. He told me that his study
of the tao of Ldo-tsze for fifty years had
convinced him of his impotency to attain to
its ideal, and he had almost resigned himself
to despair, hopeless of finding some truth for
which his heart yearned. Some Christian tracts
were brought to the monastery on the hill of
Lo-fau over which he presided. “I read them,”
he said, “and it was as if scales fell from my
eyes.’ He accepted at once the revelation
of God in Christ. Of all the Chinese whom
I met with in my long missionary experience
he was the one most “prepared for the Lord.”
He reminded me of the aged Simeon, who had
remained long in Jerusalem, waiting for the
consolation of Israel, and who saw at last the
Lord’s Christ.

The sacrificial death of Christ is of the essence
of Christianity. It is the disclosure of this doc-
trine in our scriptures that constitutes the gospel
the “good tidings of great joy to all people.”
It produces at once contrition for wrong-doing,
and proclaims the promise of pardon. It tells
men how low they have fallen, and how high
298 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

they may rise. It tears but only to heal; it
smites but only to bind up. Confucianism and
Taoism teach nothing at all akin to it. “Herein
is love,” writes the apostle John; “not that we
loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His
Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” No
Confucian or Taoist writer has ever had such
facts to make known to his countrymen. In
this respect there is no comparison between the
religions of China and ours. The advantage is
all with Christianity.

Because the idea of propitiation is unknown
in those religions, they have, as we have seen,
no priests. The emperor is the minister -of
religion for all the Chinese people in the worship
of God; the “yellow Tops” are the ministers
of superstition in the services of Taoism. Sin-
gularly, just because of the propitiatory sacrifice
in Christianity, there is no peculiar priestly class
or order in it. So far as the eucharistic and
self-dedicatory sacrifices of Mosaism have their
significance in Christianity, all believers are
priests to present them to God, and the death
of Christ should ever inspire them to be doing
so with alacrity. But the propitiatory sacrifice
of Himself was offered by Christ once for all
on the cross. He is our great High Priest,
the only Priest of His Church, the one Lamb
Doctrine of Future Punishment. 299

of God who was slain, ever appearing in heaven
in our behalf. I do not despise governments
in the church. The ministry of the word—
I do not read in the New Testament of the
ministry of the sacraments—is a most important
function, to be discharged becomingly and in
order by men apt to teach, but any priesthood
of a class, distinct from the priesthood of all
believers, would be a derogation from the sole
glory belonging to Christ, the one Mediator
between God and men.

The Christian doctrine of future punishment.

13. I come to the last subject to which it is
necessary, according to the scheme of the lecture,
to call your attention in comparing the religions
of China and Christianity. That subject is the
doctrine of future punishment. But for what I
related, in the last lecture, of the recent teaching
of Taoism concerning its purgatory and hell, I
might have been tempted to avoid this topic,
but I should have incurred in that case my own
condemnation for not completing the task which
I had undertaken.

Confucianism, as we saw, says nothing about
future punishment. The good are rewarded
by Heaven and the bad are punished; but the
300 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

reward and punishment both take place in the
sphere of time as the natural or providential
results of conduct. The good pass at death
into some state of conscious existence, where
they may be happy, being in heaven, and they
are occupied with the care of the same con-
cerns that interested them on earth; the bad,
so far as we have any witness about them,
have the same experience. It is with them
after death just as it is with the good. Ifthe
reward due for well-doing and the punishment
due for ill-doing were not all received by the
individuals in their lifetime, there remains a
floating balance of happiness and honour or
of suffering and shame, hid away somewhere, to
be paid over in providence to their descendants
respectively. This is all that Confucianism
teaches about future retribution. We cannot
accept it as a sufficient theory of life, death, and
futurity. Ifthe good and bad live on in the spirit-
world, after their places on earth know them no
more, we refuse to believe that it will be just
the same with them. The harvest of the crops
whose seeds were so different must be different.
It is a Chinese saying, as it is common among
ourselves, that “what a man sows he shall also
reap,” but there is no testimony in Confucianism
of the operation of the law after death. If it
Doctrine of Future Punishment.

did not continue to operate after death, we
should loathe life. It would not be worth living.
We should feel that we were the sport of a
fantastic and unprincipled fate. The attempt
to supplement this lame account of the issues
of conduct to the individual by handing over
the unsatisfied balance of his experience to his
posterity affords the mind very poor satisfaction.
Confucius has no revelation of the future that
satisfies the longings of the soul or the instincts
of our moral nature, or that is sufficient to guide
our steps in the way of peace and holiness
while we are upon earth.

The teaching of Taoism on the subject was
the same as that of Confucianism at the time
when its treatise on “ Actions,and their Retri-
butions” was published, and continued to be
so until the views exhibited in the “Divine
Panorama” were adopted. According to that
production, there is now an easy ascent to the
land of the Immortals by the performance of
good deeds, and the orderly regulation of the
life; but “the good are few and the wicked
many.” Hence after death there are for the
latter the tortures of purgatory and manifold
transmigrations, and to those whom these fail
to reclaim there are after all the everlasting
torments of hell. Purgatory and transmigra-
302 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

tion were borrowed by Téoism from Buddhism ;
and I will only say of them that the doctrine
of transmigration arose from a wish to account
for the different conditions of human life, as
happy or miserable, by the character of a
former life, of which, however, there is an entire
oblivion; and that the tortures of purgatory
are the punishments of sin, obliterating the
score of guilt, before the individual enters on
his new trial for the eternal future. The new
and gentler methods of dealing with the guilty
initiated by Yi Hwang and the infernal Powers,
as published in the “Divine Panorama,” are
preceded by the avowal that the methods
previously prevailing had been too severe;
which is really a confession that up to that
time men had been dealt with unjustly. What
are we to think of a system that is not ashamed
to make such an acknowledgment ? We despise
it, and wonder that anything so weak should
have currency even in China. The way in
which the author of the treatise gloats over the
details of the purgatorial torments is revolting.
His reference to a hell beyond was probably
taken, as I said in the last lecture, from frag-
ments of Christian books that had fallen into
his hands, and were understood by him accord-
ing to the nature of his mind, filled with the
Doctrine of Future Punishment. 303

indigenous superstitions of his system and the
Buddhistic ravings about purgatory.

What now is the teaching of Christianity
about future retribution ?

i. It teaches that God has appointed a day in
which He will judge the world in righteous-
ness by Jesus Christ, His Son, our Saviour and
Lord.

ii, As preparatory to this judgment there
will be a general resurrection of the dead. All
that are in their graves shall hear the voice of
the Son of God and come forth. In what body,
with what form, they shall appear, we are not
told, save that it will be a spiritual body, a fit
vehicle for the immortal spirit, and not a natural
body of flesh and blood like the present; and
in the case of those to be approved, it will be
fashioned like to the glorious body of the
glorified Redeemer.

iii. Thirdly, after the resurrection, the judg-
ment will be held. It will serve not only to
determine and make manifest the characters of
men, but will also vindicate the moral govern-
ment of God in all the course of time, and with
reference to the earthly lot of every individual,
as well as to all the events of history, great and
small. The wisdom and goodness of’His provi-
dence will be brought forth as the light, and its
304 Chinese Religions and Christianity :

righteousness as the noonday. The reverence
of faith, which rested in things that it could not
trace or understand, as being “for the glory of
God,” will now give place to the joy of sight,
and find in what was most perplexing occasion
for adoring praise.

The result of the judgment to all who are
gathered at the great tribunal will be,—“ glory,
honour and peace to every man that wrought
good, to the Christian first, and also to the
heathen; but tribulation and anguish on every
soul of man that did evil, on the Christian first,
and also on the heathen.” Christians enjoyed
the full revelation of God’s will and grace;
heathens, less highly favoured, yet having the
work of God’s law written in their hearts, were
a law to themselves. All will be accepted or
disallowed “according to what they had, and
not according to what they had not.” There
will be both heathens and those who were called
Christians in the two companies on the right
hand and the left of the judge; the approved
or righteous, and the disapproved or condemned.
Then finally, “these shall go away into ever-
during punishment, but the righteous into ever-
during life.” Such are the words of the Judge
Himself, the faithful and true Witness, of Christ
whom we believed when He testified of His
Doctrine of Future Punishment. 305

own coming resurrection, and whom I must
similarly believe when He testifies about the
future retribution.

I believe that the above is a fair exhibition of
the teaching of Christianity on the subject of
retribution ;—different from the silence of Con-
fucianism, and from the revelling of Taoism
over its purgatory and hell. We are looking
at it now on its dark side—what it says about
future punishment, solemnly declared to be
“ ever-during ” as the life of the righteous. Not
a few in our days are offended by this saying.
Some protest against it defiantly as “hard”
and intolerable, and are ready to go away
and walk no more with Christ. Others,
who feel that they can go to no other, set
about reducing the gravity of His language,
and try to show that the scriptures do not
necessarily teach “ever-during punishment.”
May I be allowed to refer to some of my own
mental exercises on the question? I had thought
and conversed about it, while a student at our
most northern university nearly fifty years ago ;
but when I had finished my course there, and,
while still very young, was launching out into
the world, it was brought pointedly before me
in a letter from a most valued friend in 1835.
He told me that he was writing on the subject

20
306 Chinese Religions and Christianity.

of future retribution, and asked if I could adopt
the view of universal restoration. I remember
the day when, and the desk where, I wrote my
reply :—“ The end of the present dispensation
will be the general judgment; and Christ Him-
self said that the issues of it would be ever-
during life and ever-during punishment. Until I
receive an additional revelation, therefore, and
am assured that a new dispensation of grace has
been instituted, I consider that I am precluded
from discussing universal restoration or any
other speculation about the future state con-
trary to the generally received doctrine.” That
was my view forty-five years ago, and it is my
view to-day. Some of my ministerial brethren
here have read, I suppose, more books treating
of the future retribution than I have had time
or opportunity to do, but I doubt whether any
have thought about it more than I have done.
What books I have read have not unsettled my
faith, or loosened the hold of my soul’s anchor in
its old mooring ground. If the resources of the
Almighty Father shall hereafter develop a scheme
of universal restoration, I shall be prepared, and
have reason, with all the redeemed in heaven, to
hail it as worthy of its Author. The scheme of
conditional immortality I cannot away with,
nor harmonize in any way with my reading of
Doctrine of Future Punishment. 307

the Bible, and my idea of God as wonderful in
counsel, mighty in working, and grand in love.
But, as I have just said, it is not for me at
the close of this lecture to discuss any view of
future retribution different from what the loving
Christ declared. On the ground of that He
exhorted His hearers, while they had the light,
to walk in it, and His immediate disciples
appealed to men in such words as—“ How
shall we escape if we neglect so great salva-
tion?” The subject is both too high and too
deep for us. There may be possibilities and
impossibilities in it, which we are unable to
comprehend at present. Instead of doubting or
denying, it is more seemly for us to receive the
revealed word with the meekness of faith. God,
the Righteous and Holy, will do what is right;
Christ, the Friend of sinners, will conduct the
processes of the judgment. What more would
we have? What more can we get? We judge
no one, but I am sure that existence will not
have an unhappy issue to any child of man
who has not “judged himself unworthy of ever-
lasting life.” For eternity, as for time, Chris-
tianity is the best religion, the only religion
that bears on it the stamp of divine authority
and completeness.

I must now draw to a close the exposition of
308 Chinese Religions and Christianity.

the themes which I undertook to bring before
you. I have done my work as fully as I could
in the compass of four lectures, and cannot be
sufficiently thankful for the patience with which
you have listened to me. If I have in any
degree misrepresented either of the religions ot
China, I can safely say that the fault has been
unintentional.

Practical Issues of the four Lectures.

43. I said that I would call attention in con-
clusion to two practical issues to which the
lectures should lead. Let it suffice for me to
do little more than mention them. What I
have said about Confucianism and Taoism shows
us the need that there is in the great empire
of China for Christianity. During my long
residence among the Chinese, I learned to think
more highly of them than many of our country-
men do; more highly as to their actual morality,
and more highly as to their intellectual capacity.
Their best attainments in moral excellence,
however, are not to be compared with those
made by docile learners in the school of Christ.
The true Christian is the highest style of man.
And now that the wall of partition that separated
China from other nations has been thrown down,
I believe it is only their adoption of Christianity
Practical Issues of the Lectures. 309

that will enable the people to hold their own,
and lift them up in the social scale. China is
a chosen field, perhaps I might say ¢he chosen
field, of the English Presbyterian Church. You
have had, and you still have, most efficient
missionaries there,—men distinguished among
their compeers of other churches by a singular
tenacity of purpose and devotedness of life.
Their success has been great. You began, and
have thus far continued well; let nothing
hinder your going forward. The harvest truly
is great, but the labourers are few. I pray
the Lord of the harvest that He will, by
your instrumentality, send forth a multitude of
labourers into that greatest of earth’s mission
fields.

The other practical issue is that these lectures
should stimulate us all to prove our personal
Christianity by the untiring exhibition of the
Christ-like attributes of character and by our
earnestness in all Christian work.. If Chris-
tianity have not triumphed in the past, if it be
not triumphing in the present, in a way likely
soon to bring on the state for which Christ
taught us to pray,—that the will of our Father
may be done on earth as it is in heaven, what
is it that withholdeth? Let us not say that
God’s purpose slumbers, that His hand is

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310 Chinese Religions and Christianity.

shortened, or His ear heavy; let us not doubt
that Christ has all authority in heaven and in
earth. We must blame ourselves:—the divisions
among Christian churches; the inconsistencies
and unrighteousnesses of professors ; the selfish-
ness and greed of our commerce; the ambitious
and selfish policy of so-called Christian nations.
I cannot illustrate what I mean better than by
telling you, as my last word, of a conversation
with His Excellency Kwo Sung-tao, the former
Chinese ambassador, soon after he arrived in
London in 1877. “You know,” he said to me,
“both England and China. Which country do
you say is the better of the two?” I replied,
“England.” He was disappointed, and added,
“T mean looking at them from the moral stand-
point ;—looked at from the standpoint of bene-
volence, righteousness, and propriety, which
country do you say is the better?” After some
demur and fencing, I replied again, “ England.”
I never saw a man more surprised. He pushed
his chair back, got on his feet, took a turn across
the room, and cried out, “ You say that, looked
at from the moral standpoint, England is better
than China! Then how is it that England
insists on our taking her opium ?”

 

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