Such are the teachings of these Kings, which are unquestionably among the oldest existing productions of the human mind. In the days of Confucius they seem to have been nearly forgotten, and their precepts wholly neglected. Confucius revised them, added his own explanations and comments, and, as one of the last acts of his life, called his disciples around him and made a solemn dedication of these books to Heaven. He erected an altar on which he placed them, adored God, and returned thanks upon his knees in a humble manner for having had life and health granted him to finish this undertaking.
§ 7. Confucius and Christianity. Character of the Chinese.
It were easy to find defects in the doctrine of Confucius. It has little to teach of God or immortality. But if the law of Moses, which taught nothing of a future life, was a preparation for Christianity; if, as the early Christian Fathers asserted, Greek philosophy was also schoolmaster to bring men to Christ; who can doubt that the truth and purity in the teachings of Confucius were providentially intended to lead this great nation in the right direction? 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 has a perception, such as truly great men have often had, of some one higher than himself, who was to come after him. We cannot doubt, therefore, that God, who forgets none of his children, has given this teacher to the swarming millions of China to lead them on till they are ready for a higher light. And certainly the temporal prosperity and external virtues of this nation, and their long-continued stability amid the universal changes of the world, are owing in no small decree to the lessons of reverence for the past, of respect for knowledge, of peace and order, and especially of filial piety, which he inculcated. In their case, if in no other, has been fulfilled the promise of the divine commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
In comparing the system of Confucius with Christianity, it appears at once that Christianity differs from this system, as from most others, in its greater completeness. Jesus says to the Chinese philosopher, as he said to the Jewish law, "I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil." He fulfils the Confucian reverence for the past by adding hope for the future; he fulfils its stability by progress, its faith in man with faith in God, its interest in this world with the expectation of another, its sense of time with that of eternity. Confucius aims at peace, order, outward prosperity, virtue, and good morals. All this belongs also to Christianity, but Christianity adds a moral enthusiasm, a faith in the spiritual world, a hope of immortal life, a sense of the Fatherly presence of God. So that here, as before, we find that Christianity does not exclude other religions, but includes them, and is distinguished by being deeper, higher, broader, and more far-reaching than they.
A people with such institutions and such a social life as we have described cannot be despised, and to call them uncivilized is as absurd in us as it is in them to call Europeans barbarians. They are a good, intelligent, and happy people. Lieutenant Forbes, who spent five years in China—from 1842 to 1847—says: "I found myself in the midst of as amiable, kind, and hospitable a population as any on the face of the earth, as far ahead of us in some things as behind us in others." As to the charge of dishonesty brought against them by those who judge the whole nation by the degraded population of the suburbs of Canton, Forbes says, "My own property suffered more in landing in England and passing the British frontier than in my whole sojourn in China."
"There is no nation," says the Jesuit Du Halde, "more laborious and temperate than this. They are inured to hardships from their infancy, which greatly contributes to preserve the innocence of their manners. … They are of a mild, tractable, and humane disposition." He thinks them exceedingly modest, and regards the love of gain as their chief vice. "Interest," says he, "is the spring of all their actions; for, when the least profit offers, they despise all difficulties and undertake the most painful journeys to procure it" This may be true; but if a Chinese traveller in America should give the same account of us, would it not be quite as true? One of the latest writers—the author of "The Middle Kingdom"—accuses the Chinese of gross sensuality, mendacity, and dishonesty. No doubt these are besetting sins with them, as with all nations who are educated under a system which makes submission to authority the chief virtue. But then this writer lived only at Canton and Macao, and saw personally only the refuse of the people. He admits that "they have attained, by the observance of peace and good order, to a high security of life and property; that the various classes are linked together in a remarkably homogeneous manner by the diffusion of education; and that property and industry receive their just reward of food, raiment, and shelter." He also reminds us that the religion of China differs from all Pagan religions in this, that it encourages neither cruelty nor sensuality. No human victims have ever been offered on its altars, and those licentious rites which have appeared in so many religions have never disgraced its pure worship.
The Chinese citizen enjoys a degree of order, peace, and comfort unknown elsewhere in Asia. "He can hold and sell landed property with a facility, certainty, and security which is absolute perfection compared with the nature of English dealings of the same kind."22 He can traverse the country for two thousand miles unquestioned by any official. He can follow what occupation he pleases. He can quit his country and re-enter it without a passport. The law of primogeniture does not exist. The emperor appoints his heir, but a younger son quite as often as an elder one. The principle that no man is entitled by birth to rule over them is better known to the three hundred and sixty millions of China than to the twenty-seven millions of Great Britain that they have a right to a trial by their peers.23 The principle of Chinese government is to persuade rather than to compel, to use moral means rather than physical. This rests on the fundamental belief in human goodness. For, as Mr. Meadows justly observes: "The theory that man's nature is radically vicious is the true psychical basis of despotic or physical-force government; while the theory that man's nature is radically good is the basis of free or moral-force government." The Chinese government endeavors to be paternal. It has refused to lay a tax on opium, because that would countenance the sale of it, though it might derive a large income from such a tax. The sacred literature of the Chinese is perfectly free from everything impure or offensive. There is not a line but might be read aloud in any family circle in England. All immoral ceremonies in idol worship are forbidden. M. Hue says that the birth of a daughter is counted a disaster in China; but well-informed travellers tell us that fathers go about with little daughters on their arms, as proud and pleased as a European father could be. Slavery and concubinage exist in China, and the husband has absolute power over his wife, even of life and death. These customs tend to demoralize the Chinese, and are a source of great evil. Woman is the slave of man. The exception to this is in the case of a mother. She is absolute in her household, and mothers, in China, command universal