death at the age of seventy-three, in the year 478 B.C. died he walked feebly about his house, sighing,

"The great mountain is broken!

A few days before he

He left a single descendant, his grandson, Tze-sze, through whom the succession has been transmitted to the present day. Confucius stands before his country

1889.]

Confucius and his Son of the Seventieth Generation.

219

men as a sage and a demigod, and his posterity, whatever their character, receive all honor. None of the hereditary dignities existing previous to the Manchu conquest were recognized, except those attached to his family. A letter from our missionary, Mr. Ament, of North China, dated December 8, 1888, gives the following account of the reverence paid to an unworthy representative of the far-descended house of Confucius.

"While in Cho-Chou" writes Mr. Ament, "we were favored with a good view of the lineal descendant of Confucius in the seventieth generation. He is a young man about twenty years of age, and has just been to Peking to celebrate his marriage. As he is the first subject in the empire, outranking all princes and nobles except those of royal blood, he travels with great display, wholly of course at imperial expense. He, his mother, and his bride were carried in blue sedanchairs with eight bearers, each preceded by a company of soldiers and an officer who carried the emperor's passport strapped carefully on his back, so arranged that the royal yellow silk document was visible to all. An immense train of horses and carts followed in the rear.

"Nothing could exceed the perfect respect and reverence with which this holy man with the blood of the great Confucius, 'the Perfect One,' flowing in his veins is regarded by all classes of the people. Though the streets were lined with people, hardly a word was spoken or a motion made as the procession went past. This boy has a nation at his feet. Notwithstanding his ancestry and the high honors paid him, the boy is a degraded opium-smoker, and his kindred, I am told, are in a state of great moral decay. But as an advertisement of Confucianism he is a great success. Princes struggle for a glance at him or a word with him, and all classes count it an honor to have him pass through their borders. It would take hardier and more substantial virtue than Confucianism can create to endure the weakening influence of seventy generations of mental and physical inactivity."

The leading features of the teaching of Confucius are subordination to superiors and fair dealing with our fellowmen. Entering into even trifling details, he inculcates the duties owed by children to their parents, wives to their husbands, subjects to their prince, etc.

"His Four Books and Five Classics," says Mr. S. Wells Williams, would not, so far as regards their intrinsic character in comparison with other productions, be considered anything more than curiosities in literature for their antiquity and language, were it not for the incomparable influence they have exerted over so many millions of minds. The explanation of this influence is to be found in their use as textbooks in the schools and competitive examinations." They are free from allusions to whatever debases and vitiates the heart, and this is a redeeming quality not to be undervalued. The furniture of a Chinese schoolroom consists merely of a desk and stool for each pupil, a raised seat for the master, and a tablet or inscription on the wall dedicated to Confucius and the god of letters. The sage is styled the "teacher and pattern of all ages," and incense is constantly burned in honor of them both.

Confucius makes no reference to any accountability to an unseen power. His own high rule of conduct has therefore failed to make his followers holy, or

to raise them in the scale of being. As an example of what is now done in China, where Confucianism has had sway for more than 2,400 years, we quote again from Mr. Ament's letter. He had just visited a Chinese prisoner. "We saw the iron chain hanging about his neck and observed his generally pitiable condition. He was dressed in the thinnest garments, suitable for warm weather only, and had eaten nothing for two days. His friends succeeded in seeing him after he had been imprisoned four days, and reported that he had received no

food or water in all that time, and his tongue was so swollen that he could hardly speak. Dante's Inferno is a feeble representation of the horrors of a Chinese prison, reeking with filth, the victims chained in the most uncomfortable attitudes, and not fed or watered unless their friends come forward with a very liberal sum of money, which in most cases they are utterly unable to do. Only in the last extremity, when life is almost extinct, are the prisoners given food or water enough to keep body and soul together."

Confucianism is known by its fruits.

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