  (Scripture Reading Exercise.) ANCIENT CONCEPTIONS OF GOD.—(Continued.)
SPECIAL TEXT: "Do not to another what you would not have him do unto you. Thou needest this law alone. It is the foundation of all the rest." Confucius. NOTES.1. China: "China was the cradle of a very old civilization, older perhaps than that of any other lands save Egypt and Babylonia; yet Chinese affairs have not until recently exercised any direct influence upon the general current of history. All through the later ancient and mediaeval times the country lay, vague and mysterious, in the haze of the world's horizon. During the Middle Ages the land was known to Europe under the name of Cathay. "The government of China from a remote period has been a parental monarchy. The emperor is the father of his people. But though an absolute prince, he dare not rule tyrannically; he must rule justly and in accordance with the ancient customs." (Myers' General History, p. 67.) 2. The Teachers Confucius and Mencius: "The great teacher of the Chinese was Confucius (551-478 B. C.). He was not a prophet or revealer; he laid no claims to a supernatural knowledge of God or of the hereafter; he said nothing of an Infinite Spirit, and but little of a future life. His cardinal precepts were obedience to parents and superiors, and reverence for the ancients and imitation of their virtues. He himself walked in the old paths, and thus added the force of example to that of precept. He gave the Chinese the Golden Rule, stated negatively: "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." The influence of Confucius has been greater than that of any other teacher excepting Christ, and perhaps Buddha. "Another great teacher of the Chinese was Mencius (372-288 B. C.). He was a disciple of Confucius and a scarcely less revered philosopher and moral teacher." (Myers' General History, p. 68). 3. Chinese Literature: "The most highly-prized portion of Chinese literature is embraced in what is known as the Five Classics and the Four Books, called collectively the Nine Classics. A considerable part of the material of the Five Classics was collected and edited by Confucius. The Four Books, though not written by Confucius, yet bear the impress of his mind and thought, just as the Gospels teach the mind of Christ. The cardinal virtue inculcated by all the sacred writings is filial piety. "It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence which the Nine Classics have had upon the Chinese nation. For more than two thousand years these writings have been the Chinese Bible. But their influence has not been wholly good. The Chinese, in strictly obeying the injunction to walk in the old ways, to conform to the customs of the ancients, have failed to mark out any new footpaths for themselves; hence one cause of the unprogressive character of Chinese civilization." (Myers' General History, p. 69). 4. The Religion of China: Turn your attention now northward from India, and take into account those great masses of our race inhabiting China; and you will find there, according to the statement of Max Muller: "A colorless and unpoetical religion; a religion we might almost venture to call monosyllabic, consisting of the worship of a host of single spirits, representing the sky, the sun, storms and lightning, mountains and rivers; one standing by the side of the other without any mutual attraction, without any higher principle to hold them together. In addition to this, we likewise meet in China with the worship of ancestral spirits, the spirits of the departed, who are supposed to retain some cognizance of human affairs, and to possess peculiar powers which they exercise for good or evil. This double worship of human and natural spirits constitutes the old and popular religion of China, and it has lived on to the present day, at least in the lower ranks of society, though there towers above it a more elevated range of half religious and half philosophical faith, a belief in two higher Powers, which, in the language of philosophy, may mean Form and Matter, in the language of ethics, Good and Evil, but which in the original language of religion and mythology are represented as Heaven and Earth. "It is true that we know the ancient popular religion of China from the works of Confucius only, or from even more modern sources. But Confucius, though he is called the founder of a new religion, was really but the new preacher of an old religion. He was emphatically a transmitter, not a maker. He says himself: 'I only hand on; I cannot create new things. I believe in the ancients, and therefore I love them.'" (Science of Religion—Muller—pp. 61-62). Such was the ancient religion of China; and such, to a very large extent, is the religion of China to this day. It must be remembered that the great Chinese philosopher Confucius did not disturb this ancient religious belief. He did not, in fact, profess to be a teacher of religion at all, but was content if he could but influence men to properly observe human relations. On one occasion he was asked how the "spirits could be served," to which he made answer, "If we are not able to serve men, how can we serve the spirits?" On another occasion he said to his followers, "Respect the gods, and keep them at a distance." 5. Buddhism in China: "Buddhism spread in the south to Ceylon; in the north to Kashmir, the Himalayan countries, Thibet, and China. One Buddhist missionary is mentioned in the Chinese annals as early as 217 B. C.; and about the year 120 B. C. a Chinese general, after defeating the barbarous tribes north of the Desert of Gobi, brought back as a trophy a golden statute, the statute of Buddha. It was not, however, till the year 66 A. D. that Buddhism was officially recognized by the Emperor Ming-ti as a third state religion in China. Ever since, it has shared equal honors with the doctrines of Confucius and Lao-tse, in the celestial empire." (Chips from a German Workshop—Muller—Vol. I, pp. 253-4). 6. The Three Chinese National Religions: "A Chinaman may at the same time be an adherent of all three of the national religions. The mass of the Chinese people accept the three, and see no inconsistency in so doing. It is somewhat as if we Americans were at the same time Protestant, Romanist and skeptic. The Chinese support the priests of all religions, worship in all their temples, and believe in the gods of each and all. These three religions differ from each other, however, Dr. Edkins has so well defined this difference that we give his words: 'Confucianism speaks to the moral nature. It discourses on virtue and vice, and the duty of compliance with the law and the dictates of conscience. Its worship rests on this basis. The religious veneration paid to ancestors—for that is the worship of this system—is founded on the duty of filial piety. The moral sense of the Chinese is offended if they are called on to resign this custom. 'Taoism is materialistic. Its notion of the soul is of something physical, a purer form of matter. The soul it supposes to gain immortality by a physical discipline, a sort of chemical process, which transmutes it into a more ethereal essence, and prepares it for being transferred to the regions of immortality. The gods of Taoism are also very much what might be expected in a system which has such notions as these of the soul. It looks upon the stars as divine. It deifies hermits and physicians, magicians and seekers after the philosopher's stone and the plant of immortality. 'Buddhism is different from both. It is metaphysical. It appeals to the imagination, and deals in subtle argument. It says that the world of the senses is altogether unreal, and upholds this proposition by the most elaborate proofs. Its gods are personified ideas. It denies matter entirely, and concerns itself only with ideas. Most of the personages adored by the Buddhists are known to be nothing but fictitious impersonations of some of these ideas. The Buddhist worship is not reverence paid to beings believed to be actually existing; it is a homage rendered to ideas, and it is only supposed to be reflex in its effects. Their worship is useful as a discipline, but not effectual as prayer. The Buddhist, if he can obtain abstraction of mind from the world in any other mode, need not pray or worship at all.' "These three systems, occupying the three corners of a triangle—the moral, the metaphysical and the material—are supplemental to each other, and are able to co-exist without being mutually destructive. They rest each on a basis of its own, and address themselves each to different parts of man's nature. It was because Confucianism 'knew God, but did not honor Him as God,' that the way was left open for a polytheism like that of the Buddhists. In the old books of China, God is spoken of as the 'Supreme Ruler.' He is represented as exercising over mankind an infinitely just and beneficent providence. But the duty of prayer is not enjoined. No worship of God by the people is permitted. It was only by the emperor acting vicariously for the people that the Deity was adored in that country. The system of Confucius, wanting this, was more a morality than a religion. "Buddhism came to fill this vacancy. Individual faith in God, with a rational mode of worship to accompany it, could not be a result of the religious teaching which preceded it in China, nor were they inculcated by it. In Buddhism, the Chinese found objects to adore of mysterious grandeur, and richly endowed with the attributes of wisdom and benevolence. The appeal thus made to their religious faith was strengthened by a pompous form of worship. Processions and the ringing of bells, fumes of sweet-smelling incense, prayers, chanting and musical instruments were their aids to devotion. No wonder that these additions should prove welcome to the religious susceptibilities of a nation which had hitherto been restricted within the bounds of a system almost exclusively moral, and which discouraged the worship of God by the mass of the people." (Dobbins' World's Worship, pp. 419-421). Footnotes |
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