so or not, the resemblance between the leading characteristics of Hindoo mysticism and those of Taouism are sufficiently striking. When we are told that Hindoo mysticism "lays claim to disinterested love, as opposed to a mercenary religion; that it reacts against the ceremonial prescriptions and pedantic literature of the Vedas; that it identifies, in its Pantheism, subject and object, worshipper and worshipped; that it aims at ultimate absorption into the infinite; that it inculcates as the way to this dissolution absolute passivity, withdrawal into the inmost self, and cessation of all the powers; that it believes that eternity may thus be realized in time; that it has its mythical miraculous pretensions, i.e., its theurgic department";1 we see reflected as in a glass the various stages through which Taouism has passed from the time it was first conceived in the mind of Laou-tsze down to its latest superstitious develop

ments.

To the many and gross evils which have grown out of his system, Laou-tsze gave no countenance whatever. His was no superstitious faith, but was an abstract belief in an infinite essence, and though it is true that his teachings have led to the pantheistic identification of the creature with the creator, and that some of his utterances have been held to countenance the systems of charms and elixirs which have disgraced the religion in later times, yet the Taou-tih-king stands forth as an undeniable witness to prove that its author was singularly free from all taint of such superstitions,

1 Vaughan's "Hours with the Mystics."

and that nothing could be more opposed to the humility and self-emptiness which he preached with all sincerity than his own apotheosis, nor to his hatred of deception than the magical arts of his degenerate followers. His system was transcendental, but it was pure, and in rules of general morality he fell behind no heathen philosopher which the world has seen, and he far surpassed them all when he communicated that maxim which has been one of the great glories of Christianity: "Recompense evil with good."

CHAPTER IV.

LEIH-TSZE AND CHWANG-TSZE.

BUT the same fate which has overtaken the systems of the founders of all religions was speedily to befall the doctrines of Laou-tsze. No doctrine however pure, not even Christianity itself, has been able everywhere to maintain its purity. After the disappearance of the founder whose personal influence serves to maintain the religious standard he has established, and to whom all questions arising on disputed points may be referred, there remain but the records of his deeds and words. How soon the study of these may give rise to disputations and heresies, let the history of Christianity bear testimony. But among the Taouists these never obtained any firm hold among the followers of Laou-tsze. He had shown forth no mighty deeds, he had shunned the centres of concourse, his life had not been marked by any supernatural manifestations, nor by any notable acts of either power or self-devotion, and of the manner of his death nothing is known. His was a life of retired meditation, and the direction which in his many years of seclusion his thoughts took was foreign to the preconceived ideas and tone of the national mind. His ideas also had to compete with

those of a formidable rival in the person of Confucius, who paraded the country followed by a crowd of disciples, associating with kings and princes, and preaching the glories of his native land and the incomparable excellence of the ancient rulers of China.

Far more likely to attract were the sayings and doings of Confucius, which sounded pleasantly in the ears of a people already proud of the history of their country, and which attracted the attention of all men. Already the ground was prepared for the reception of the seed he was to cast upon it, and when in due time the harvest began to appear there was shown forth a goodly crop of the rich and great, the powerful and the wise. But on the other hand Taouism was as the cave of Adullam, a retreat to which all those who were discontented with their lots, and who despaired of the future of their country, took refuge. Such men were by no means the best depositories of the teachings of Laou-tsze. The genial tone and kindly thoughts of the "old philosopher" became transformed under their hands into sneers and complaints, and his philosophy of existence was converted into arguments in support of a careless indifference of life and of death.

Conspicuous among the early writers on Taouism are Lieh Yü-kow, commonly known as Lieh-tsze, and Chwang Chow, who is usually spoken of as ChwangThe first of these was born in the 5th century B.C., in the generation immediately succeeding that of Confucius and of Laou-tsze, and his writings fairly represent the tone which had already begun to be

tsze.

taken up concerning the doctrines of his master. The belief in the identity of existence and nonexistence, and the constant alternations from one to the other observable in all nature, assumed in the eyes of Lieh-tsze a warrant for the old doctrine, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." "Why trouble oneself," he asks, "about anything in life? Is not death, which is but a return from existence to non-existence, ever close at hand? My body is not my own; I am merely an inhabitant of it for the time being, and shall resign it when I return to the 'Abyss Mother.' Why, then, should I weary myself in the pursuit of politics or of the many anxieties with which some men delight to perplex themselves? Rather let me 'take the goods the gods provide' and enjoy to-day, leaving the morrow to take care of itself."

In this spirit he quotes with approval the account of an interview between Confucius and a follower of Laoutsze named Ying, whom Confucius met wearing a leather girdle about his loins in the fields near the city of Ching, and who was solacing his loneliness by singing to his guitar. "Sir, what makes you so cheerful?" asked Confucius. "I have indeed many causes for rejoicing," answered Ying. "Of all the things created by Heaven, are not human beings the most honourable? And I am a human being. That is one cause for rejoicing. Are not men noble and women contemptible? And I am a man. That is a second cause for rejoicing. Again, are not some men born who never see the light of the sun or moon, and who never live to get out of swaddling-clothes? I have walked the earth for ninety years. That is a third cause for