literary period of five years, in collating and annotating the works of the ancients. These sacred books have been for twenty-three centuries the fountains of wisdom. and goodness to all the educated of China. They are the works in which every student must be a proficient ere he can hope to advance in the political arena, and for twenty-three centuries have had an incalculable influence on a third of the human race.

His life was peacefully concluded in the midst of his friends at the age of seventy-three, in the valley to which he had retired five years previously.

A few days before his death he tottered about the house, sighing out:

Tai shan, ki tui hu!

Liang muh, kí kwai hu!

Chí jin, k? wei hu !

The great mountain is broken!

The strong beam is thrown down!

The wise man has decayed!

He died soon after, leaving a single descendant, his grandson Tsz'sz', through whom the succession has been. transmitted to the present day. During his life, the return of the Jews from Babylon, the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, and conquest of Egypt by the Persians, took place. Posthumous honors in great variety, amounting to idolatrous worship, have been conferred upon him. His title is the most Holy Ancient Teacher Kung-tsz', and the Holy Duke. In the reign of Kanghí, 2150 years after his death, there were eleven thousand males alive bearing his name, and most of them of the seventy-fourth generation, being undoubtedly one of the oldest families.

in the world. In the Sacrificial Ritual a short account of his life is given, which closes with the following paan:

Confucius! Confucius! How great is Confucius ! Before Confucius there never was a Confucius! Since Confucius there never has been a Confucius ! Confucius! Confucius! How great is Confucius !

That peaceful valley in which he died has been for all succeeding ages a sacred spot-a place of pilgrimage for the learned and the superstitious; and the Chinese of 1867, amid conflicting Buddhism, Tauism, and Roman Catholicism, still point with reverence to the tomb of their great sage in the province of Shan-tung.

In his manner of teaching, Confucius was strikingly contrasted with the other great religious teachers of Asia-Gotama, Buddha, Zoroaster, and Mohammed. He made no pretensions to universal knowledge or external inspiration. "I was not born," said he to his disciples, "endówed with all knowledge. I am merely a man who loves the ancients, and who do all I can to arrive at truth." On particular points of religious and other knowledge he was equally frank in his confessions of ignorance. Having been asked, for instance, by his disciples, how superior spirits might be acceptably worshiped, he candidly answered that he did not know. On another occasion, when asked what death was, he gave the memorable answer: "When I know not the nature of life, how shall I inform you what death is?"

In his precepts, as his disciples have handed them down to us, there is nothing austere or repulsive; no attempt whatever made to bind down the minds of his followers to any rigidly ascetic rule of his own. On the

contrary, he desired them to be open to every enlivening and ennobling idea, to practice singing and music, to cultivate and reverence the sublime, to open their hearts to the influence of joy-in short, by every means consistent with virtue, to render their existence happy.

Simple and natural as he was, however, in his manner of life and method of teaching, he himself informs us, in a saying recorded by one of his disciples, that he was not understood by his age.

The leading features of the philosophy of Confucius are, subordination to superiors, and kind, upright dealing with our fellow men; destitute of all reference to an unseen power to whom all men are accountable, they look only to this world for their sanctions, and make the monarch himself only partially amenable to a higher tribunal. From the duty, honor and obedience owed by a child to his parents, he proceeds to inculcate the obligations of wives to their husbands, subjects to their prince, and ministers to their king, together with all the obligations arising from the various social relations. Political morality must be founded on private rectitude, and the beginning of all real advance, in his opinion, was comprised in nosce teipsum. It cannot be denied that among much that is commendable, there are a few exceptionable dogmas among his tenets; but compared with the precepts of Grecian and Roman sages, the general tendency of his writings is good, while in their general adaptation to the society in which he lived, and their eminently practical character, they exceed those of Western philosophers. He did not deal much in sublime and unattainable descriptions of virtue, but rather taught how the common intercourse of life was to be maintained, how

children should conduct themselves towards their parents, when a man should enter an office, when to marry, etc., which, although they may seem somewhat trifling to us, were probably well calculated for the times and people among whom he lived.

The variety and minuteness of his instructions for the nurture and education of children, the stress he lays upon filial duty, the detail of etiquette and conduct he gives for the intercourse of all classes and ranks in society, characterize his writings from those of all philosophers in other countries; who, comparatively speaking, gave small thought to the education of the young. A notable feature of the Chinese classics, as compared with the classical writings of Grecian and Roman genius, must not be overlooked; which is, their freedom from descriptions of impurity and licentiousness, and allusions to whatever debases and vitiates the heart. Chinese literature contains enough, indeed, to pollute even the mind of a heathen, but its scum has become the sediment; and little or nothing can be found in the writings which are most highly prized, which will not bear perusal by any person in any country. Every one in the least acquainted with the writings of Hindu, Greek, and Roman poets, knows the glowing descriptions of the amours and obscenities of gods and goddesses which fill their pages, and the purity of the Chinese canonical books in this respect must be considered as remarkable.

In his instructions, he improved passing events to afford useful lessons, and some of those recorded are at least ingenious. Observing a fowler one day sorting his birds into different cages, he said, "I do not see any old birds here; where have you put them?" "The old birds,”

replied the fowler, "are too wary to be caught; they are on the lookout, and if they see a net or cage, far from falling into the snare, they escape and never return. Those young ones which are in company with them likewise escape, but only such as separate into a flock by themselves and rashly approach are the birds I take. If perchance I catch an old bird, it is because he follows the young ones." "You have heard him," observed the sage, turning to his disciples; "the words of this fowler afford us matter for instruction. The young birds escape the snare only when they keep with the old ones, the old ones are taken when they follow the young: it is thus with mankind. Presumption, hardihood, want of forethought and inattention, are the principal reasons why young people are led astray. Inflated with their small attainments, they have scarcely made a commencement in learning before they think they know everything; they have scarcely performed a few common virtuous acts, and straight they fancy themselves at the height of wisdom. Under this false impression, they doubt nothing, hesitate at nothing, pay attention to nothing; they rashly undertake acts without consulting the aged and experienced, and thus securely following their own notions, they are misled and fall into the first snare laid for them. If you see an old man of sober years so badly advised as to be taken with the sprightliness of a youth, attached to him, and thinking and acting with him, he is led astray by him, and soon taken in the same snare. Do not forget the answer of the fowler."

Once, when looking at a stream, he compared its ceaseless current to the transmission of good doctrine through succeeding generations; and as one race had received it,