justice or equity which consists in rendering to every one his due.

The tutelary spirits, to whom Confucius teaches that worship is due, are divided into two classes: the spirits of mountains, rivers, and other natural objects, and the disembodied spirits of our ancestors, to both of which propitiatory sacrifices are due. "There is a Chinese book," says M. de Guignes, " compiled from the writings of Confucius, which gives figures of the two orders of spirits, informs us where they reside, and the particular object for which they should be invoked." The duty of filial obedience and reverence is inculcated by the Chinese sage with an earnestness unknown in any other system. Indeed, his entire political system is based solely on this foundation. Of all crimes, filial disobedience is the greatest, and least expiable. Even truth may be sacrificed by the son to hide the faults of the father.

In his political system the sovereign stands in a purely paternal relation to his subjects, and revolt or disobedience is under any circumstance a crime. He enumerates clearly and distinctly the duties both of the sovereign and of the people; but if the sovereign chooses to be a tyrant, his lieges, so far as Confucius teaches, have no redress.

Of the extraordinary estimation in which Confucius has been always held by his countrymen, we scarcely require any proofs. Although he was allowed to end his days in comparative obscurity, his descendants have ever since enjoyed, during seventy generations, the highest honors and privileges. They are, indeed, the only hereditary nobility in the empire. They are found principally in the neighborhood of the district in which Con

fucius lived; and it was computed, more than one hundred and fifty years ago, that they numbered 11,000 males. Through every revolution in Chinese history their privileges and honors have hitherto remained intact.

In every city of the empire, of the first, second, and third class, there is one temple at least dedicated to Confucius. The civil and political rulers-nay, the emperor himself—are all equally bound to worship there. The service appointed for this worship is similar to that which each family performs in honor of its ancestors in their "hall of the ancients." A plain tablet is erected above an altar, on which there is a suitable inscription. Sweetsmelling gums are burned in the chamber, with frankincense and tapers of sandal wood; fruit, wine, and flowers are placed upon the altar, and appropriate verses are chanted from the Shí King in praise of deceased worth and wisdom. The ceremony concludes with an address resembling a prayer, delivered by the highest dignitary present.

In the larger temples of Confucius there usually are no images, but the sage and his disciples are worshiped through the medium of their tablets, which are strips of painted board standing upright, with the name and titles of the individual carved upon the face.

The tablets are arranged in the following order:

Ist. In the center of the main hall, and facing the court, is the tablet of Confucius.

2d. Four tablets, two at the right and two at the left of that of the sage, and facing inwards. These are the four most illustrious disciples.

3d. Farther in front are ten tablets, five on either side,

and facing inwards.

next in order for merit.

These ten are for the disciples

4th. Arranged on either side of a long room stretching down in front of the hall, are tablets of the remaining fifty-eight disciples, twenty-nine on either side.

Before each tablet is a stand for candles, incense, and offerings.

The sage is worshiped especially by literary men. Boys on entering school are first taken to the Confucian temple to adore the world's most illustrious scholar and holy man, and to invoke him as a patron.

The remarks of Confucius upon religious subjects were very few; he never taught the duty of man to any higher power than the head of the State or family, though he supposed himself commissioned by heaven to restore the doctrines and usages of the ancient kings. He admitted that he did not understand much about the gods, that they were beyond and above the comprehension of man, and that the obligations of man lay rather in doing his duty to his relatives and society than in worshiping spirits unknown. "Not knowing even life," said he, “how can we know death?" and when his disciples asked him, in his last illness, whom he should sacrifice to, he said he had already worshiped.

Wise and learned as was Confucius, and with all his abstruse discussions about the Tai Kik, the Yin and the Yang, and the Chung Yung, he knew less about the world he lived in than the merest child who has learned that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" and as to what might lie beyond the present life, all was unknown.

He instructed kings, but his teachings lacked that ele

ment which once caused a Roman governor to tremble when the great apostle to the Gentiles, though a prisoner in chains, reasoned before him concerning those subjects which constituted the distinctive doctrine of his faith.

As there were points of difference between the doctrines taught by the so-called holy man of Loo and the orator who once held enchained by his eloquence the learned men of Athens, so was there as marked a difference in the closing scenes of the lives of each. One laments over

"The strong mountain broken,
The wise man decayed."

The other exults in the clear vision of that world into which he expected to enter when this "mortal should have put on immortality."

That the reader may see how the disciples of Confucius were accustomed to speak of the sage whom they styled "Master," as well as the manner in which he spake of himself, we have grouped together what we found in the Analects on these subjects, and have placed them first in our selections from the Four Books, that they may be read in connection with the life of Confucius. They are :

Ist. Remarks by his disciples on his character, doctrines, and habits.

2d. What Confucius said of himself.

3d. An Eulogium, in which is recorded by admiring disciples everything that might help to keep the memory of the master fresh in their minds.

THE FOUR BOOKS.

INTRODUCTION.

THESE are sometimes called the Four Books of the Four Philosophers. They comprise: 1st, the Lun Yu, or Analects, chiefly occupied with the sayings of Confucius; 2d, the Tai Hok, (or Tai Heok) the Great Learning, now commonly attributed to Tsăng Sin, a disciple of the sage; 3d, the Chung Yung, or Doctrine of the Mean, ascribed to Kung Keih, the grandson of Confucius ; 4th, the works of Mencius. But all these disciples of Confucius delight to honor their master, and credit him largely with the sayings which they have recorded.

A peculiarity of all these teachers is, that they did not generally lay claim to the honor of originality in the lessons they gave: they profess rather that what they taught were the doctrines of their wise princes and divine emperors of the primitive ages; they enforce their counsels by citing the examples of wisdom and virtue of the early times. Mencius, as the reader will see at the close of his book, tells from whom his doctrines were derived, and through how long a term of years they had de