Show HEAVEN AS JUPARK Various Religions Trying to Make It Exclusive SO DECLARES MINISTER WU Chinese Envoy to United States Delivers De-livers an Address on The Teachings Teach-ings of Confucius and flakes a Comparison of His Practical Teachings Teach-ings With Those of Christ Lovo Your Enemies Too High a Standard Stand-ard of Excellenco for Humanity Heaven a Place for All Good Men New York Dec 10Wit Ting Fu the Chinese Minister to the United States speaking before the Society of Ethical Culture at Carnegie hall on The Teachings of Confucius said In part In the strictest sense of the word Confucianism is not a religion It is 1 not a system of doctrine and worship It is easier to say what Confucianism Con-fucianism is not than what It is The immortality of the soul Is a beautiful doctrine I admit I wish It were true and I hops It Js true but nil the reasoning of Plato cannot make it more than a strong probability and all the light of modern science has not brought us one step further Now Confucius would be called an agnostic If he were alive today There were four things that ho would not talk about extraordinary things feats of strength disorder and spiritual being Plow are we to serve spiritual beings he was asked When you do not know how to serve men how can you serve spirits he replied Horace Grceley said those who discharge dis-charge promptly and faithfully their duties to those who linger in the flesh have but little time to peer Into the affairs of those who have passed away Confucius was Intensely practical and human He did not spend time speculating specu-lating as to what would happen after deathTEACHINGS TEACHINGS COMPARED The Minister then compared the teachings of Confucius with those of I Christ He read a passage from the New Testament declaring that evil should not be resisted with evil and if a man smite you upon one cheek you should turn the other cheek pf this doctrine Mr Wu said This it seems to me is meekness with a vengeance I am inclined to think no sensible man has ever followed this Injunction faithfully A man who will smite you upon the cheek Is a dangerous danger-ous man and needs no second Invlla tlon A man who will lake your coatIs coat-is a thief and would doubtless take your cloak too if he could lay his hands on It TOO HIGH FOR HUMANITY Love your enemies Such a standard stand-ard of excellence Is too high for humanity hu-manity At this very moment Christian Chris-tian missionaries are calling for bloodshed blood-shed and vengeance in China and Christian armies are devastating the land sparing neither age nor sex There Is indeed a vast gulf between doctrine and performance Could you love one who had killed your father and brother or destroyed your home7 ConfucianIsm Confucian-Ism does not require such a thought It enjoins that kindness be requited with kindness and an Injury with justice It docs not sanction retaliation retalia-tion in a vindictive spirit such as I regret to say Is shown by some persons per-sons professing to be governed by the tenets of Christianity The most striking instance in which the teachings of Confucius and of Christ meet is in the Golden Rule Confucius puts it negatively to be sureDo not to others what you would not wish them to do to youand one who will follow that rule either way it Js phrased will be a thoroughly good man PLACE FOR ALL GOOD PEOPLE A good Christian is a good Confucian Confu-cian and a good Confucian is a good Christian I do not believe that heaven is an exclusive place The advocates ad-vocates of various religions are all trying to make a private park of it for their own adherents Whatever heaven heav-en may be I bellevo It is a place for all good men irrespective of dogma Confucius did not run away from lie world but did his duty In It Ho leaches a man to be good for the sake of good and not for any promise of reward or through any threat of punishment pun-ishment The world is gradually coming com-ing to Confucius One of the signs is the growth of agnosticism I will not say whether people are growing more callous or more civilized but they are no more terrified when the terrors of the next world are proclaimed from the pulpit |