Show IL 0 T A refill OSA LECTURES ON orthography the morning session occupied hy confucius according to adjournment the C T A convened in the central schoolhouse provo april 4 1889 vice president M H hardy in the chair and twenty members present in the absence of prof H ij giles the school song why dont parents visit the school was given by miss evlyn billings the following lecture on the life of confucius by jamr H wallis was then delivered confucius the celebrated chinese aage was born june years B 0 at shang pinar near the town of thease in the petty kingdom of lu his own name his disciples called him kong fu tse i e kong the master or teacher which the jesuit missionaries sion aries latini zed into confucius his mother used to call him joien little hillock because he had an unusual elevation on the top of his forehead with which he is often represented various prodigies as in other instances were we are told the of his birth AB illustrious pedigree has also been invented lor him by his fond disciples who derive his origin from hoang ti a mythological monarch of china who nourished more than 2000 BC his father shuh leang ho died when confucius was only three years of ago but he was very carefully brought up by his mother tan she and from his earliest years displayed an extraordinary love of learning and veneration for the ancient laws of his country the prudence rectitude and philosophic gravity of his conduct while a boy are also highly extolled by chinese writers at the age of 17 he wa made an inspector of tho corn marts and distinguished himself by his industry and energy in repressing fraud and introducing order and integrity into the whole business when only 19 confucius married but divorced his wife four years after marriage that ho might have more time for study and the performance f his public duties confucius was next appointed in general of pastures and flocks and the result of his judicious measures wo are told was a general improvement pro in the cultivation of ile country and the condition of the people the death of his mother in his year interrupted for a time his administrative functions and gave occasion to the first solemn and important act of confucius as a moral reformer according to the ancient but then almost forgotten laws of china children were obliged to resign ail public employment on the death of either parents and confucius desirous of renewing the observance in his native land of all the practices of venerable antiquity did not fail to conform to this long neglected enactment the solemnity and splendor of the bunal ceremony with which he honored tho remains of his mother another old custom which had fallen into disuse struck his fellow with astonishment and they determined for the future to bury their dead with the ancient honors their example was followed by the neighboring states and the whole nation except the poorest class has continued the practice to the present day confucius came to be looked upon as an authority in regard to the past and ventured to speak as such he inculcated the necessity of stated acts of homage and respect towards the dead either at tho grave or in a part of the dwelling house consecrated for the purpose hence the hall of ancestors and anniversary feasts of the dead which now distinguish china as a nation confucius did not end hero he shut himself up in his house to pass in solitude the three years of mourning for his mother the whole of which time ha dedicated to philosophical study we are told that he reflected deeply on the eternal laws of morality traced them to their source imbued his mind with a sense of the duties which they impose indiscriminately on all men and determined to make them the im mutable rules of all his actions henceforth his career is only an illustration of his ethical system he commenced to instruct his countrymen in the precepts of morality exhibiting hi in his own person all the virtues he inculcated on others gradually his disciples increased as the practical character of his philosophy became more apparent after his years of mourning and meditation were over confucius traveled through various states in some of which he was employed as a public reformer on his return to lu his reputation was very great not less than mandarins being among his followers in fact it isto be observed that generally confucius disciples were not the young and enthusiastic but men of middle age sober grave respectable and occupying important public situations this fact throws light both on the character and design of his it was elbic cal not religious and aimed exclusively at fitting men for conducting themselves honorably and prudently in this life confucius now divided bis scholars into four classes to the first he taught morals to tho second rhetoric to the third politics and to the fourth the perfection of their style in written composition residing at lu confucius worked industriously in the revision and abridgement abridge ment of those works which constituted the principal monuments of that ancient which he was always speaking in the language of unbounded reverence an unworthy change of magistrates however in the kingdom of lu induced confucius to recommence his travels he first proceeded to chew where he was not much appreciated and after words to tze where ho became one of the kings ministers but was dismissed after a ahn t lime through the intrigues of courtiers on his return to lu he was appointed governor of the people for a time his inflexible virtue awed them into morality and the delighted monarch conferred the highest dignities on the philosopher but the arrival of a bevy of beautiful byrens from a neighboring state which hated the increasing purity of lu suddenly overturned the edifice of morality which confucius was constructing and in despair he again went abroad in search of less vacillating disciples his later wanderings were very unpropitious state after state refused to be improved ho was in some instances persecuted once he was imprisoned and nearly starved and finally seeing no hope of securing the favorable attention of th mass of his countrymen while alive he returned in extreme poverty to his native state and spent his last years in the composition of literary works by which posterity at least might be instructed he died B U in the year of his age immediately after his death and notwithstanding the general demoralization of his contemporaries confucius began to bo venerated and succeeding ages adorned his name with golden epithets his family which has continued to the present day through sixty seven or sixty eight generations in the very place where their ancestor lived is distinguished by various honors and privileges being the only example of hereditary aristocracy in china while in every city down to those of the third order there is a temple to his honor the day of the second moon is kept sacred by the chinese as the anniversary of his death the system of is rightly considered the most faithful expression of the chinese mind although it is neither the oldest of the extant chinese religions nor that which contains the greatest number 0 adherents we have termed it a religion but it ought rather to be regarded as a system of social and political life built upon a slight foundation of philosophy it contains no trace of a personal god there are indeed ascertain heavenly or power shang te whose outward emblem is tien or the visible firmament but this abang te in the opinion of the most enlightened chinese scholars is nothing more than a verbal personification of the ever present law and order and intelligence which seem to breath amid the wonderful activities of physical creation in the measured circuit of ake seasons in the altema tion of light and darkness in the ebb and flow of tides and in the harmonious and majestic revolutions of the heavenly bodies sometimes indeed confucius uses language that might seem to imply more than this in one sacred books schaag te is depicted as possessing a high measure of intelligence and exercising some degree of moral government he punishes the evil rewards the good and is honored with sacrifice immediately after however we are informed that his retinue consists of the six tsong the mountains the rivers and the spirits generally elsewhere the people are enjoined to contribute with all their power to the worship of shang te of celebrated mountains of great rivers and of the shin spirits of the four quarter hence we are forced to the conclusion that confucius no more believed shang te to be a personal being than he believed the mountains to be such and that in describing this power as possessed of intelligence and as exercising a moral government he simply spoke in a pictorial and symbolic way of the laws that govern all things perhaps too a dim consciousness of a mysterious inexplicable life pervading the phenomena and operating through the nature a feeling probably absent from no human soul influenced confucius to use which his understanding would not have interpreted in a very literal manner his highest conception of god therefore only reminds one of the anima mundi of the classical philosophy and even this conception is not always present more than once his language indicates doubt as to the existence of this great abstraction and he occasionally reprimanded his disciples for prying into matters unconnected with their duties and lying far beyond their depth in fact from metaphysics and theology he naturally shrunk tho idea of a creation out of nothing by an infinite and eternal person to the end that the glory of his perfections might bo seen and felt through the cence of material symbols by those in his beneficent condescension ho had deigned to create is utterly unknown to con futics ho looked on the universe rather as a stupendous self sustain ing mechanism he thought that all things existed from eternity ana were subject to a flux and a reflux in obedience to initial laws impressed them how and why we know not by some stem necessity thus chaining to the earth as it were those thoughts that wander through eternity crushing in fact overy spiritual Bpi ritual ten deracy of human nature by repudiating all speculation and well nigh all philosophic investigation of every kind confucius strove to direct the attention of men to the duties of social and political life 1 I teach you nothing ho says but what you might learn yourselves viz the observance of the three fundamental laws of relation between sovereign and subject father and child husband and wife and the five capital virtues universal charity impartial justice conformity to ceremonies and established usages rectitude of heart and mind and pure sincerity this in fact contains the whole doctrine of confucius and it was un questionably well suited to the prosaic practical and conservative mind of tho chinese it was by tha strict and faithful performance of appointed duties and by tho cultivation of proper feelings and sentiments that confucius believed wisdom or knowledge could alone be obtained ho seems to havo entertained no doubt that the groat virtues of charity justice and sincerity might bo developed without the help of anny or faita by a species of mechanical discipline ci they were natural to the mind he thought just as their opposites were unnatural here again we find a striking example of that easily satisfied materialism which characterized confucius and has since leavened the chinese nation so thoroughly he virtually says just ab I 1 am forced to accept the phenomena of the universe as facts though I 1 can give no explanation of their origin so am I 1 forced to accept tho phenomena of the human mind as facts though I 1 caa give no explanation of their origin con finds evil and good wisdom and folly in tho hearts of men he cannot help making this distinction some things are bad others good such is the oracular utterance of his conscience which he terms the light of intelligence he does not however advance a step further and make this moral conviction tho basis of a religion his good has no connection with any god it exists we are forced to recognize ic as such that is all wo can know cultivate it those great laws of nature about which we know nothing except that they are realities are on its side do not foster what you know to bo mean and unworthy for he who offends against heaven has no one to whom he can pray imperial heaven will only assist virtue from this standpoint confucius taught a simple and comprehensive rule of life both private and public let every man govern himself according to the sacred maxims then his family according to the same and finally let him render to the emperor who is the father of his people such filial obedience as he demands of his own children and worship him with the same veneration as he does his awn ancestors for thus will domestic social order and the safety of the commonwealth be preserved to further thi end and in accordance with his belief that by instruction in the sacred precepts everything desirable could be accod shed confucius inculcated the necessity of universal education and in consequence schools are diffused throughout the length and breadth of the empire penetrating even to the remote villages where the maxims of the philosopher are taught choso whoso influence is thus perpetuated from generation to generation confucianism appeals to practical men it lauds the present world rather doubts than otherwise the existence of a future one and calls upon all to cultivate such virtues as are seemly in citizens industry modesty sobriety gravity decorum and thoughtfulness it also counsels men to take part in whatever religious services have been established fromor old there may bo some meaning in them and they may affect your welfare in a way you do not know of As for the genn and spirits sacrifice to them have nothing to tell regarding them whether they exist or not but their worship is part of an august and awful ceremonial which a wise man will not neglect or despise confucianism in consequence almost immediately after the death of its author became the religion of the state to which it has proved an admirable ally its theory of government being nothing less than a despotism the entire literary class in china are also followers of confucius and in fact for many ages the literature of china has consisted exclusively of commentaries on the five canonical fooks which confucius professed to merely abridge and of four others which were composed partly by himself and partly by his disciples and which together with the former constitute the nine chinese classics the five canonical books are the yin king originally a cosmological essay now curiously enough regarded as a treatise on ethics tho shu iding a history of the deliberations between the emperors baon and shun and other personages called by confucius the ancient kings and for whose maxims and actions he had the highest vener aboa the shi king a book of sacred songs consisting of poems the best of which every well educated chinaman gets by hert the leking le king the book of rites the foundation of chinese manners prescribing as it does the ceremonies to be observed in all the relationships of life and the great cause of theun changeableness and artificiality of chinese habits and the chun tsien a history by confucius of his own times and those which immediately preceded him the first of the four books is the maheo or great study a political peli work ID which every kind of government from the domestic to the imperial is shown to bo essentially the same viz parental the second book is chung yung or the invariable in the mean a book devoted to teaching men what is the due medium or the golden mean to observe iu their conduct the third is the tim yu or philosophical dialogues containing the recorded conversations of confucius and the best book for obtaining a correct oi his char erand act the fourth is the hi tse written |