Beacon Lights of History Volume I Part 4

Thus, whatever defects are a.s.sociated with the princ.i.p.al deities, these are all natural and consistent with the characters they represent, or the duties and business in which they engage. Drunkenness is not a.s.sociated with Zeus, or unchast.i.ty with Hera or Athene. The poets make each deity consistent with himself, and in harmony with the interests he represents. Hence the mythology of the poets is elaborate and interesting. Who has not devoured the cla.s.sical dictionary before he has learned to scan the lines of Homer or of Virgil? As varied and romantic as the "Arabian Nights," it s.h.i.+nes in the beauty of nature. In the Grecian creations of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses there is no insult to the understanding, because these creations are in harmony with Nature, are consistent with humanity. There is no hatred and no love, no jealousy and no fear, which has not a natural cause. The poets proved themselves to be great artists in the very characters they gave to their divinities. They did not aim to excite reverence or stimulate to duty or point out the higher life, but to amuse a worldly, pleasure-seeking, good-natured, joyous, art-loving, poetic people, who lived in the present and for themselves alone.

As a future state of rewards and punishments seldom entered into the minds of the Greeks, so the G.o.ds are never represented as conferring future salvation. The welfare of the soul was rarely thought of where there was no settled belief in immortality. The G.o.ds themselves were fed on nectar and ambrosia, that they might not die like ordinary mortals.

They might prolong their own existence indefinitely, but they were impotent to confer eternal life upon their wors.h.i.+ppers; and as eternal life is essential to perfect happiness, they could not confer even happiness in its highest sense.

On this fact Saint Augustine erected the grand fabric of his theological system. In his most celebrated work, "The City of G.o.d," he holds up to derision the G.o.ds of antiquity, and with blended logic and irony makes them contemptible as objects of wors.h.i.+p, since they were impotent to save the soul. In his view the grand and distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of Christianity, in contrast with Paganism, is the gift of eternal life and happiness. It is not the morality which Christ and his Apostles taught, which gave to Christianity its immeasurable superiority over all other religions, but the promise of a future felicity in heaven. And it was this promise which gave such comfort to the miserable people of the old Pagan world, ground down by oppression, injustice, cruelty, and poverty.

It was this promise which filled the converts to Christianity with joy, enthusiasm, and hope,--yea, more than this, even boundless love that salvation was the gift of G.o.d through the self-sacrifice of Christ.

Immortality was brought to light by the gospel alone, and to miserable people the idea of eternal bliss after the trials of mortal life were pa.s.sed was the source of immeasurable joy. No sooner was this sublime expectation of happiness planted firmly in the minds of pagans, than they threw their idols to the moles and the bats.

But even in regard to morality, Augustine showed that the G.o.ds were no examples to follow. He ridicules their morals and their offices as severely as he points out their impotency to bestow happiness. He shows the absurdity and inconsistency of tolerating players in their delineation of the vices and follies of deities for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the people in the theatre, while the priests performed the same obscenities as religious rites in the temples which were upheld by the State; so that philosophers like Varro could pour contempt on players with impunity, while he dared not ridicule priests for doing in the temples the same things. No wonder that the popular religion at last was held in contempt by philosophers, since it was not only impotent to save, but did not stimulate to ordinary morality, to virtue, or to lofty sentiments. A religion which was held sacred in one place and ridiculed in another, before the eyes of the same people, could not in the end but yield to what was better.

If we ascribe to the poets the creation of the elaborate mythology of the Greeks,--that is, a system of G.o.ds made by men, rather than men made by G.o.ds,--whether as symbols or objects of wors.h.i.+p, whether the religion was pantheistic or idolatrous, we find that artists even surpa.s.sed the poets in their conceptions of divine power, goodness, and beauty, and thus riveted the chains which the poets forged.

The temple of Zeus at Olympia in Elis, where the intellect and the culture of Greece a.s.sembled every four years to witness the games inst.i.tuted in honor of the Father of the G.o.ds, was itself calculated to impose on the senses of the wors.h.i.+ppers by its grandeur and beauty. The image of the G.o.d himself, sixty feet high, made of ivory, gold, and gems by the greatest of all the sculptors of antiquity, must have impressed spectators with ideas of strength and majesty even more than any poetical descriptions could do. If it was art which the Greeks wors.h.i.+pped rather than an unseen deity who controlled their destinies, and to whom supreme homage was due, how n.o.bly did the image before them represent the highest conceptions of the attributes to be ascribed to the King of Heaven! Seated on his throne, with the emblems of sovereignty in his hands and attendant deities around him, his head, neck, breast, and arms in ma.s.sive proportions, and his face expressive of majesty and sweetness, power in repose, benevolence blended with strength,--the image of the Olympian deity conveyed to the minds of his wors.h.i.+ppers everything that could inspire awe, wonder, and goodness, as well as power. No fear was blended with admiration, since his favor could be won by the magnificent rites and ceremonies which were inst.i.tuted in his honor.

Clarke alludes to the sculptured Apollo Belvedere as giving a still more elevated idea of the sun-G.o.d than the poets themselves,--a figure expressive of the highest thoughts of the h.e.l.lenic mind,--and quotes Milman in support of his admiration:--

"All, all divine! no struggling muscle glows, Through heaving vein no mantling life-blood flows; But, animate with deity alone, In deathless glory lives the breathing stone."

If a Christian poet can see divinity in the chiselled stone, why should we wonder at the wors.h.i.+p of art by the pagan Greeks? The same could be said of the statues of Artemis, of Pallas-Athene, of Aphrodite, and other "divine" productions of Grecian artists, since they represented the highest ideal the world has seen of beauty, grace, loveliness, and majesty, which the Greeks adored. Hence, though the statues of the G.o.ds are in human shape, it was not men that the Greeks wors.h.i.+pped, but those qualities of mind and those forms of beauty to which the cultivated intellect instinctively gave the highest praise. No one can object to this boundless admiration which the Greeks had for art in its highest forms, in so far as that admiration became wors.h.i.+p. It was the divorce of art from morals which called out the indignation and censure of the Christian fathers, and even undermined the religion of philosophers so far as it had been directed to the wors.h.i.+p of the popular deities, which were simply creations of poets and artists.

It is difficult to conceive how the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds could have been kept up for so long a time, had it not been for the festivals. This wise provision for providing interest and recreation for the people was also availed of by the Mosaic ritual among the Hebrews, and has been a part of most well-organized religious systems. The festivals were celebrated in honor not merely of deities, but of useful inventions, of the seasons of the year, of great national victories,--all which were religious in the pagan sense, and const.i.tuted the highest pleasures of Grecian life.

They were observed with great pomp and splendor in the open air in front of temples, in sacred groves, wherever the people could conveniently a.s.semble to join in jocund dances, in athletic sports, and whatever could animate the soul with festivity and joy. Hence the religious wors.h.i.+p of the Greeks was cheerful, and adapted itself to the tastes and pleasures of the people; it was, however, essentially worldly, and sometimes degrading. It was similar in its effects to the rural sports of the yeomanry of the Middle Ages, and to the theatrical representations sometimes held in mediaeval churches,--certainly to the processions and pomps which the Catholic clergy inst.i.tuted for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the people. Hence the sneering but acute remark of Gibbon, that all religions were equally true to the people, equally false to philosophers, and equally useful to rulers. The State encouraged and paid for sacrifices, rites, processions, and scenic dances on the same principle that they gave corn to the people to make them contented in their miseries, and severely punished those who ridiculed the popular religion when it was performed in temples, even though it winked at the ridicule of the same performances in the theatres.

Among the Greeks there were no sacred books like the Hindu Vedas or Hebrew Scriptures, in which the people could learn duties and religious truths. The priests taught nothing; they merely officiated at rites and ceremonies. It is difficult to find out what were the means and forms of religious instruction, so far as pertained to the heart and conscience.

Duties were certainly not learned from the ministers of religion. From what source did the people learn the necessity of obedience to parents, of conjugal fidelity, of truthfulness, of chast.i.ty, of honesty? It is difficult to tell. The poets and artists taught ideas of beauty, of grace, of strength; and Nature in her grandeur and loveliness taught the same things. Hence a severe taste was cultivated, which excluded vulgarity and grossness in the intercourse of life. It was the rule to be courteous, affable, gentlemanly, for all this was in harmony with the severity of art. The comic poets ridiculed pretension, arrogance, quackery, and lies. Patriotism, which was learned from the dangers of the State, amid warlike and unscrupulous neighbors, called out many manly virtues, like courage, fort.i.tude, heroism, and self-sacrifice. A hard and rocky soil necessitated industry, thrift, and severe punishment on those who stole the fruits of labor, even as miners in the Rocky Mountains sacredly abstain from appropriating the gold of their fellow-laborers. Self-interest and self-preservation dictated many laws which secured the welfare of society. The natural sacredness of home guarded the virtue of wives and children; the natural sense of justice raised indignation against cheating and tricks in trade. Men and women cannot live together in peace and safety without observing certain conditions, which may be ranked with virtues even among savages and barbarians,--much more so in cultivated and refined communities.

The graces and amenities of life can exist without reference to future rewards and punishments. The ultimate law of self-preservation will protect men in ordinary times against murder and violence, and will lead to public and social enactments which bad men fear to violate. A traveller ordinarily feels as safe in a highly-civilized pagan community as in a Christian city. The "heathen Chinee" fears the officers of the law as much as does a citizen of London.

The great difference between a Pagan and a Christian people is in the power of conscience, in the sense of a moral accountability to a spiritual Deity, in the hopes or fears of a future state,--motives which have a powerful influence on the elevation of individual character and the development of higher types of social organization. But whatever laws are necessary for the maintenance of order, the repression of violence, of crimes against person and the State and the general material welfare of society, are found in Pagan as well as in Christian States; and the natural affections,--of paternal and filial love, friends.h.i.+p, patriotism, generosity, etc.,--while strengthened by Christianity, are also an inalienable part of the G.o.d-given heritage of all mankind. We see many heroic traits, many manly virtues, many domestic amenities, and many exalted sentiments in pagan Greece, even if these were not taught by priests or sages. Every man instinctively clings to life, to property, to home, to parents, to wife and children; and hence these are guarded in every community, and the violation of these rights is ever punished with greater or less severity for the sake of general security and public welfare, even if there be no belief in G.o.d. Religion, loftily considered, has but little to do with the temporal interests of men. Governments and laws take these under their protection, and it is men who make governments and laws. They are made from the instinct of self-preservation, from patriotic aspirations, from the necessities of civilization. Religion, from the Christian standpoint, is unworldly, having reference to the life which is to come, to the enlightenment of the conscience, to restraint from sins not punishable by the laws, and to the inspiration of virtues which have no worldly reward.

This kind of religion was not taught by Grecian priests or poets or artists, and did not exist in Greece, with all its refinements and glories, until partially communicated by those philosophers who meditated on the secrets of Nature, the mighty mysteries of life, and the duties which reason and reflection reveal. And it may be noticed that the philosophers themselves, who began with speculations on the origin of the universe, the nature of the G.o.ds, the operations of the mind, and the laws of matter, ended at last with ethical inquiries and injunctions. We see this ill.u.s.trated in Socrates and Zeno. They seemed to despair of finding out G.o.d, of explaining the wonders of his universe, and came down to practical life in its sad realities,--like Solomon himself when he said, "Fear G.o.d and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." In ethical teachings and inquiries some of these philosophers reached a height almost equal to that which Christian sages aspired to climb; and had the world practised the virtues which they taught, there would scarcely have been need of a new revelation, so far as the observance of rules to promote happiness on earth is concerned. But these Pagan sages did not hold out hopes beyond the grave. They even doubted whether the soul was mortal or immortal.

They did teach many enn.o.bling and lofty truths for the enlightenment of thinkers; but they held out no divine help, nor any hope of completing in a future life the failures of this one; and hence they failed in saving society from a persistent degradation, and in elevating ordinary men to those glorious heights reached by the Christian converts.

That was the point to which Augustine directed his vast genius and his unrivalled logic. He admitted that arts might civilize, and that the elaborate mythology which he ridiculed was interesting to the people, and was, as a creation of the poets, ingenious and beautiful; but he showed that it did not reveal a future state, that it did not promise eternal happiness, that it did not restrain men from those sins which human laws could not punish, and that it did not exalt the soul to lofty communion with the Deity, or kindle a truly spiritual life, and therefore was worthless as a religion, imbecile to save, and only to be cla.s.sed with those myths which delight an ignorant or sensuous people, and with those rites which are shrouded in mystery and gloom. Nor did he, in his matchless argument against the G.o.ds of Greece and Rome, take for his attack those deities whose rites were most degrading and senseless, and which the thinking world despised, but the most lofty forms of pagan religion, such as were accepted by moralists and philosophers like Seneca and Plato. And thus he reached the intelligence of the age, and gave a final blow to all the G.o.ds of antiquity.

It would be instructive to show that the religion of Greece, as embraced by the people, did not prevent or even condemn those social evils that are the greatest blot on enlightened civilization. It did not discourage slavery, the direst evil which ever afflicted humanity; it did not elevate woman to her true position at home or in public; it ridiculed those pa.s.sive virtues that are declared and commended in the Sermon on the Mount; it did not p.r.o.nounce against the wickedness of war, or the vanity of military glory; it did not dignify home, or the virtues of the family circle; it did not declare the folly of riches, or show that the love of money is a root of all evil. It made sensual pleasure and outward prosperity the great aims of successful ambition, and hid with an impenetrable screen from the eyes of men the fatal results of a worldly life, so that suicide itself came to be viewed as a justifiable way to avoid evils that are hard to be borne; in short, it was a religion which, though joyous, was without hope, and with innumerable deities was without G.o.d in the world,--which was no religion at all, but a fable, a delusion, and a superst.i.tion, as Paul argued before the a.s.sembled intellect of the most fastidious and cultivated city of the world.

And yet we see among those who wors.h.i.+pped the G.o.ds of Greece a sense of dependence on supernatural power; and this dependence stands out, both in the Iliad and the Odyssey, among the boldest heroes. They seem to be reverential to the powers above them, however indefinite their views. In the best ages of Greece the wors.h.i.+p of the various deities was sincere and universal, and was attended with sacrifices to propitiate favor or avert their displeasure.

It does not appear that these sacrifices were always offered by priests.

Warriors, kings, and heroes themselves sacrificed oxen, sheep, and goats, and poured out libations to the G.o.ds. Homer's heroes were very strenuous in the exercise of these duties; and they generally traced their calamities and misfortunes to the neglect of sacrifices, which was a great offence to the deities, from Zeus down to inferior G.o.ds. We read, too, that the G.o.ds were supplicated in fervent prayer. There was universally felt, in earlier times, a need of divine protection. If the G.o.ds did not confer eternal life, they conferred, it was supposed, temporal and worldly good. People prayed for the same blessings that the ancient Jews sought from Jehovah. In this sense the early Greeks were religious. Irreverence toward the G.o.ds was extremely rare. The people, however, did not pray for divine guidance in the discharge of duty, but for the blessings which would give them health and prosperity. We seldom see a proud self-reliance even among the heroes of the Iliad, but great solicitude to secure aid from the deities they wors.h.i.+pped.

The religion of the Romans differed in some respects from that of the Greeks, inasmuch as it was emphatically a state religion. It was more of a ritual and a ceremony. It included most of the deities of the Greek Pantheon, but was more comprehensive. It accepted the G.o.ds of all the nations that composed the empire, and placed them in the Pantheon,--even Mithra, the Persian sun-G.o.d, and the Isis and Osiris of the Egyptians, to whom sacrifices were made by those who wors.h.i.+pped them at home. It was also a purer mythology, and rejected many of the blasphemous myths concerning the loves and quarrels of the Grecian deities. It was more practical and less poetical. Every Roman G.o.d had something to do, some useful office to perform. Several divinities presided over the birth and nursing of an infant, and they were wors.h.i.+pped for some fancied good, for the benefits which they were supposed to bestow. There was an elaborate "division of labor" among them. A divinity presided over bakers, another over ovens,--every vocation and every household transaction had its presiding deities.

There were more superst.i.tious rites practised by the Romans than by the Greeks,--such as examining the entrails of beasts and birds for good or bad omens. Great attention was given to dreams and rites of divination.

The Roman household G.o.ds were of great account, since there was a more defined and general wors.h.i.+p of ancestors than among the Greeks. These were the _Penates_, or familiar household G.o.ds, the guardians of the home, whose fire on the sacred hearth was perpetually burning, and to whom every meal was esteemed a sacrifice. These included a _Lar_, or ancestral family divinity, in each house. There were Vestal virgins to guard the most sacred places. There was a college of pontiffs to regulate wors.h.i.+p and perform the higher ceremonies, which were complicated and minute. The pontiffs were presided over by one called Pontifex Maximus,--a t.i.tle shrewdly a.s.sumed by Caesar to gain control of the popular wors.h.i.+p, and still surviving in the t.i.tle of the Pope of Rome with his college of cardinals. There were augurs and haruspices to discover the will of the G.o.ds, according to entrails and the flight of birds.

The festivals were more numerous in Rome than in Greece, and perhaps were more piously observed. About one day in four was set apart for the wors.h.i.+p of particular G.o.ds, celebrated by feasts and games and sacrifices. The princ.i.p.al feast days were in honor of Ja.n.u.s, the great G.o.d of the Sabines, the G.o.d of beginnings, celebrated on the first of January, to which month he gave his name; also the feasts in honor of the Penates, of Mars, of Vesta, of Minerva, of Venus, of Ceres, of Juno, of Jupiter, and of Saturn. The Saturnalia, December 19, in honor of Saturn, the annual Thanksgiving, lasted seven days, when the rich kept open house and slaves had their liberty,--the most joyous of the festivals. The feast of Minerva lasted five days, when offerings were made by all mechanics, artists, and scholars. The feast of Cybele, a.n.a.logous to that of Ceres in Greece and Isis in Egypt, lasted six days.

These various feasts imposed great contributions on the people, and were managed by the pontiffs with the most minute observances and legalities.

The princ.i.p.al Roman divinities were the Olympic G.o.ds under Latin names, like Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Minerva, Neptune, Vesta, Apollo, Venus, Ceres, and Diana; but the secondary deities were almost innumerable. Some of the deities were of Etruscan, some of Sabine, and some of Latin origin; but most of them were imported from Greece or corresponded with those of the Greek mythology. Many were manufactured by the pontiffs for utilitarian purposes, and were mere abstractions, like Hope, Fear, Concord, Justice, Clemency, etc., to which temples were erected. The powers of Nature were also wors.h.i.+pped, like the sun, the moon, and stars. The best side of Roman life was represented in the wors.h.i.+p of Vesta, who presided over the household fire and home, and was a.s.sociated with the Lares and Penates. Of these household G.o.ds the head of the family was the officiating minister who offered prayers and sacrifices.

The Vestal virgins received especial honor, and were appointed by the Pontifex Maximus.

Thus the Romans accounted themselves very religious, and doubtless are to be so accounted, certainly in the same sense as were the Athenians by the Apostle Paul, since altars, statues, and temples in honor of G.o.ds were everywhere present to the eye, and rites and ceremonies were most systematically and mechanically observed according to strict rules laid down by the pontiffs. They were grave and decorous in their devotions, and seemed anxious to learn from their augurs and haruspices the will of the G.o.ds; and their funeral ceremonies were held with great pomp and ceremony. As faith in the G.o.ds declined, ceremonies and pomps were multiplied, and the ice of ritualism acc.u.mulated on the banks of piety.

Superst.i.tion and unbelief went hand in hand. Wors.h.i.+p in the temples was most imposing when the amours and follies of the G.o.ds were most ridiculed in the theatres; and as the State was rigorous in its religious observances, hypocrisy became the vice of the most prominent and influential citizens. What sincerity was there in Julius Caesar when he discharged the duties of high-priest of the Republic? It was impossible for an educated Roman who read Plato and Zeno to believe in Ja.n.u.s and Juno. It was all very well for the people so to believe, he said, who must be kept in order; but scepticism increased in the higher cla.s.ses until the prevailing atheism culminated in the poetry of Lucretius, who had the boldness to declare that faith in the G.o.ds had been the curse of the human race.

If the Romans were more devoted to mere external and ritualistic services than the Greeks,--more outwardly religious,--they were also more hypocritical. If they were not professed freethinkers,--for the State did not tolerate opposition or ridicule of those things which it inst.i.tuted or patronized,--religion had but little practical effect on their lives. The Romans were more immoral yet more observant of religious ceremonies than the Greeks, who acted and thought as they pleased. Intellectual independence was not one of the characteristics of the Roman citizen. He professed to think as the State prescribed, for the masters of the world were the slaves of the State in religion as in war. The Romans were more gross in their vices as they were more pharisaical in their profession than the Greeks, whom they conquered and imitated. Neither the sincere wors.h.i.+p of ancestors, nor the ceremonies and rites which they observed in honor of their innumerable divinities, softened the severity of their character, or weakened their pa.s.sion for war and b.l.o.o.d.y sports. Their hard and rigid wills were rarely moved by the cries of agony or the shrieks of despair. Their slavery was more cruel than among any nation of antiquity. Butchery and legalized murder were the delight of Romans in their conquering days, as were inhuman sports in the days of their political decline. Where was the spirit of religion, as it was even in India and Egypt, when women were debased; when every man and woman held a human being in cruel bondage; when home was abandoned for the circus and the amphitheatre; when the cry of the mourner was unheard in shouts of victory; when women sold themselves as wives to those who would pay the highest price, and men abstained from marriage unless they could fatten on rich dowries; when utility was the spring of every action, and demoralizing pleasure was the universal pursuit; when feastings and banquets were riotous and expensive, and violence and rapine were restrained only by the strong arm of law dictated by instincts of self-preservation? Where was the enn.o.bling influence of the G.o.ds, when n.o.body of any position finally believed in them? How powerless the G.o.ds, when the general depravity was so glaring as to call out the terrible invective of Paul, the cosmopolitan traveller, the shrewd observer, the pure-hearted Christian missionary, indicting not a few, but a whole people: "Who exchanged the truth of G.o.d for a lie, and wors.h.i.+pped and served the creature rather than the Creator, ... being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of G.o.d, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affections, unmerciful." An awful picture, but sustained by the evidence of the Roman writers of that day as certainly no worse than the hideous reality.

If this was the outcome of the most exquisitely poetical and art-inspiring mythology the world has ever known, what wonder that the pure spirituality of Jesus the Christ, s.h.i.+ning into that blackness of darkness, should have been hailed by peris.h.i.+ng millions as the "light of the world"!

AUTHORITIES.

Rawlinson's Religions of the Ancient World; Grote's History of Greece; Thirlwall's History of Greece; Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; Max Muller's Chips from a German Workshop; Curtius's History of Greece; Mr.

Gladstone's Homer and the Homeric Age; Rawlinson's Herodotus; Dollinger's Jew and Gentile; Fenton's Lectures on Ancient and Modern Greece; Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology; Clarke's Ten Great Religions; Dwight's Mythology; Saint Augustine's City of G.o.d.

CONFUCIUS.

SAGE AND MORALIST.

550-478 B.C.

About one hundred years after the great religious movement in India under Buddha, a man was born in China who inaugurated a somewhat similar movement there, and who impressed his character and principles on three hundred millions of people. It cannot be said that he was the founder of a new religion, since he aimed only to revive what was ancient. To quote his own words, he was "a transmitter, and not a maker." But he was, nevertheless, a very extraordinary character; and if greatness is to be measured by results, I know of no heathen teacher whose work has been so permanent. In genius, in creative power, he was inferior to many; but in influence he has had no equal among the sages of the world.

"Confucius" is a Latin name given him by Jesuit missionaries in China; his real name was K'ung-foo-tseu. He was born about 550 B.C., in the province of Loo, and was the contemporary of Belshazzar, of Cyrus, of Croesus, and of Pisistratus. It is claimed that Confucius was a descendant of one of the early emperors of China, of the Chow dynasty, 1121 B.C.; but he was simply of an upper-cla.s.s family of the State of Loo, one of the provinces of the empire,--his father and grandfather having been prime ministers to the reigning princes or dukes of Loo, which State resembled a feudal province of France in the Middle Ages, acknowledging only a nominal fealty to the Emperor.

We know but little of the early condition of China. The earliest record of events which can be called history takes us back to about 2350 B.C., when Yaou was emperor,--an intelligent and benignant prince, uniting under his sway the different States of China, which had even then reached a considerable civilization, for the legendary or mythical history of the country dates back about five thousand years. Yaou's son Shun was an equally remarkable man, wise and accomplished, who lived only to advance the happiness of his subjects. At that period the religion of China was probably monotheistic. The supreme being was called Shang-te, to whom sacrifices were made, a deity who exercised a superintending care of the universe; but corruptions rapidly crept in, and a wors.h.i.+p of the powers of Nature and of the spirits of departed ancestors, who were supposed to guard the welfare of their descendants, became the prevailing religion. During the reigns of these good emperors the standard of morality was high throughout the empire.

But morals declined,--the old story in all the States of the ancient world. In addition to the decline in morals, there were political discords and endless wars between the petty princes of the empire.

To remedy the political and moral evils of his time was the great desire and endeavor of Confucius. The most marked feature in the religion of the Chinese, before his time, was the wors.h.i.+p of ancestors, and this wors.h.i.+p he did not seek to change. "Confucius taught three thousand disciples, of whom the more eminent became influential authors. Like Plato and Xenophon, they recorded the sayings of their master, and his maxims and arguments preserved in their works were afterward added to the national collection of the sacred books called the 'Nim Cla.s.ses.'"

Confucius was a mere boy when his father died, and we know next to nothing of his early years. At fifteen years of age, however, we are told that he devoted himself to learning, pursuing his studies under considerable difficulties, his family being poor. He married when he was nineteen years of age; and in the following year was born his son Le, his only child, of whose descendants eleven thousand males were living one hundred and fifty years ago, const.i.tuting the only hereditary n.o.bility of China,--a cla.s.s who for seventy generations were the recipients of the highest honors and privileges. On the birth of Le, the duke Ch'aou of Loo sent Confucius a present of a carp, which seems to indicate that he was already distinguished for his attainments.

At twenty years of age Confucius entered upon political duties, being the superintendent of cattle, from which, for his fidelity and ability, he was promoted to the higher office of distributer of grain, having attracted the attention of his sovereign. At twenty-two he began his labors as a public teacher, and his house became the resort of enthusiastic youth who wished to learn the doctrines of antiquity. These were all that the sage undertook to teach,--not new and original doctrines of morality or political economy, but only such as were established from a remote antiquity, going back two thousand years before he was born. There is no improbability in this alleged antiquity of the Chinese Empire, for Egypt at this time was a flouris.h.i.+ng State.

At twenty-nine years of age Confucius gave his attention to music, which he studied under a famous master; and to this art he devoted no small part of his life, writing books and treatises upon it. Six years afterward, at thirty-five, he had a great desire to travel; and the reigning duke, in whose service he was as a high officer of state, put at his disposal a carriage and two horses, to visit the court of the Emperor, whose sovereignty, however, was only nominal. It does not appear that Confucius was received with much distinction, nor did he have much intercourse with the court or the ministers. He was a mere seeker of knowledge, an inquirer about the ceremonies and maxims of the founder of the dynasty of Chow, an observer of customs, like Herodotus.

He wandered for eight years among the various provinces of China, teaching as he went, but without making a great impression. Moreover, he was regarded with jealousy by the different ministers of princes; one of them, however, struck with his wisdom and knowledge, wished to retain him in his service.

On the return of Confucius to Loo, he remained fifteen years without official employment, his native province being in a state of anarchy.