Ten Great Religions Part 4

According to Mr. Meadows, the philosophy of China, in its origin and present aspect, may be thus briefly described.[14] Setting aside the Buddhist system and that of Tao-ism, which supply to the Chinese the element of religious wors.h.i.+p and the doctrine of a supernatural world, wanting in the system of Confucius, we find the latter as the established religion of the state, merely tolerating the others as suited to persons of weak minds. The Confucian system, constantly taught by the compet.i.tive examinations, rules the thought of China. Its first development was from the birth of Confucius to the death of Mencias (or from 551 B.C. to 313 B.C.). Its second period was from the time of Chow-tsze (A.D. 1034) to that of Choo-tsze (A.D. 1200). The last of these is the real fas.h.i.+oner of Chinese philosophy, and one of the truly great men of the human race. His works are chiefly Commentaries on the Kings and the Four Books. They are committed to memory by millions of Chinese who aspire to pa.s.s the public-service examinations. The Chinese philosophy, thus established by Choo-tsze, is as follows.[15]

There is one highest, ultimate principle of all existence,--the Tae-keih, or Grand Extreme. This is absolutely immaterial, and the basis of the order of the universe. From this ultimate principle, operating from all eternity, come all animate and inanimate nature. It operates in a twofold way, by expansion and contraction, or by ceaseless active and pa.s.sive pulsations. The active expansive pulsation is called Yang, the pa.s.sive intensive pulsation is Yin, and the two may be called the Positive and Negative Essences of all things. When the active expansive phase of the process has reached its extreme limit, the operation becomes pa.s.sive and intensive; and from these vibrations originate all material and mortal existences. Creation is therefore a perpetual process,--matter and spirit are opposite results of the same force. The one tends to variety, the other to unity; and variety in unity is a permanent and universal law of being. Man results from the utmost development of this pulsatory action and pa.s.sion; and man's nature, as the highest result, is perfectly good, consisting of five elements, namely, charity, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and sincerity. These const.i.tute the inmost, essential nature of man; but as man comes in contact with the outward world evil arises by the conflict. When man follows the dictates of his nature his actions are good, and harmony results. When he is unduly influenced by the outward world his actions are evil, and discord intervenes. The holy man is one who has an instinctive, inward sight of the ultimate principle in its twofold operation (or what we should call the sight of G.o.d, the beatific vision), and who therefore spontaneously and easily obeys his nature.

Hence all his thoughts are perfectly wise, his actions perfectly good, and his words perfectly true. Confucius was the last of these holy men. The infallible authority of the Sacred Books results from the fact that their writers, being holy men, had an instinctive perception of the working of the ultimate principle.

All Confucian philosophy is pervaded by these principles: first, that example is omnipotent; secondly, that to secure the safety of the empire, you must secure the happiness of the people; thirdly, that by solitary persistent thought one may penetrate at last to a knowledge of the essence of things; fourthly, that the object of all government is to make the people virtuous and contented.

-- 5. Lao-tse and Tao-ism.

One of the three religious systems of China is that of the Tao, the other two being that of Confucius, and that of Buddhism in its Chinese form. The difficulty in understanding Tao-ism comes from its appearing under three entirely distinct forms: (1) as a philosophy of the absolute or unconditioned, in the great work of the Tse-Lao, or old teacher;[16] (2) as a system of morality of the utilitarian school,[17] which resolves duty into prudence; and (3) as a system of magic, connected with the belief in spirits. In the Tao-te-king we have the ideas of Lao himself, which we will endeavor to state; premising that they are considered very obscure and difficult even by the Chinese commentators.

The TAO (-- 1) is the unnamable, and is the origin of heaven and earth. As that which can be named, it is the mother of all things. These two are essentially one. Being and not-being are born from each other (-- 2). The Tao is empty but inexhaustible (-- 4), is pure, is profound, and was before the G.o.ds. It is invisible, not the object of perception, it returns into not-being (---- 14, 40). It is vague, confused, and obscure (-- 25, 21). It is little and strong, universally present, and all beings return into it (-- 32). It is without desires, great (-- 34). All things are born of being, being is born of not-being (-- 40).

From these and similar statements it would appear that the philosophy of the Tao-te-king is that of absolute being, or the ident.i.ty of being and not-being. In this point it antic.i.p.ated Hegel by twenty-three centuries.[18] It teaches that the absolute is the source of being and of not-being. Being is essence, not-being is existence. The first is the noumenal, the last the phenomenal.'

As being is the source of not-being (-- 40), by identifying one's self with being one attains to all that is not-being, i.e. to all that exists.

Instead, therefore, of aiming at acquiring knowledge, the wise man avoids it: instead of acting, he refuses to act. He "feeds his mind with a wise pa.s.siveness." (-- 16.) "_Not to act_ is the source of all power," is a thesis continually present to the mind of Lao (---- 3, 23, 38,43,48, 63).

The wise man is like water (---- 8, 78), which seems weak and is strong; which yields, seeks the lowest place, which seems the softest thing and breaks the hardest thing. To be wise one must renounce wisdom, to be good one must renounce justice and humanity, to be learned one must renounce knowledge (---- 19, 20, 45), and must have no desires (---- 8, 22), must detach one's self from all things (-- 20) and be like a new-born babe. From everything proceeds its opposite, the easy from the difficult, the difficult from the easy, the long from the short, the high from the low, ignorance from knowledge, knowledge from ignorance, the first from the last, the last from the first. These antagonisms are mutually related by the hidden principle of the Tao (---- 2, 27). Nothing is independent or capable of existing save through its opposite. The good man and bad man are equally necessary to each other (-- 27). To desire aright is not to desire (-- 64). The saint can do great things because he does not attempt to do them (-- 63). The unwarlike man conquers.[19] He who submits to others controls them. By this negation of all things we come into possession of all things (-- 68). _Not to act_ is, therefore, the secret of all power (---- 3, 23, 38, 43, 48, 63).

We find here the same doctrine of opposites which appears in the Phaedo, and which has come up again and again in philosophy. We shall find something like it in the Sankhya-karika of the Hindoos. The Duad, with the Monad brooding behind it, is the fundamental principle of the Avesta.

The result, thus far, is to an active pa.s.sivity. Lao teaches that not to act involves the highest energy of being, and leads to the greatest results. By not acting one identifies himself with the Tao, and receives all its power. And here we cannot doubt that the Chinese philosopher was pursuing the same course with Sakya-Muni. The Tao of the one is the Nirvana of the other. The different motive in each mind const.i.tutes the difference of their career. Sakya-Muni sought Nirvana, or the absolute, the pure knowledge, in order to escape from evil and to conquer it. Lao sought it, as his book shows, to attain power. At this point the two systems diverge. Buddhism is generous, benevolent, humane; it seeks to help others. Tao-ism seeks its own. Hence the selfish morality which pervades the Book of Rewards and Punishments. Every good action has its reward attached to it. Hence also the degradation of the system into pure magic and spiritism. Buddhism, though its course runs so nearly parallel, always retains in its scheme of merits a touch of generosity.

We find thus, in the Tao-te-king, the element afterwards expanded into the system of utilitarian and eudaemonic ethics in the Book of Rewards and Punishments. We also can trace in it the source of the magical tendency in Tao-ism. The principle, that by putting one's self into an entirely pa.s.sive condition one can enter into communion with the unnamed Tao, and so acquire power over nature, naturally tends to magic. Precisely the same course of thought led to similar results in the case of Neo-Platonism. The ecstatic union with the divine element in all nature, which Plotinus attained four times in his life, resulted from an immediate sight of G.o.d.

In this sight is all truth given to the soul. The unity, says Plotinus, which produces all things, is an essence behind both substance and form.

Through this essential being all souls commune and interact, and magic is this interaction of soul upon soul through the soul of souls, with which one becomes identified in the ecstatic union. A man therefore can act on demons and control spirits by theurgic rites. Julian, that ardent Neo-Platonician, was surrounded by diviners, hierophants, and aruspices.[20]

In the Tao-te-king (---- 50, 55, 56, etc.) it is said that he who knows the Tao need not fear the bite of serpents nor the jaws of wild beasts, nor the claws of birds of prey. He is inaccessible to good and to evil. He need fear neither rhinoceros nor tiger. In battle he needs neither cuira.s.s nor sword. The tiger cannot tear him, the soldier cannot wound him. He is invulnerable and safe from death.[21]

If Neo-Platonism had not had for its antagonist the vital force of Christianity, it might have established itself as a permanent form of religion in the Roman Empire, as Tao-ism has in China. I have tried to show how the later form of this Chinese system has come naturally from its principles, and how a philosophy of the absolute may have degenerated into a system of necromancy.

-- 6. Religious Character of the "Kings."

We have seen that, in the philosophy of the Confucians, the ultimate principle is not necessarily identical with a living, intelligent, and personal G.o.d. Nor did Confucius, when he speaks of Teen, or Heaven, express any faith in such a being. He neither a.s.serted nor denied a Supreme G.o.d. His wors.h.i.+p and prayer did not necessarily imply such a faith. It was the prayer of reverence addressed to some sacred, mysterious, unknown power, above and behind all visible things. What that power was, he, with his supreme candor, did not venture to intimate. But in the She-King a personal G.o.d is addressed. The oldest books recognize a Divine person. They teach that there is one Supreme Being, who is omnipresent, who sees all things, and has an intelligence which nothing can escape,--that he wishes men to live together in peace and brotherhood.

He commands not only right actions, but pure desires and thoughts, that we should watch all our behavior, and maintain a grave and majestic demeanor, "which is like a palace in which virtue resides"; but especially that we should guard the tongue. "For a blemish may be taken out of a diamond by carefully polis.h.i.+ng it; but, if your words have the least blemish, there is no way to efface that." "Humility is the solid foundation of all the virtues." "To acknowledge one's incapacity is the way to be soon prepared to teach others; for from the moment that a man is no longer full of himself, nor puffed up with empty pride, whatever good he learns in the morning he practices before night." "Heaven penetrates to the bottom of our hearts, like light into a dark chamber. We must conform ourselves to it, till we are like two instruments of music tamed to the same pitch. We must join ourselves with it, like two tablets which appear but one. We must receive its gifts the very moment its hand is open to bestow. Our irregular pa.s.sions shut up the door of our souls against G.o.d."

Such are the teachings of these Kings, which are unquestionably among the oldest existing productions of the human mind. In the days of Confucius they seem to have been nearly forgotten, and their precepts wholly neglected. Confucius revised them, added his own explanations and comments, and, as one of the last acts of his life, called his disciples around him and made a solemn dedication of these books to Heaven. He erected an altar on which he placed them, adored G.o.d, and returned thanks upon his knees in a humble manner for having had life and health granted him to finish this undertaking.

-- 7. Confucius and Christianity. Character of the Chinese.

It were easy to find defects in the doctrine of Confucius. It has little to teach of G.o.d or immortality. But if the law of Moses, which taught nothing of a future life, was a preparation for Christianity; if, as the early Christian Fathers a.s.serted, Greek philosophy was also schoolmaster to bring men to Christ; who can doubt that the truth and purity in the teachings of Confucius were providentially intended to lead this great nation in the right direction? Confucius is a Star in the East, to lead his people to Christ. One of the most authentic of his sayings is this, that "in the West the true Saint must be looked for and found." He has a perception, such as truly great men have often had, of some one higher than himself, who was to come after him. We cannot doubt, therefore, that G.o.d, who forgets none of his children, has given this teacher to the swarming millions of China to lead them on till they are ready for a higher light. And certainly the temporal prosperity and external virtues of this nation, and their long-continued stability amid the universal changes of the world, are owing in no small decree to the lessons of reverence for the past, of respect for knowledge, of peace and order, and especially of filial piety, which he inculcated. In their case, if in no other, has been fulfilled the promise of the divine commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee."

In comparing the system of Confucius with Christianity, it appears at once that Christianity differs from this system, as from most others, in its greater completeness. Jesus says to the Chinese philosopher, as he said to the Jewish law, "I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil." He fulfils the Confucian reverence for the past by adding hope for the future; he fulfils its stability by progress, its faith in man with faith in G.o.d, its interest in this world with the expectation of another, its sense of time with that of eternity. Confucius aims at peace, order, outward prosperity, virtue, and good morals. All this belongs also to Christianity, but Christianity adds a moral enthusiasm, a faith in the spiritual world, a hope of immortal life, a sense of the Fatherly presence of G.o.d. So that here, as before, we find that Christianity does not exclude other religions, but includes them, and is distinguished by being deeper, higher, broader, and more far-reaching than they.

A people with such inst.i.tutions and such a social life as we have described cannot be despised, and to call them uncivilized is as absurd in us as it is in them to call Europeans barbarians. They are a good, intelligent, and happy people. Lieutenant Forbes, who spent five years in China,--from 1842 to 1847,--says: "I found myself in the midst of as amiable, kind, and hospitable a population as any on the face of the earth, as far ahead of us in some things as behind us in others." As to the charge of dishonesty brought against them by those who judge the whole nation by the degraded population of the suburbs of Canton, Forbes says, "My own property suffered more in landing in England and pa.s.sing the British frontier than in my whole sojourn in China."

"There is no nation," says the Jesuit Du Halde, "more laborious and temperate than this. They are inured to hards.h.i.+ps from their infancy, which greatly contributes to preserve the innocence of their manners....

They are of a mild, tractable, and humane disposition." He thinks them exceedingly modest, and regards the love of gain as their chief vice.

"Interest," says he, "is the spring of all their actions; for, when the least profit offers, they despise all difficulties and undertake the most painful journeys to procure it" This may be true; but if a Chinese traveller in America should give the same account of us, would it not be quite as true? One of the latest writers--the author of "The Middle Kingdom"--accuses the Chinese of gross sensuality, mendacity, and dishonesty. No doubt these are besetting sins with them, as with all nations who are educated under a system which makes submission to authority the chief virtue. But then this writer lived only at Canton and Macao, and saw personally only the refuse of the people. He admits that "they have attained, by the observance of peace and good order, to a high security of life and property; that the various cla.s.ses are linked together in a remarkably h.o.m.ogeneous manner by the diffusion of education; and that property and industry receive their just reward of food, raiment, and shelter." He also reminds us that the religion of China differs from all Pagan religions in this, that it encourages neither cruelty nor sensuality. No human victims have ever been offered on its altars, and those licentious rites which have appeared in so many religions have never disgraced its pure wors.h.i.+p.

The Chinese citizen enjoys a degree of order, peace, and comfort unknown elsewhere in Asia. "He can hold and sell landed property with a facility, certainty, and security which is absolute perfection compared with the nature of English dealings of the same kind."[22] He can traverse the country for two thousand miles unquestioned by any official. He can follow what occupation he pleases. He can quit his country and re-enter it without a pa.s.sport. The law of primogeniture does not exist. The emperor appoints his heir, but a younger son quite as often as an elder one. The principle that no man is ent.i.tled by birth to rule over them is better known to the three hundred and sixty millions of China than to the twenty-seven millions of Great Britain that they have a right to a trial by their peers.[23] The principle of Chinese government is to persuade rather than to compel, to use moral means rather than physical. This rests on the fundamental belief in human goodness. For, as Mr. Meadows justly observes: "The theory that man's nature is radically vicious is the true psychical basis of despotic or physical-force government; while the theory that man's nature is radically good is the basis of free or moral-force government." The Chinese government endeavors to be paternal. It has refused to lay a tax on opium, because that would countenance the sale of it, though it might derive a large income from such a tax. The sacred literature of the Chinese is perfectly free from everything impure or offensive. There is not a line but might be read aloud in any family circle in England. All immoral ceremonies in idol wors.h.i.+p are forbidden.

M. Hue says that the birth of a daughter is counted a disaster in China; but well-informed travellers tell us that fathers go about with little daughters on their arms, as proud and pleased as a European father could be. Slavery and concubinage exist in China, and the husband has absolute power over his wife, even of life and death. These customs tend to demoralize the Chinese, and are a source of great evil. Woman is the slave of man. The exception to this is in the case of a mother. She is absolute in her household, and mothers, in China, command universal reverence. If an officer asks leave of absence to visit his mother it must be granted him. A mother may order an official to take her son to prison, and she must be obeyed. As a wife without children woman is a slave, but as a mother with grownup sons she is a monarch.

-- 8. The Tae-ping Insurrection.

Two extraordinary events have occurred in our day in China, the results of which may be of the utmost importance to the nation and to mankind. The one is the Tae-ping insurrection, the other the diplomatic mission of Mr.

Burlingame to the Western world. Whatever may be the immediate issue of the great insurrection of our day against the Tartar dynasty, it will remain a phenomenon of the utmost significance. There is no doubt, notwithstanding the general opinion to the contrary, that it has been a religious movement, proceeding from a single mind deeply moved by the reading of the Bible. The hostility of the Chinese to the present Mantchoo Tartar monarchs no doubt aided it; but there has been in it an element of power from the beginning, derived, like that of the Puritans, from its religious enthusiasm. Its leader, the Heavenly Prince, Hung-sew-tseuen, son of a poor peasant living thirty miles northeast of Canton, received a tract, containing extracts from the Chinese Bible of Dr. Morison, from a Chinese tract distributor in the streets of Canton. This was in 1833, when he was about twenty years of age. He took the book home, looked over it carelessly, and threw it aside. Disappointed of his degree at two compet.i.tive examinations, he fell sick, and saw a vision of an old man, saying: "I am the Creator of all things. Go and do my work." After this vision six years pa.s.sed by, when the English war broke out, and the English fleet took the Chinese forts in the river of Canton. Such a great national calamity indicated, according to Chinese ideas, something rotten in the government; and such success on the part of the English showed that, in some way, they were fulfilling the will of Heaven. This led Hung-sew-tseuen to peruse again his Christian books; and alone, with no guide, he became a sincere believer in Christ, after a fas.h.i.+on of his own.

G.o.d was the Creator of all things, and the Supreme Father. Jesus was the Elder Brother and heavenly Teacher of mankind. Idolatry was to be overthrown, virtue to be practised. Hung-sew-tseuen believed that the Bible confirmed his former visions. He accepted his mission and began to make converts All his converts renounced idolatry, and gave up the wors.h.i.+p of Confucius. They travelled to and fro teaching, and formed a society of "G.o.d-wors.h.i.+ppers." The first convert, Fung-yun-san, became its most ardent missionary and its disinterested preacher. Hung-sew-tseuen returned home, went to Canton, and there met Mr. Roberts, an American missionary, who was induced by false charges to refuse him Christian baptism. But he, without being offended with Mr. Roberts, went home and taught his converts how to baptize themselves. The society of "G.o.d-wors.h.i.+ppers" increased in number.

Some of them were arrested for destroying idols, and among them Fung-yun-san, who, however, on his way to prison, converted the policemen by his side. These new converts set him at liberty and went away with him as his disciples. Various striking phenomena occurred in this society. Men fell into a state of ecstasy and delivered exhortations. Sick persons were cured by the power of prayer. The teachings of these ecstatics were tested by Scripture; if found to agree therewith, they were accepted; if not, rejected.

It was in October, 1850, that this religious movement a.s.sumed a political form. A large body of persons, in a state of chronic rebellion against the Chinese authorities, had fled into the district, and joined the "G.o.d-wors.h.i.+ppers." Pursued by the imperial soldiers, they were protected against them. Hence war began. The leaders of the religious movement found themselves compelled to choose between submission and resistance. They resisted, and the great insurrection began. But in China an insurrection against the dynasty is in the natural order of things. Indeed, it may be said to be a part of the const.i.tution. By the Sacred Books, taught in all the schools and made a part of the examination papers, it is the duty of the people to overthrow any bad government. The Chinese have no power to legislate, do not tax themselves, and the government is a pure autocracy.

But it is not a despotism; for old usages make a const.i.tution, which the government must respect or be overthrown. "The right to rebel," says Mr.

Meadows, "is in China a chief element of national stability." The Tae-ping (or Universal-Peace) Insurrection has shown its religious character throughout. It has not been cruel, except in retaliation. At the taking of Nan-king orders were given to put all the women together and protect them, and any one doing them an injury was punished with death.

Before the attack on Nan-king a large body of the insurgents knelt down and prayed, and then rose and fought, like the soldiers of Cromwell. The aid of a large body of rebels was refused, because they did not renounce idolatry, and continued to allow the use of opium. Hymns of praise to the Heavenly Father and Elder Brother were chanted in the camp. And the head of the insurrection distinctly announced that, in case it succeeded, the Bible would be subst.i.tuted in all public examinations for office in the place of Confucius. This would cause the Bible to be at once studied by all candidates for office among three hundred and sixty millions of people. It would const.i.tute the greatest event in the history of Christianity since the days of Constantino, or at least since the conversion of the Teutonic races. The rebellion has probably failed; but great results must follow this immense interest in Christianity in the heart of China,--an interest awakened by no Christian mission, whether Catholic or Protestant, but coming down into this great nation like the rain from heaven.

In the "History of the Ti-Ping Revolution" (published in London in 1866), written by an Englishman who held a command among the Ti-Piugs, there is given a full, interesting, and apparently candid account of the religious and moral character of this great movement, from which I take the following particulars:--

"I have probably," says this writer,[24] "had a much greater experience of the Ti-Ping religious practices than any other European, and as a Protestant Christian I have never yet found occasion to condemn their form of wors.h.i.+p. The most important part of their faith is the Holy Bible,--Old and New Testaments, entire. These have been printed and circulated gratuitously by the government through the whole population of the Ti-Ping jurisdiction." Abstracts of the Bible, put into verse, were circulated and committed to memory. Their form of wors.h.i.+p was a.s.similated to Protestantism. The Sabbath was kept religiously on the seventh day. Three cups of tea were put on the altar on that day as an offering to the Trinity. They celebrated the communion once a month by partaking of a cup of grape wine. Every one admitted to their fellows.h.i.+p was baptized, after an examination and confession of sins. The following was the form prescribed in the "Book of Religious Precepts of the Ti-Ping Dynasty":--[25]

_Forms to be observed when Men wish to forsake their Sins_--"They must kneel down in G.o.d's presence, and ask him to forgive their sins. They may then take either a basin of water and wash themselves, or go to the river and bathe themselves; after which they must continue daily to supplicate Divine favor, and the Holy Spirit's a.s.sistance to renew their hearts, saying grace at every meal, keeping holy the Sabbath day, and obeying all G.o.d's commandments, especially avoiding idolatry. They may then be accounted the children of G.o.d, and their souls will go to Heaven when they die."

The prayer offered by the recipient of Baptism was as follows:--

"I (A. B.), kneeling down with a true heart, repent of my sins, and pray the Heavenly Father, the great G.o.d, of his abundant mercy, to forgive my former sins of ignorance in repeatedly breaking the Divine commands, earnestly beseeching him also to grant me repentance and newness of life, that my soul may go to Heaven, while I henceforth truly forsake my former ways, abandoning idolatry and all corrupt practices, in obedience to G.o.d's commands. I also pray that G.o.d would give me his Holy Spirit to change my wicked heart, deliver me from all temptation, and grant me his favor and protection, bestowing on me food and raiment, and exemption from calamity, peace in this world and glory in the next, through the mercies of our Saviour and Elder Brother, Jesus, who redeemed us from sin."

In every household throughout the Ti-Ping territory the following translation of the Lord's Prayer was hung up for the use of the children, printed in large black characters on a white board:--

"Supreme Lord, our Heavenly Father, forgive all our sins that we have committed in ignorance, rebelling against thee. Bless us, brethren and sisters, thy little children. Give us our daily food and raiment; keep from us all calamities and afflictions; that in this world we may have peace and finally ascend to heaven to enjoy everlasting happiness. We pray thee to bless our brethren and sisters of all nations. We ask these things for the redeeming merits of our Lord and Saviour, our heavenly brother, Jesus. We also pray, Heavenly Father, that thy will may be done on earth as in heaven: for thine are all the kingdoms, glory, and power. Amen."

The writer says he has frequently watched the Ti-Ping women teaching the children this prayer; "and often, on entering a house, the children ran up to me, and pulling me toward the board, began to read the prayer."

The seventh day was kept very strictly. As soon as midnight sounded on Friday, all the people throughout; Ti-Pingdom were summoned to wors.h.i.+p.

Two other services were held during the day. Each opened with a doxology to G.o.d, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Then was sung this hymn:--

"The true doctrine is different from the doctrine of this world; It saves men's souls and gives eternal bliss.

The wise receive it instantly with joy; The foolish, wakened by it, find the way to Heaven.

Our Heavenly Father, of his great mercy, Did not spare his own Son, but sent him down To give his life to redeem sinners.