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Sketch of the Life of Confucius

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throw off. It cannot be doubted that there have been many intellects of commanding power among the Chinese, but ignorance of the lite- rature and condition of other nations has led them to infer there was nothing worthy of notice out of their own borders, and to rest contented with explaining and inforcing the maxims of their sage.

Confucius must we think, be regarded, as a great man, if superi- ority to the people and times in which one lives, is a criterion of greatness. The immense influence he has exercised over the minds of his countrymen, we are conscious, cannot be regarded as complete evidence of his superiority, but no mind of weak or ordinary powers could have stamped its own impress upon other minds as he has. He never rose to those sublime heights of contemplation which Plato ascended, nor does his mind seem to have been of a very discursive nature. He was content with telling his disciples how to act, and en- couraging them to make themselves and others better by following the rules he gave them; not leading them into those endless disquisitions and speculations upon which the Greek moralists so acutely reason- ed, but which exercised no power over the conscience and life. The leading features of his doctrines have been acknowledged by man- kind the world over, and are embodied in their most common rules of life. "Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God," is a direction of inspired Writ, and so far as he knew them, their incul- cation was also the amount of the teachings of Confucius. He said little or nothing about spirits or gods, nor did he give any directions about worshiping them; but the veneration for parents which he in- culcated was in fact idolatrous, and has since degenerated into the grossest idolatry.

Political morality was a subject which engrossed much of his at- tention, and he was in his lifetime much mixed up with the petty disputes between the feudal states of that day. He seems to have had a high opinion of the native goodness of the human heart, when uninfluenced by evil example or temptations, and endeavored to bring mankind back to this simplicity. And knowing as we do, much better than he did, how hopeless was the effort, we are more surprised that his endeavors have had so much success than that they have had so little. In estimating his rank of greatness, and also, we might add, the rank which the Chinese hold among the nations of the earth, we must remember the position in which we stand, and try to realize how elevated it is compared with theirs. The merest school-boy now would be ashamed not to know a hundred things which Newton never dreamed of and so it is when we attempt to judge of the

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