Year: 1867

Confucius


An important place must be granted tc
Confucius in any list of the illustrious law
givers and exemplars of mankind. lie also
deserves mention among the great lonely
men in the history of the world. AT the age
of three years he was deprived of his father,
received public Office at twenty, began his
course as a teacher and reformer at twenty
two, and lost his mother at twenty four
He is represented as weeping bitterly for
his mother, and paying her every possible
tribute. He was grieved by the cruelty and
injustice of the rulers, and by the irreyerence
and vieiousness of the people, and labored
hard to teach both classes their duties, as
well by example as by precept- His moral
purity, his learning and vlgor, while draw
ing attention and disciples to him, also pro-
voked the envy of rival teachers, and the
dstrust of the officials over him. He was
dismissed from Office and, in disfavor, in
private life continued his studies and labors
for fifteen years-from his thirty fifth to his
fftieth year. Then for five years he was
restored to the confidence of his sovereign.
He at length lost his post as Minister of
the Court in Loo, through the influence of
some wantons who induced the ruler to yio
late and resent the austere precepts of the
sage, and abase him from his honors


We catch impressive glimpses of his char
acter in the sayings he has left. The Mas
ter said - The superior man has dignifed
ease without PRIDE the mean man has pride
without digniied ease." The Master said
Some men of worth retire from the world
because of disrespect and contradiction. y
In his fifty sixth year the injured Confucius
turned from the seat of his fond hopes and
started upon his exile. As he went along
he looked back on Loo with melancholy
heart, and gave vent to his feelings in these
lines:


0, how is it, azure Heaven,


From my home thus driven,


Through the land my way to trace,


With no~certain dwelling place?


Dark all dark, the minds of men


Worth comes vainly to their ken


Hastens on my term of years


Desolate, old age appears.


For thirteen weary years he wandered
from Province to Province, using his facul-
ties and his renown to the utmost but la
menting the want of Court position and
patronage to give his teachings more effect
Once he said =" If any of the Princess would
employ me, in the course of twelve months
| should have done something considerable"
At another time he said Am l a bitter
gourd? Am l to be hung up out of the
way of being eaten?" The world did not
deal kindly with him, for in every province
which he visited he met disappointment,
now suffering from poverty, now from de-
sertedness, now from persecution. Once he
pined so sorely for home and friends that he
cried aloud: ' Let me return; let me re-
turn" Again he is said to have been sew
eral days without anything to eat While
tarrying in Wei he was so annoyed by ap
plcations to solve petty questions and settle
disputes that he exclaimed The bird
chooses its tree the tree does not choose the
bird, and prepared to depart.


Just then came his recall to Loo He
was sixty nine years old. The remaining
five years of his life he spent in peace but
not as he would have preferred. Denied any
place of rank and authority, his counsels
set at naught. he reluctantly turned away
from his plan of tranquilizing and perfect
ing the State through the Sovereign and the
law, and devoted himself to the slower moral
accomplishments of the same end by com
pletng and transmitting his literary works.
Perhaps one may understand something of
his disappointment in being obliged to aban-
don legislative and executive mission for
purely didactic and moral one, from the
following tribute paid to him during his life
by Tsze-kung, one of his disciples. Tsze-
kung said . Were our master in the posi-
ton of the Prince of State, he would plant
the people, and forthwith they would be es-
tablished; he would lead them on, and
forthwith they would follow him he would
stipulate them, and forthwith they would be
harmonious he would make them happy,
and forthwith multitudes would resort to his
dominions; while he lived, he would be
Il lo 1iojh ho would Io l.
lamented."


Early one morning. it is said, he rose,
and with his hands behind his back dragging
his staff, moved about by his door, grooming
. The great mountain must crumble the
strong beam must break, and the wise man
wither away like plant. In all the Prov
inees of the Empire there arises not one in
telligent Monarch who will make me his
Master. My time has come to die" He
went to his couch and never left it again.
lie expired on the eleventh day of March,
four hundred and seventy eight years before
the birth of Jesus. Legge, the best of his
English biographers from whose great work
on the Chinese classics the chief data for
this sketch have been drawn-has painted
the whole closing scene well, and moralized
on it not unkindly, though, possibly in
tone a little too professional and conyen.
tional


If the end of the great sage of China, as
he sank behind the cloud, was melancholy,
it was not unimpressive. He had drank the
bitterness of disappointed hopes; the great
ones of the Empire had failed to accept his
instructions. But his mind was magnani-
nous and his heart was serene. He was
lonely old man-parents, wife, child, friends,
all gone-but this made the fatal message
SO much the more welcome. Without any
expectation of future life, uttering no
prayer, betraying no fear, he approached the
dark valley with the strength and peace of
well-ordered will wisely resigned to Heaven,
beyond doubt treasuring in his heart the
assurance oc having served his fellow men in
the highest spirit he knew and with the purest
light he had.


For twenty-five centuries he has been as
unreasonably venerated as he was unjustly
neglected in his life. His name is on every
lip throughout China, his person in every
imagination The thousands of his descend
ants are titled and privileged class by
themselves. The diffusion and intensity of