He

teresting by a record of his military prowess, nor a man of science, who enlarged the boundaries of knowledge and opened the way to new triumphs of man over nature. was the sage, the man of calm and practical wisdom, inspired by the love of mankind, and inculcating the lessons of human duty.

His surname, as I have just intimated, was K'ung; and his birth took place in the year 551 B.C., in what was then the feudal State of Lu, a portion of what is now the province of Shan-tung, on the eastern seaboard of China. But though he was born in Lu, his family had migrated thither from the duchy of Sung, in the present province of Ho-nan. The K'ung clan was a branch of the ducal House of Sung, which itself was descended from the kings of the dynasty of Shang, who had ruled from 1766 to 1123 B.C., and who traced their lineage back to Hwang Ti, the first year of whose reign is said to have been in 2697 B.C. There are tens of thousands of K'ungs now living, who boast of being descended from Confucius, and who have thus an ancestry going back into the mists of antiquity more than four thousand five hundred years ago. Between the K'ungs and another more powerful clan of Sung there was an hereditary enmity; and the greatgrandfather of our subject fled in consequence to the marquisate of Lu, and settled there. Confucius's father, called Shuliang Hih, is known to us as sustaining an honorable position, and an officer of extraordinary strength and bravery. We are told that, in the year 562 B.C., when serving at the siege of a place called Pih-yang, a party of the assailants made their way in at a gate which had purposely been left open, and that no sooner were they inside than the portcullis was dropped. Hih was entering with the others; but, catching the massive structure with both his hands he gradually by his great strength raised it, and held it up till all his friends had turned and made their escape out. In his old age, for reasons into a detail of which I need not go, he divorced his wife, and contracted a second marriage with a young lady of the family of Yen, of whom Confucius was born in 551 B.C., as I have said.

The old father died soon afterward, when the boy was in his third year; and his mother and he were left in straitened circumstances. The lad developed early the tendencies of his character. He has left us a very brief account of his mental growth, saying that at fifteen his mind was set on learning, and that at seventy he could do whatever his heart prompted, confident that it was right. When his mother died, in his twenty-third or twenty-fourth year, he raised the coffin in which, probably on account of her poverty, she had buried her husband near the place where they lived, and took it and her coffin to the place in which the K'ungs had first found refuge in Lu, and laid them there in the same grave. Before his mother's death he had married himself; and he appears to have lived with his wife happily enough for about fifty years. There is no sufficient evidence that he divorced her, as has been alleged, or ever introduced a concubine into his family. So far as his own practise is concerned, Confucius was a monogamist. His children were not many. He had one son, merely an ordinary, average man, but who left a son superior to himself, and to whom we are indebted for the most complete and philosophical account of his grandfather's teachings. Mention is made, in the Confucian Analects," Book V., of a daughter, whom he married to an officer that had been imprisoned under a false charge, but of whose worthiness Confucius was convinced; and in a smaller cemetery adjoining that where he, his son and grandson were buried, there is the grave of another daughter, who died when she was quite young. These appear to have been all his children. Probably in his twenty-second year Confucius commenced his labors as a teacher in his native village. But he was not what we call a schoolmaster, teaching boys the rudiments of education. His house was the resort of young and inquiring spirits, whose attention he directed to the ancient monuments of the nation's history and literature, unfolding to them at the same time the principles of human duty and of government. This was the work of his life, for he neither wrote nor instituted much himself. His first biographer, the historian Sze-ma Ch'ien, says that "he wrote

a Preface to the Book of History; carefully digested the Rites and Ceremonies determined by the wisdom of the ancient Sages and Kings; collected and arranged the ancient Poems; and undertook the reform of Music." But Confucius's labors on the ancient writings appear to have been slight, and there is no reliable ground for supposing that he either added to or took from the Books of History and Rites, which had come down to his time. The only work which he claimed as his own was the "Chronicle of the Spring and Autumn,” which can only be considered a meager compilation, and would have little interest but for the three Supplements to it by other hands which have also been preserved. Perhaps he made some alterations in the Book of Poetry, for he says himself, "I returned from Wei to Lu, and then the music was reformed; and the pieces in the Imperial Songs and Praise Songs found all their proper place."

His disciples, first and last, numbered, it is said, three thousand; and among them there were between seventy and eighty whom he highly valued, and praised as "scholars of extraordinary ability." From the time that he thus comes before us on the stage of public life, and especially during the long period of wandering among different States that subsequently befell him, he always appears attended by companies of his disciples. These must have supported him. In his earlier school he received all who came to him for instruction, and did not refuse the smallest fee; but he required from all an ardent desire for improvement and a good measure of capacity. It is difficult for us, however, to understand this feature of his course-how, while dependent on the sympathy and support of his followers, he yet maintained among them the most entire authority and independence. When Mencius, who is styled "the secondary Sage," came after him, about a century and a half later, and went about the country in the same way, enforcing the lessons of "the Master," he accepted the gifts of different princes to an extent that startled even his disciples. But Confucius never did so. He would not demean himself to receive help from a ruler whom he disapproved, and who would not carry out

his principles in the government of his people. Confucius must have been supported by the free-will contributions of his disciples. This point in the study of his course has often suggested to me the passage in the Gospel of Luke where it says (chapter viii. 1-3) that Jesus "went about through cities and villages, preaching the good tidings of the kingdom of God, and with him the twelve, and certain women that had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary Magdalene and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered to them of their substance."

A noble by descent, and soon widely known for his attainments, Confucius might have expected to be called to a position in the government of the States. But the time was one of great corruption and disorder. The general government of the kingdom was feeble, and every feudal State was torn by contentions between its ruler and the chiefs of the clans in it, as well as by collisions between those clans themselves. We find him, indeed, when he was about twenty, employed as keeper of the stores of grain, and in charge of some public fields and herds; but, according to Mencius, he undertook those humble offices because of his poverty, and contented himself with the simple discharge of their duties. Still his character and reputation were gradually making themselves felt through the State. He found means to visit the capital of the kingdom, and examine many of its most remarkable monuments; and there he met and also conversed with Laotsze, the prophet of Taoism. He was able also to take refuge for a time from the disorders of Lu in the neighboring State of Ch'i. At last, when he was over fifty, he was made governor of one of the towns of Lu. There his administration was so successful that he was soon raised to higher dignities, and at last became Minister of Crime for the whole State. "He strengthened," we are told, "the ruling house, and weakened the usurping chiefs. A transforming government went abroad. Dishonesty and dissoluteness were ashamed, and hid their heads. Loyalty and good faith became the characteristics of the men, and chastity and

docility those of the women. Confucius became the idol of the people, and flew in songs through their mouths. The people of other States flocked in crowds to Lu, to enjoy the blessing of its good order." But this sky of bright promise was soon overcast. The other States became jealous of the prosperity of Lu, and afraid of the influence of its Minister of Crime. The Marquis of Ch'i, the nearest of them, succeeded, by a most scandalous scheme, in alienating the mind of the ruler of Lu from his wise counselor. Confucius became convinced that it was unbecoming his character to continue longer in the State. Slowly and sorrowfully he left it, and in 496 B.C. went forth with a company of his disciples, to thirteen years of homeless wandering, trying to find a ruler who had ears to hear his instructions, and goodness and wisdom to follow them. The quest was in vain; but the record of his experiences during that long and painful time is full of interest.

More than once he and the faithful few who would not leave him were in danger of perishing from want, or at the hands of excited mobs. On one occasion, when they were surrounded by an infuriated multitude and the disciples were alarmed, he calmly said to them, "Heaven produced the virtue that is in me. What can these people do to me?" This was always the way in which Confucius spoke in his highest utterances about himself. He never claimed to be anything more than man; but he felt that he had a divine mission. He knew the Way -the way for the individual to perfect himself and the way for governors to rule so as to make their people happy and good. To teach this was his mission, and he would be faithful to it to the last. In the midst of his disciples, famishing and frightened, he was always calm, and cheered them, singing to his lute.

We can not doubt that he was well skilled in the music of his time and country, and found in it for himself and his followers a solace and source of strength; but it is important to keep in mind that he never claimed to possess any supernatural endowments. There are passages, indeed, in Sze-ma Ch'ien's Biography which ascribe to him a knowledge such