Beings, the prayers to them show that the worship of them is still a service of God. In a prayer, for instance, to the Cloud-master, the Rain-master, the Lord of the Winds, and the Thunder-master, it is said, "It is yours, O Spirits, to superintend the clouds and the rain, and to raise and send abroad the winds, as ministers assisting the supreme God." To the spirits of all the hills and rivers under the sky, again, it is said, "It is yours, O Spirits, with your Heaven-conferred powers and nurturing influences, each to preside over one district, as ministers assisting the Great Worker and Transformer."

Thus then I may affirm that the religion of China was, and is, a monotheism, disfigured indeed by ignorance and superstition, but still a monotheism, based on the belief in one Supreme Being, of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things.

Very soon that religion became a State-worship, and in doing so it took a peculiar form. The only performer allowed in it is "the One man," the sovereign of the nation himself. Its celebration, moreover, is limited to a few occasions, the greatest being that at the winter solstice. Then the service is, or ought to be, an acknowledgment by the Emperor, for himself, his line, and the people, of their obligations to God. It is said of this ceremony, that it is "the utmost expression of reverence" and "the greatest act of thanksgiving." It may have degenerated into a mere formality, but there is the original idea underlying it. It grew probably from the earliest patriarchal worship, though there is no record of that in Chinese literature. The sovereign stands forth in it, both the father and priest of his people. I do not term him the high-priest, for there is no other priest in all the empire. No one is allowed in the same direct manner to sacrifice to God. There never has been in China a priestly class or caste.

Only on one other point in this connection will I touch: the relation between men and God as their Governor and the connection between the religion and morality. King Thang, the founder of the Shang Dynasty in 1766 B.C., thus spoke:

"The great God has conferred even on the inferior people a moral sense, compliance with which would show their nature invariably right. To make them tranquilly pursue the course which it would indicate is the work of the sovereign." Much to the same effect spoke Wu, the first king of the Chau Dynasty, in 1122 B.C.: "He even, to help the inferior people, made for them rulers, and made for them instructors, who should be assisting to God, so as to secure tranquillity throughout the nation." Thus government is from God and teaching is from God. They are both divine ordinances. The king and the sage are equally God's ministers, having their respective functions; and they have no other divine right to their positions but that which arises from the fulfilment of their duties. The dynasty that does not rule so as to secure the well-being of the people has forfeited its right to the throne. An old poet, celebrating the rise of the dynasty of which he was a scion, thus sang:

"Oh! great is God; his glance on earth he bent,
Scanning our regions with severe intent

For one whose rule the people should content.

"The earlier lines of kings had practised ill,

And ruling, ruled not after God's just will;

He therefore 'mong the States was searching still."

So it was with the sovereign; and as for the teacher, if he did not set forth aright the will of God, he had no function at all.

See the application of all this to the case of Confucius and the religious character which it imparts to his moral teachings. The treatise of his grandson, to which I have already alluded, commences with this sentence:

"What Heaven has conferred" (on man) "is called his nature; an accordance with this nature is called the path (of duty); "the regulation of this path is called the system of instruction." Now who ever sought to regulate the path of duty by his instructions as our sage did? In doing so, he taught man indeed to act in accordance with his nature; but in accordance with that nature was the fulfilment of the

will of Heaven. The idea of Heaven or God as man's Maker and Governor was fundamental to the teachings of Confucius; and on this account I contend that those who see in him only a moral teacher do not understand him. What he said was with a divine sanction; and they who neglected and disobeyed his lessons were, as he said, "offending against Heaven, and had none to whom they could pray."

And further, the account which I have given of the State religion supplies probably the true reason why Confucius generally spoke of Heaven, and seldom used the personal name "God." We ought to find the expressions of a devout reverence and submission in such utterances as the following: 66 Alas! there is no one that knows me. But I do not murmur against Heaven, nor grumble against men. There is Heaven! That knows me."

But I hasten on to speak, next and finally, of that other worship if we should call it so the sacrifices to ancestors and to others not of the same line as their worshipers.

How this worship took its rise, I am unable to say. Herbert Spencer holds that "the rudimentary form of all religion is the propitiation of dead ancestors who are supposed to be still existing, and to be capable of working good or evil to their descendants." This view is open to the criticism which I made on the Confucian sacrifices generally — that our idea of propitiation is not in them. It is not found either in those to the supreme Being or in those to the dead.

Of course sacrificing to the dead involves a belief in the continued existence of the souls or spirits of men after their life on earth has come to a close, and also that they continue in the possession of their higher faculties, so as to be conscious of the services rendered to them, and to be able to exercise an influence on the condition of their descendants and others in the world.

Sacrificing to the departed great, who were not of the same line as their worshipers, admits of an easy explanation. It is a grateful recognition of the services which they rendered to their own times and for all time. In the "Record of Ritual Usages" we read, "According to the Institutes of the

Sage Kings, sacrifices should be offered to him who had given laws to the people, to him who had persevered to the death in the discharge of his duties, to him who had strengthened the State by his laborious toil, to him who had boldly and successfully met great calamities, and to him who had warded off great evils. Only men of this character were admitted to the sacrificial canon."

Confucius has a distinguished place in this sacrificial service. Twice a year, on a certain day in the middle months of spring and autumn, the reigning emperor should go in state to the Imperial College in Peking, and present the appointed offerings before the spirit tablets of Confucius, and of the worthies who have been associated with him in his temples. The first prayer on the occasion in the canon of 1826, greeting the approach of the spirit of the sage, is to the following effect: "This year, in this month, on this day, I, the Emperor, offer sacrifice to the philosopher K'ung, the ancient teacher, the perfect sage, and say, O teacher, in virtue equal to Heaven and Earth, whose doctrines embrace the time past and present, thou didst digest and transmit the six Classics, and didst hand down thy lessons for all generations! Now in this second month of spring (or autumn), in reverent observance of the old statutes, with victims, silks, spirits and fruits, I offer sacrifice to thee. With thee are associated the philosopher Yen, continuator of thee, the philosopher Tsang, exhibitor of thy fundamental principles; the philosopher Tsze-sze, transmitter of thee, and the philosopher Mang, the second to thee, may'st thou enjoy the offerings!"

I used to think that Confucius in this service received religious worship, and denounced it. But I was wrong. What he received was the homage of gratitude, and not the worship of adoration. There is a danger of such homage being productive of evil, and leading to superstition and idolatry; but it will not be easily eradicated from the customs of China. We have a remarkable instance of the bad consequences springing from it in the exaltation for the last three

centuries of Kwan Yu, an upright, likable warrior of our third century, to be really, so far as the title is concerned, "the god Kwan"- the god of war.

That is insisted

But I return to the worship of ancestors. on in the Confucian teaching as the consummating tribute of filial piety, the virtue which in China occupies the first place in the scale of human excellences. A great virtue it is undoubtedly, but it is exaggerated by the Chinese; and the exaggeration has been on the whole perhaps injurious to the prosperity and progress of the nation.

Certain sayings of Confucius have often been pointed out as showing that he was not satisfied in his own mind as to the continued existence of the dead, or that their spirits really had knowledge of the sacrificial services rendered to them; but I will not enter now on a discussion of them. We are not certain how we should understand them, and he was himself strict in the performance of the services. "He sacrificed to the dead," we are told, "as if they were present, and to the spirits as if they were there." If he were prevented from being present at such a service, and had to employ another to take his place, he considered his absence to be equivalent to his not sacrificing.

At the sacrifice small tablets of wood with the names of the deceased to whom they were dedicated written on them were set up, and called the spirit-tablets, which the spirits were supposed to take possession of for the time. They were ordinarily in an apartment behind the sacrificial hall, and brought out for the occasion. They were returned to their place when the service was over, and the spirits were supposed to have left the temple for their place. But where was their place? Where and in what condition do the spirits of the departed exist?

For one thing, they are believed to be in heaven, and in the presence of God. A very famous name in China was that of King Wan, whose career led to his son's becoming the first sovereign of the Chau Dynasty; and of him after his death it was sung: