The unity of religions; a popular discussion of ancient and modern beliefs

Front matter

THE UNITY OF RELIGIONS

A THE

A Popular Discussion of Ancient and Modern Beliefs

Preface

The lectures contained in this volume were delivered on successive Sunday mornings, during the winter of 1909-10, before an adult class in Applied Christianityheld in connection with the Bible School of the Mount Morris Baptist Church, New York City. They were arranged by Dr. J. Gardner Smith, Superintendent of the School, and though the hour, 10 o'clock, seemed rather early for Sunday morning, the attendance reached as high as 430, and never fell below 200. That the success of the course was due to the personnel of the lecturers, as well as to the subject treated, is unquestionably true. Still, it has been clearly demonstrated that men and women, both inside and outside the church, are vitally interested in religion to-day despite all indications to the contrary, if it but be presented along broad and sympathetic lines.

While the subject of comparative religions is not new, still it was the unanimous feeling of all who were privileged to attend this course, that these lectures, coming from prominent scholars and leaders in this special field of study, were worthy a wider hearing and were far too valuable to remain in manuscript form. Accordingly they are given to the public in this volume, in the hope that they may not only bring, in popular form, a clearer conception of the great religions of the world, but also that they may make more real the truth of the words : " Religions are many, — Religion is one."

vii viii PREFACE

Especial thanks are due to Dr. Smith, who collaborated with me in arranging the course ; to each of the lecturers, who not only gave of his time and thought most cheerfully, but also has consented to the publication of his lecture ; and to all whose presence at the lectures when delivered furnished inspiration to the speakers.

J. Herman Randall.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Beginnings of Religion i

II. Confucius and the Chinese 13

II CONFUCIUS AND THE CHINESE By Friederich Hirth, Ph.D

Dean Lung Professor of Chinese, Columbia University

Confucius and the Chinese — the two names are inseparable. Neither of the two would be what it is without the other. For Confucius did not make the Chinese ; he was made by them. Nor would the Chinese be what they are without him.

The spirit of Confucianism may be felt in what little we know about the most ancient history of China. The sage himself formed his ideas by the study of old traditions. A good deal of what he taught his nation, both by the lessons given to his disciples and by the example set in his conduct, was derived from traditions, partly in the shape of old records, handed down through generations among the Chinese themselves. To this fact his great influence on the spiritual development of the Chinese is probably due to a large extent. In any other part of the world his name would perhaps be forgotten, while the sages of the west would have shared the same fate, had they preached their morals in China.

Confucius was a contemporary of the Pythagorean school, though Pythagoras himself is supposed to have died about twenty-five years before the Chinese sage. With all the fundamental differences in the systems taught, the two philosophies present certain similarities in their views, chief among which is the great importance they both attached to the observance of ceremonies in i 4 UNITY OF RELIGIONS

life and the purification of man's character. It looks as if certain ideas bringing about changes in social life and in the world of thought were hanging in the air. However widely different the philosophical systems presented to the people in the east and in the west may have been, there was a period before Pythagoras when Greek thinkers like Thales and Anaximander did their best to fathom the mysteries of nature. Similarly the appearance of Confucius was preceded by that of Lau-tz'i, the metaphysical philosopher. Confucius was as much in contrast with Lau-tzi* as Pythagoras was with his predecessors of the Ionian school. His school, though vigorously revived in the middle ages, may be said to have flourished from the master's own time down to Mencius, his last great interpreter during the Chou period, who died in B.C. 289, just about the time when the Pythagorean school had seen its last days.

The life of Confucius can be told but very briefly in the space at my disposal. He was born in 551 B.C., as the son of an old man of seventy, a former soldier of strong physique. His home was near the present city of K'ii-fou in the Shan-tung province. Here thousands of individuals bearing his family name K'ung, live in all possible stations of life, from their senior, the Duke of K'ung, down to those engaged in the lowest occupations such as wheelbarrow drivers, who all are able to trace their pedigree to the great sage — evidently the oldest acknowledged nobility of the world. The main feature of his later character showed itself in his early boyhood, when he was said to like nothing better than playing at the arrangement of sacrificial vessels and at postures of ceremony. He married early and was at first employed in clerical work, when, at the age of twenty, he began to teach what he had just studied, the traditions laid down in former generations. From these old traditions he formed both his views on the world and his own character. He sketched out in his mind the standard of man as he ought to be, the " Superior Man," or Kun-tz'i. This was not the autocratic superman of Nietzsche, the real enemy of all social order, but a well-behaved gentleman, who carefully avoids every outburst of genius, bowing at all times to the etiquette of good society. His ideas on what he considered the correct behavior in all situations of life were laid down partly in the conversations he held with his pupils and others, subsequently placed on record in works now forming part of the so-called Chinese classics, partly in the example of his own private life. In this respect his influence on Chinese social life has made itself felt ever since his time down, to the present day.

If the somewhat one-sided Confucianist accounts of the earliest development of Chinese social life, as represented in the classic called Chou-li and describing the rites of the Chou dynasty, can be trusted, the tendency to force all possible acts, acts of government as well as of private life, into rules and regulations had existed centuries before Confucius. The principle according to which man is to be bound down by etiquette in his doings was, therefore, not an innovation, but Confucius applied it to man as an individual in relation to himself and society. The success of his work as a teacher of his nation was, therefore, due not only to himself, but also to the fact that the Chinese world was much better prepared for his teachings than, for instance, the people of India or of Greece would have been at his time. There was, of course, no lack of men who would not fall in with his ideas; and these ideas probably did not conquer his contemporaries all at once, as they did gradually in the course of centuries.

As a young man Confucius is reported to have paid a visit to the old philosopher Lau-tzi, who was living in the emperor's capital as keeper of the State archives. If this report is nothing more than a legend, as some critics believe, the hidden meaning of it may be that Tauism as represented in the person of its supposed founder, Lau-tzi, was known in China before Confucius, and that the adherents to the Tauist system did not approve of the Confucian ideas. But judging from the account of the anecdote, for which the historian Ssi-ma Ts'ler is responsible, Lau-tzi looked upon Confucius as an ambitious young man, who was on the wrong track altogether and he gave him a lesson amounting to a rebufT. The "superior man " of Confucius was full of his dignity, with all his ceremonial; Lau-tzi' has an entirely different idea on the subject, and the reply he is supposed to have given Confucius reveals a peculiarity of character which I have noticed frequently in China with men of merit in high positions, that modesty we find only with really superior men who need not trouble their heads about the recognition of the world. Lau-tzi in that interview appears as the wiser man. Among other remarks he is made to say : " I have heard that a prudent merchant will keep his valuables concealed in the depth of his storehouses as though he had none to show; similarly the superior man may be full of merit and yet his appearance may be plain and simple. Discard withal haughtiness and these many desires, with outward appearances and licentious schemes. These are all of no advantage to you."

The warning, if it was ever given, had no effect on Confucius, although it hit the nail on the head in revealing the really weak point in Confucius* philosophy of life. There was, and there is even at the present day, a great deal too much of those outward appearances in the private life of the Chinese. Lau-tzi', after a life spent in deep thought, had become indifferent to the formalities of his surroundings. Confucius was the very reverse. He took the greatest interest in the life of his fellow-creatures. To reform social life in China was the main ambition of his work and to his influence must be ascribed a great deal of what is characteristic in the social habits of his people. In this respect Confucius probably has no equal in history, unless it be Christ.

After his visit to Lau-tz'i, Confucius returned to his native state in the present Shan-tung. Political troubles then caused his Duke in 517 B.C. to leave the country and live in the flourishing state of Ts'i in North Shan-tung, and Confucius followed him there. His ambition was to become chief adviser to the duke of that country, but although he was held in the highest esteem by the ruler, the officials of the country managed to prevent his taking any active part in the government. The sage, therefore, returned to Lu, his native state, where he kept aloof from all politics. After fifteen years spent in literary work, he was appointed magistrate in Chung-tu, one of the districts in his country. Here he had at last the much coveted opportunity to put his social theories to a practical test. He now tried by all means to make the people under his jurisdiction good and virtuous. All the pedantry which, even to this day, governs the life of educated Chinese was now tried by way of experiment on the people of Chung-tu. Confucius' government became one of interference with all individual liberty. Every act of life had its prescribed ceremonial, even the food which the different classes of people were allowed to eat was regulated ; males and females were kept apart from each other in the streets. Such a system enforced by the mayor of New York would be sure to result in revolution; but the Confucian chroniclers maintain that the good behavior of the people of Chung-tu soon became notorious all over China and that the princes of neighboring states were anxious to imitate the magistrate's style of administration.

His own prince rewarded him by his promotion to the post of Minister of Justice. In this position he gave further evidence of his administrative talent. If all these accounts are not pure inventions manufactured by his admirers, Confucius must have had something in his character which made the people pliable in his hands. If they did not revolt, this may be due to the high estimation in which he was held on account of his absolute honesty and purity of life. His moral code was of the highest standard, and while exacting some approach to that standard from others, he did not shrink from cutting into his own flesh. This was the case when his duke was led by the intrigues of a neighboring court to accept the gift of a harem of eighty beauties and a hundred and twenty fine horses. Confucius was so disgusted by this, that he withdrew from the court into private life again. He now wandered about for fourteen years. His first exile led him to a state whose duke tried to attach him to his court on a handsome salary. The duke was not all that might be desired from a moral point of view, his consort being a woman of bad reputation, Confucius never liked to meet her, but had to submit to the court etiquette. When once the duke invited him for a drive through the streets, the duke with his paramour drove in front, followed by a carriage containing the sage. Seeing this, the crowd made fun of the cortege by coining the saying, " Lust in front and virtue behind." Confucius could not stand these associations and left the country, knocking in vain at the doors of powerful princes, none of whom seemed to be willing to give him the desired high position.

The personal favor of princes is of little use to him who is not able to meet the intrigues of their surroundings. This was the case when Confucius had almost pursuaded one of the most powerful kings of the Chinese Confederation to fall in with his reforms. The king's prime minister warned the king against the sage and his disciples as a set of men who might some day become a danger to the king's own government. All his attempts to gain the ear of those who might be instrumental in carrying out his educational plans had failed and where he was well received, his obstinacy in refusing every compromise with that vicious world which he could not change spoiled the best chances he might have had. At the age of sixtyeight he was recalled to his native state. There he lived another five years in retirement, when he died in 479 B.C., mourned by his disciples, who had been dearer to him than even his own family. The names of his disciples such as Tzi-lu, Tzi-kung and others are constantly mentioned in the classics known as the " Four Books," as those of his interlocutors to whom he explained his views. One of them, by name Tsong Ts'an, who outlived him many years, was the reputed author of the " Canon of Filial Piety," (Hiau-king.) He had become the prototype of millions of dutiful sons, for he himself was a model of good behavior in this respect. The idol he worshiped beyond anything was his mother. Once he refused to enter a village because its name, " Shong-mu," meaning, " better than a mother," displeased him, and he divorced his wife because she had served his mother an unsavory dish. Filial love has ever since been considered one of the very highest features in man's character. Confucius himself had been a model from his point of view in the affection shown in the mourning for his mother, whom he lost at the age of twenty-three. He is said to have been not half so much attached to his son or even his wife. Love, coupled with implicit obedience to one's parents has been with some noble-minded Chinese more than a mere virtue and is cherished almost with the ardor of a passion ; witness the celebrated example of the late Emperor Kwang-sii, who sacrificed the entire happiness of his life to what he considered his duty towards his parent, in this case his foster-mother, the empress dowager. Tsong Ts'an, to whom nothing in this world could be " better than a mother," would have said, " he is right." The respect shown by a grown up son to his aged mother has to make up for many humiliations woman has to suffer from Chinese social prejudices ; who as a daughter has to obey her parents, as a wife her husband and as a widow her son. Dutiful sons, of which kind there are many in China, know how to make this last one of the " Three Obediences " of woman pleasant.

The influence Confucius exercised on his nation may be considered from a threefold point of view. He was in the first instance connected with a number of those old works known as the " Five Canons," which he did not write, but recommended, collected and edited; then his views have been preserved in the shape of conversations with his disciples, forming the substance of the so-called " Four Books ;" and finally there is the tradition, perhaps not absolutely reliable, but characteristic of his reputed manner, the gossip which surrounds a great man and which has in reality little to do with the greatness of his mind.

The " Five Canons," and the " Four Books," now constitute the works called by the late Professor Legge, their translator and commentator, the Chinese classics. Among the Canons, the oldest is the " Canon of Changes," in Chinese, I-king. It represents a system of occultism based on the Chinese natural philosophy, according to which all things existing must be either male or female. Those two principles are said to have been symbolized by continuous and broken lines, the former representing the male, the latter the female principle. In its simplest combination three of these lines with the possible permutations yield eight diagrams, the so-called Pa-kua, the invention of which is ascribed to the fabulous emperor Fu-hi, whose lifetime the Chinese place in the twenty-ninth century B.C. Each of these diagrams has its distinct meaning. By doubling the three lines up to six, the number of diagrams becomes sixty-four, each of which again represents certain mystic associations based on the preponderance and relative positions of male or female lines contained in it. Under the supposed authorship of Won-wang, the father of the first emperor of the Chou dynasty, the explanation and commentary grew into a book known as the " Canon of Changes," representing a complicated system of geometric science, highly valued by the Chinese, because it was recommended by Confucius himself, but with very little attraction for European taste. The book is of importance on account of its high antiquity and the great influence it has at all times had on public and private life in China as an instrument of augury.

The second Canon is the Shu-king, often called the " Book of History." It contains accounts of some of the earliest, probably legendary emperors, " model emperors," as we may call them, because they have been at all times held up as the acme of perfection in good government. Such were the emperors Yau, Shun and Yu. On the other hand certain bad rulers are represented in grossly exaggerated colors, and the history of China is brought down to the early part of the Chou dynasty. Professor Grabe may be right in calling the Shu-king a " poetical production." Certainly it is the only account we possess of that early period.

In the " Canon of Odes," or Shi-king, we have one of the most important works of Chinese literature. It is a collection of folk-songs and ballads, edited by Confucius, which throws most valuable light on the cultured life of the Chinese in pre-Confucian times.

The " Canon of Rites," or Li-ki, is a collection of rules describing to the minutest detail, the ceremonial to be observed by a Chinese gentleman on all occasions of daily life.

The last canon is the so-called, " Spring and Autumn," in Chinese, Ch'un-ts'iu. It consists of the dry-as-dust annals of the State of Lu, of which Confucius was a native, and is supposed to have been compiled by the sage himself. To us it is not half as valuable as its commentary, the Tso-chuan, ascribed to one Tso-K'iu Ming, a copious extension of it; but it is one of the best historical accounts that could be found in any literature, covering the period 722 to 481 B.C.

These are the five works supposed to have been edited or written, by Confucius. The " Four Books " tell us much more about his own views. For, although not written by him, nor even by his immediate disciples, they contain, in the shape of accounts of conversations, the main substance of his teachings.

The most important of these is the work called Lunyii, i.e. " Conversations," or " Discourses," or as Legge translates it somewhat freely, " Confucian Analects." It is supposed to have been written down a long time after Confucius' death by the followers of his disciples. The keynote of these discourses is what may be called the Chinese national virtue, filial love. However, the term usually so translated covers rather more than we would place under the Mosaic command to honor father and mother. According to Confucius filial love is the basis of all that is good and proper in family life ; and brotherly submission, the respect due to the senior by the junior is closely connected with it. Starting from the family discipline, Confucius compares to it the discipline of the nation. For the nation is like a family, though on a larger scale. The filial love of the people is shown in the obedience to the people's parents, the ruler and his government. For filial love, according to the sage's own definition, shows itself in obedience. The obedience due to a father from his child is also due to the sovereign from his subjects. Man in his relation to the world is considered from five points of view: (1) sovereign considered from five points of view: (1) sovereign and subject; (2) father and son; (3) husband and wife; (4) elder and younger brother, and (5) friend and friend. In each of these relations man has his duties, the proper discharge of which by all will insure good government and general peace and happiness. Loyalty towards one's government, parent, husband or wife, brother and friend, determines the character of the Kun-tzi, the superior, or ideal man.

The second and third of the " Four Books " are shorter treatises, namely, " The Great Learning," or Ta-hio, based on knowledge as a means of reforming society, and " The Doctrine of the Mean," or Chung-yung, the golden mean which the superior man is advised to follow in all his doings. He ought to do the right thing for its own sake, whether the world regards him or not.

The last, and perhaps the most important of the " Four Books," is the work known as " Mencius." Mencius is the Latinized name of the Chinese Mong-tzi, i.e. " The Philosopher Mong," just as the Chinese K'ung fu-tzi, i. e., the " Philosopher Kung," has been changed into Confucius. The work called " Mencius " is similar in style to the Confucian Analects. It also consists of conversations, in which Mencius is the chief interlocutor. Mencius flourished nearly two hundred years after Confucius, his lifetime reaching from 372 to 289 B.C. One of the very few facts handed down about his life is his early education by the most excellent of mothers. " M6ng-mu," the mother of Mencius, is as familiar a figure to the Chinese as the " Mother of the Gracchi " was to the people of Rome, and quite a number of anecdotes are current about her and the boy who was destined to gain such high fame. If Confucius found it hard to get his contemporaries to listen to his teachings, Mencius had to fight his way under still greater difficulties. Times had changed a good deal in the last two hundred years. From the works which happen to have been preserved to our days, we may conclude that the early Confucianists were scarcely at all troubled by the antagonism of other schools, unless such antagonism consisted in their treating adversaries with silence. Mencius arose in a world more distant than ever from the Confucian ideals. He lived in the period of Chinese history known as that of the " Contending States," when China was divided into numerous political factions and the different states made war against each other. Literature was then the exact counterpart of the political situation. The philosophers of the age took part in the general strife and applied their doctrines to practical state life. The instability which knew of no equilibrium among the contesting powers and which caused even conservative minds to become accustomed to the most unexpected changes in politics, was coupled with a hitherto unprecedented freedom of thought in the ranks of thinkers and writers. The most heretical views on state and private life were advanced and gained public adherence. Mencius, therefore, could not confine his work to teaching, he had also to defend his views against the open and silent attacks of rival systems. In this respect he became a real tower of strength to Confucianism at his time.

Of the several philosophical systems created during the period of the Contending States, the one which was most opposed to the solid ethical character of the Confucian school was probably that utterly uncanonical philosophy of Yang Chu. He was a self-made man and had not studied old books like Confucius, nor did he trouble himself about rival systems ; but his views on the world and human nature were so audacious as to attract attention with or without approval. Yang Chu was essentially a pessimist. He tries in the first instance to answer the question whether life is actually worth living. According to him it is not. A great part of man's life, he says, is spent either in a state of indifference, during infancy and extreme old age, or in sleep, and during many hours in the daytime, not counting the hours spent in pain and sickness, sorrow and bitterness. In a hundred years a man may live, there may remain ten years actually worth counting, but not even in them will be found an hour of smiling self-abandonment without the shadow of solicitude. Death awaits us all alike, whether we die at the age of ten or a hundred, and once man's bones are rotten it does not matter whether he was a great character, or a mean creature. We, therefore, have every reason to make the best of life while it lasts. To Yang Chu, nothing can come after death. Fame is nothing. The great men of the past, " celebrate them — they do not know it ; reward them — they do not know it; their fame is no more to them than to the trunk of a tree or a clod of earth."

He pities the great heroes of antiquity who, " spent their lives in toil and worry," and thinks certain contemptible creatures, who were pleasure-hunters all their lives, are to be envied, for they " never made themselves bitter by the thought of propriety and righteousness." Theirs was a happy life in spite of the evil fame that followed their death. For the reality of enjoyment is what no fame can give.

Yung Chu was an Epicurean in his way, but a great deal worse than Epicurus, who taught that our pleasure ought to be derived from virtue and justice. His philosophy was, of course, the very reverse of what Confucius taught. The forcible manner with which Yang Chu stated his argumentum ad hominem has no doubt made an impression on his contemporaries, and his philosophy of egotism may have temporarily thrown Confucian principles into the shade; but it stands to the credit of the Chinese nation that Yang Chu is now almost forgotten, whereas Confucius has rendered himself immortal among the best of his people. Yang Chu's great adversary was Mencius, whose good cause got the better of what threatened to be a danger to Confucian morals.

Mencius was also opposed to another sage, who from our point of view did not seem to deserve it. If Yang Chu could be called the philosopher of egotism, the man who taught the very opposite, Mo Ti, also known by his Latinized name Micius, was the philosopher of altruism. He held almost Christian views, inasmuch as to him mutual love was the cure for all evils in the world. Who knows what turn the ethical development of the Chinese would have taken, had not Mencius been such an uncompromising Confucianist !

The spread of Confucianist ideas is, of course, in the first instance due to this so-called Chinese classical literature. But much of the master's influence on his people is due also to the example he set by his personal character, the great features of which may be derived from the views he expressed in the conversations forming the subject of the " Four Books." The gossip among those who knew him has added numerous little peculiarities, accounts of which have been placed on record in one of the chapters of the " Analects." Here we learn how the great man behaved in all possible relations of life, such as his mode of dressing, his food, his behavior in the company of friends, etc. According to these accounts he must have been a man full of caprice, even from a Chinese point of view. Whatever he did in public was regulated to the minutest detail by ceremony. Although this was not a new idea in his time, there can be no doubt that his authority and example did much to perpetuate what he considered desirable social practices. Dr. Legge made a short abstract from this biographical record in which he says:

" In public, whether in the village, the temple, or the court, he was the man of rule and ceremony, but at home he was not formal. Yet, if not formal, he was particular. In bed even he did not forget himself; he did not lie like a corpse, and he did not speak. He required his sleeping dress to be half as long again as his body. If he happened to be sick and the prince came to visit him, he had his face to the east, caused his court robes to be put over him, and drew his girdle across them.