a dangerous illness, and offering to die in his stead, he raises three altars-to their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather; and prays to them, as having in heaven the charge of watching over their great descendant. When he has ascertained by divination that the king would recover, he declares that he had got Woo's tenure of the throne renewed by the three kings, who had thus consulted for a long futurity of their house.

This case shows us that the spirits of good kings were believed to be in heaven. A more general conclusion is derived from what we read in the seventh of the books of Shang. The emperor Pwan-Kăng, (B.C. 1400) irritated by the opposition of the wealthy and powerful houses to his measures, and their stirring up the people also to murmur against them, threatens them all with calamities to be sent down by his high ancestor T'ang, the successful. He tells his ministers that their ancestors and fathers, who had loyally served his predecessors, were now urgently entreating T'ang, in his spiritstate in heaven, to execute great punishments on their descendants. Not only, therefore, did good sovereigns continue to have a happy existence in heaven, but their good ministers shared the happiness with them, and were somehow round about them as they had been on earth, and took an interest in the progress of the concerns which had occupied them during their lifetime. Modern scholars, following in the wake of Confucius, to whom the future state of the departed was all wrapped in shadows, clouds, and darkness, say that the people of the Shang dynasty were very superstitious. My object is to bring out the fact, and the nature of their supersti

There is no hint in the Shoo nor elsewhere, so far as I am aware, of what became of bad emperors and bad ministers after death nor indeed of the future fate of men generally. There is a heaven in the classical books of the Chinese; but there is no hell; and no purgatory. Their oracles are silent as to any doctrine of future rewards and punishments. Their exhortations to welldoing, and their warnings against evil, are all based on a reference to the will of God, and the certainty that in this life virtue will be rewarded and vice punished. "Of the five happinesses, the first is long life; the second is riches; the third is soundness of body and serenity of mind; the fourth is the love of virtue; and the fifth is doing or receiving to the end the will of heaven." There is no promise of rest or comfort beyond the grave. The virtuous man may live and die in suffering and disgrace; let him be cheered—his posterity will reap the reward of his merits. Some one, sprung from his loins, will become wealthy or attain to distinction. But if he should have no posterity-it never occurred to any of the ancient sages to consider such a case.

I will pass on from this paragraph with a reference to the subject of divination. Although the ancient Chinese can hardly be said to have had the knowledge of a future state, and were not curious to inquire about it, they were anxious to know about the wisdom and issues of their plans for the present life. For this purpose they had recourse to divination. tainly practiced it; and we have a regular staff of diviners among the officers of the Chow dynasty. Pwan-Kăng practiced it in the dynasty of Shang. And Shun did so also, if we can put faith in "The Counsels of Yu." The

The duke of Chow cer

instruments of divination were the shell of the tortoise and the stalks of a certain grass or reed. By various caustic operations on the former, and by manipulations with the latter, it was supposed possible to ascertain the will of heaven. I must refer the reader to what I have said about the practice on the seventh section of "The Great Plan." It is difficult to understand how the really great men of China could have believed in it. One observation ascribed to Shun is worthy of remark. He tells Yu that “divination, when fortunate, must not be repeated." I once saw a father and son divining, after one of the fashions of the present day. They tossed the bamboo roots, which came down in the unlucky position for a dozen times in succession. At last a lucky cast was made. They looked into each other's faces, laughed heartily, and rose up, delighted, from their knees. The divination was now successful, and they dared not repeat it!

When the dignity of a chief advanced to that of a sovereign, and the Chinese tribe grew into a nation, the form which it assumed was that of a feudal empire. It was probably not until the Chow dynasty that its constitution was fully developed and consolidated, as it is only then that we find in the last part of the Shoo, in the Ch'un Ts'ew, the Rites of Chow, and other works of the period, materials to give a description to it. King Woo, we are

told, after he had overthrown the last sovereign of the line of T'ang, arranged the orders of nobility into five, from duke downwards, and assigned the territories to them on a scale proportioned to their different ranks. But at the beginning of the Hea dynasty, Yu conferred on the chiefs among his followers lands and surnames.

The feudal system grew in a great measure out of the necessities of the infant empire. As the rude tribes were pushed backwards from its growing limits, they would the more fiercely endeavor to resist further encroachment. The measure was sometimes taken of removing them to other distant sites, according to the policy on which the Kings of Assyria and Babylon dealt with Israel and Judah. So Shun is reported to have carried away the San-mëaun. But the Chinese empire was too young, and insufficiently established itself, to pursue this plan generally; and each State therefore was formed with a military constitution of its own, to defend the marches against the irruptions of the barbarians.

What was designed to be the Central State of the empire was the appanage of the sovereign himself, and was of the same dimensions as one of the largest of the feudatory States. Over this he ruled like one of the other princes in their several dominions, and he received likewise a certain amount of revenue from all the rest of the country, while the nobles were bound to do him military service whenever called upon. He maintained also a court of great ministers, who superintended the gov ernment of the whole empire. The princes were little kings within their own States, and had the power of life and death over the people. They practiced the system of sub-infeudation, but their assignments of lands were required to have the imperial sanction.

It was the rule under the Chow dynasty that the princes should repair to the court every five years, to give an account of their administration of their governments; and that the emperor should make a general tour through the country every twelve years, to see for

himself how they performed their duties. We read in the Canon of Shun that he made a tour of inspection once in five years, and that the princes appeared at court during the intermediate four. As the empire enlarged, the imperial progresses would naturally become less frequent. By this arrangement it was endeavored to maintain a uniformity of administration and customs throughout the States. The various ceremonies to be observed in marriages, funerals and mourning, hospitalities, religious worship, and the conduct of hostilities; the measure of capacity, length, weight, etc; and the written characters of the language; these were all determined in imperial prerogative. To innovate in them was a capital offense.

The above is an imperfect outline of the feudal constitution of the ancient empire of China, which was far from enjoying peace and prosperity under it. According to the received accounts, the three dynasties of Hea, Shang, and Chow were established, one after another, by princes of great virtue and force of character, aided in each case by a minister of consummate ability and loyal devotion. Their successors invariably became feeble and worthless. After a few reigns, the imperial rule slackened. Throughout the States there came assumptions and oppressions, each prince doing what was right in his own eyes, without fear of his suzerain. wild tribes round about waxed bold, and kept up a constant excitement and terror by their incursions. Then would come an exceptional reign of more than usual vigor, and a partial order would be established; but the brief prosperity was only like a blink of sunshine in a day of gloom. In the Shoo, the termination of the dy

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