and facing inwards.

next in order for merit.

These ten are for the disciples

4th. Arranged on either side of a long room stretching down in front of the hall, are tablets of the remaining fifty-eight disciples, twenty-nine on either side.

Before each tablet is a stand for candles, incense, and offerings.

The sage is worshiped especially by literary men. Boys on entering school are first taken to the Confucian temple to adore the world's most illustrious scholar and holy man, and to invoke him as a patron.

The remarks of Confucius upon religious subjects were very few; he never taught the duty of man to any higher power than the head of the State or family, though he supposed himself commissioned by heaven to restore the doctrines and usages of the ancient kings. He admitted that he did not understand much about the gods, that they were beyond and above the comprehension of man, and that the obligations of man lay rather in doing his duty to his relatives and society than in worshiping spirits unknown. "Not knowing even life," said he, "how can we know death?" and when his disciples asked him, in his last illness, whom he should sacrifice to, he said he had already worshiped.

Wise and learned as was Confucius, and with all his abstruse discussions about the Tai Kik, the Yin and the Yang, and the Chung Yung, he knew less about the world he lived in than the merest child who has learned that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" and as to what might lie beyond the present life, all was unknown.

He instructed kings, but his teachings lacked that ele

ment which once caused a Roman governor to tremble when the great apostle to the Gentiles, though a prisoner in chains, reasoned before him concerning those subjects which constituted the distinctive doctrine of his faith.

As there were points of difference between the doctrines taught by the so-called holy man of Loo and the orator who once held enchained by his eloquence the learned men of Athens, so was there as marked a difference in the closing scenes of the lives of each. One laments over

"The strong mountain broken,

The wise man decayed."

The other exults in the clear vision of that world into which he expected to enter when this "mortal should have put on immortality."

That the reader may see how the disciples of Confucius were accustomed to speak of the sage whom they styled 'Master," as well as the manner in which he spake of himself, we have grouped together what we found in the Analects on these subjects, and have placed them first in our selections from the Four Books, that they may be read in connection with the life of Confucius. They are :

Ist. Remarks by his disciples on his character, doctrines, and habits.

2d. What Confucius said of himself.

3d. An Eulogium, in which is recorded by admiring disciples everything that might help to keep the memory of the master fresh in their minds.

THE FOUR BOOKS.

INTRODUCTION.

THESE are sometimes called the Four Books of the Four Philosophers. They comprise: 1st, the Lun Yu, or Analects, chiefly occupied with the sayings of Confucius ; 2d, the Tai Hok, (or Tai Hečk) the Great Learning, now commonly attributed to Tsăng Sin, a disciple of the sage; 3d, the Chung Yung, or Doctrine of the Mean, ascribed to Kung Keih, the grandson of Confucius ; 4th, the works of Mencius. But all these disciples of Confucius delight to honor their master, and credit him largely with the sayings which they have recorded.

A peculiarity of all these teachers is, that they did not generally lay claim to the honor of originality in the lessons they gave: they profess rather that what they taught were the doctrines of their wise princes and divine emperors of the primitive ages; they enforce their counsels by citing the examples of wisdom and virtue of the early times. Mencius, as the reader will see at the close of his book, tells from whom his doctrines were derived, and through how long a term of years they had de

scended till they came to him. Confucius, Mencius, and perhaps some of their disciples, were peripatetic philosophers. That system of lectures, or traveling teachers, has been, in some respects, adopted in our country during recent years. Throughout China, at the present time, there are professional readers, who go about from place to place; and wherever an audience can be gathered, they read or chant portions of the ancient histories or of the odes. They are paid by voluntary contributions.

Our selections from the Four Books, as stated in the Preface, are from Dr. Legge's translation; and in transferring them we have followed his copy; the rendering, the italics, and the pointing are his. The italics generally, but not quite universally, designate such words as had to be supplied in order to give a smooth rendering into English.

In our choice of matter we have aimed to take such as might easily be comprehended by the general reader; but we are aware that many admirers of the Four Books will be disappointed in not finding some passages which they have regarded as remarkable for beauty and force. We confess that we have left undisturbed many portions as full of excellence as any we have taken; sometimes because we had already selected sufficient to give the author's view on a given subject, and sometimes because the passage, in order to be appreciated, needed a closer study than the general reader might be willing to devote to it; and even with some of the sentences which we have quoted this is the case; a careful reading is necessary in order to come at the full meaning of the author.

One feature of Chinese composition is its sententious

style-laconic expressions; and the beauty and force of these are often greatly marred, if not entirely spoiled, by a translation. Especially is this true concerning the translation of their proverbs and maxims. Were we to make any criticism on the translation before us, we would say that it is put into too good English. A translation following the Chinese idiom more closely, and using fewer words, would often have presented the idea with more energy and point.

The ancient emperors Yaou, and Shun, and Yu are often mentioned. The reader will refresh his mind as to who they were by referring back to the historical sketch. Without denying that they were real personages, yet doubtless the Chinese sages, considering their vocation as teachers, took some license, and embellished their characters somewhat, clothing these individuals with attributes which, in their estimation, perfectly wise and good emperors ought to possess; and having thus clothed them they held them up for imitation, and in all their exhortations to kings and princes referred to what the divine rulers of ancient times said and did.

Students in the Chinese language may perhaps be annoyed in finding in different parts of the volume so many systems of pronunciation and spelling. This arises from the fact that our quotations are from translations made by men of different nationalities, at different times, and living in different parts of the Chinese empire. Except where there has been an obvious mistake or misprint, we have transferred the passage in the translator's own style of spelling and pronunciation.

In order to present the sayings of the sages grouped together under their appropriate heads, we are aware