CONFUCIUS | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 5, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 30.

CONFUCIUS.

CONSIDERING the influence which Confucius and his system of morality have exerted on the multitudes that have revered his name since his death, he stands before us as the most wonderful of human teachers. Unlike Mahomet he never made any claims to divine revelation, and in that respect he deserves more honor than that arch-impostor.

Confucius is merely the Chinese name, Kung Foo Tsz, “the master Kung,” Latinized. His descent was traced down from Kwang Ti, B. C. 2,637. He was born, as near as we can calculate, June 19, 551 B. C. In his youth he was a hard student, and at the early age of twenty-two he commenced his labors as a public teacher. He taught all who came to him, no matter how much or little they were able to give him; all that he required was that the student should be anxious to learn and show some degree of ability. At this period, China was divided into a number of little principalities and duchies, as Europe was in the feudal ages; he wandered among these States teaching, followed by a little band of disciples, and at one time and another held offices. The most important office he held was that of Minister of Crime in the State of Loo, which office he held for four years. During this time, “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. So strong did Loo become by his rule, that the other States became alarmed lest Loo should become so strong as to swallow them up; so they hit on the expedient of sending eighty beautiful dancing girls and one hundred and twenty fine horses as a present to the Duke of Loo. He again gave himself up to pleasure, and the sage was neglected.”

Tired and weary, Confucius became a wandering preacher of reform for the next thirteen years, and though he was called back to Loo and spent the last years of his life there, yet “his end was melancholy. He sank beneath a cloud. The great ones of the empire had not received his teachings. Nor were the expectations of another life present with him as he passed through the dark valley. He uttered no prayer, and he betrayed no apprehensions.” Thus did the sage of China pass away in the year 478 B. C.; but, as is often the case, no sooner had the earth covered his form than men began to realize that a great teacher had been among them, though they heeded him not. Temples were erected to his honor; in the year 1, of our era, titles were conferred on him by imperial decree, and he is worshiped now on the first and fifteenth of every month in temples in every country town and in every school in the land; while the emperor pays him a solemn and particular worship twice a year, at which he is addressed by his titles as “the philosopher Kung, the ancient teacher, the perfect sage.” Truly, as Dr. Legge has said in his life of Confucius, “he was unreasonably neglected when he was alive, he is unreasonably venerated now he is dead. During his lifetime he had 3,000 disciples; hundreds of millions are his disciples now.” He was modest in his estimate of himself. One quotation will suffice; in one place he says, “The sage and the man of perfect virtue; how dare I rank myself with them? It may be said of me simply that I strive to become such without satiety, and teach others without weariness.”

His teachings are mere moral aphorisms, reaching often to the height of the philosophy of Plato and Cicero, but never touching the high-water mark of revealed truth. He went as far as man could, unaided by divine revelation, and, as already said, he was no impostor. One of the saddest of his sayings which his sincerity forced from him was this: “I have not even solved the problem of life, how then can I tell you of death?” The nearest approach he made to the teaching of the Gospel was when he said: “Do not to others what you would not have them do to you,” which, as will readily be seen, is the Golden Rule in a negative form, or, as it has been called, the Silver Rule of Confucius.—The Chinese Evangelist.