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source, by a small group of literati in this country known as the Transcendentalists of New England. The critics of Strauss were, for the most part, blind to the fact that he was an eminent theologian, who distinctly taught a belief in a personal God, and who, in dealing with the story of Christ as it is found in the Christian Scriptures, merely tried to separate the truly historical portions from what was unhistorical, and therefore mystical. He brought to this labor a vast erudition, besides a minute conscientiousness with regard to judging historical data which is almost painful to those who follow his work. The New England Transcendentalists were the first people in this country who evinced, on any considerable scale, a truly literary spirit, a disposition to study all literatures from a comprehensive standpoint. They took the liberty of casting " a free and bold regard upon the beauties of the pagan classics and upon the deformities of books hitherto held as above human estimate." But Strauss and his followers in Germany, Renan and his school in France, and the Transcendentalists in this country, have all grievously sinned against philosophy. They one and all perpetuate the mysticism of India. From the ideal mystic, who, according to the Hindoo conception, passes his life on the top of a column, abnegating all human relations, or earthly feelings, so that he may come face to face with God, to the Transcendentalist, who advocates "a philosophy which continually reminds us of our intimate relations to the spiritual world," which aims to approach "the mysteries of man's higher life," and affirms “the existence of spiritual elements in his nature," 'we have but degrees in subserviency to the same doctrine of the unknowable. Nothing can be more seductive than the language in which this doctrine finds expression. It is a worship of man's higher nature on the supposition that it has a counterpart in a divine nature. It is an exceedingly refined anthropomorphism,-so refined that some of the best minds freely use the idioms and technical terms which have become identified with this faith with

'See article in Atlantic Monthly of July, 1883, by O. B. Frothingham.

out a suspicion that they are transgressing the laws of

reason.

Until the sin of idealism shall be laid aside, the idolatry which we call orthodoxy will have a permanent excuse, and materialism will be a natural reaction from the religions of faith. For, strange as it may seem, materialism is the logical accompaniment of Transcendentalism; both rest upon the acknowledgment of a fundamental mystery in life.

The Transcendentalist and the Materialist are both agnostics: one represents the optimistic, the other the pessimistic form of skepticism. One says life is material; let us reach after the divine or spiritual, a mysterious type of virtue which is above and beyond this life: the other says life is material, and we cannot make it any thing else. The Transcendentalist would make a mystery of a natural propensity of human life. We have sympathies, or breadth and depth of feeling; we have aspirations for a wider and purer sphere of existence, feelings perfectly natural and no more and no less difficult to explain than the simplest sensation; and because these feelings are grand in their objects, taking in the whole sweep of our existence, it is taken for granted that they are mysteries, and represent "our intimate relations to a spiritual world.”

There is no absolute spirit, there is no mystery in life. Every thing to which the word spirit can be applied means also body. Every thing that has ever appeared mysterious springs from and is indissolubly connected with the familiar. The principle of perception, the dignity of life, are both assailed by these substantializations of aspects of our existence, this confusion of relative facts with the universal principle. What, in a word, will it avail us to reason about divine unity unless we apply the principle to the laws of perception or individual life?

CHAPTER XIX.

THE RELIGIONS OF CONfucius, zoroASTER, AND BUDDHA.

All the Higher Ideals of Christian Morality Firmly Established Principles throughout the World Ages Before our Era-The Resemblance between

Christian Worship and The Worship of Earlier Faiths.

THE Chinese Empire is twice as large as the United States, and contains a third of the population of the globe. Its antiquity, by comparison, makes ancient Greece a modern state, and the first centuries of our era familiar times. For thirty centuries its oral language has remained the same, and its writing dates from a far earlier period.

In China we have the only nation which has a purely literary aristocracy, where office is obtained solely through competitive examinations, and where there is no rank or nobility apart from office. The Emperor has theoretically absolute power, but is in turn rigorously governed by an unwritten law of usage which defines his duties to his people as those of a father to his family. So strong is this ideal of government with the people that its open neglect is inevitably followed by revolution, so that, as a means of retaining their power, rulers have found it necessary to simulate the higher virtues.

In the language of China we have a singularly truthful portrayal of the national mind and character. It is monosyllabic, and therefore inflexible,-incapable of that syntactical motion which gives power and grace to expression. The literature is unimaginative, and were it not for its pure moral tone and philosophic spirit it might be called commonplace.

The Chinese nation has far excelled the West, until quite

recently, in the extent of its public works,' in mechanical skill, in the refinement of the industrial arts, and in popular education. With regard to some phases of social morality and civil government, China is unapproached by any modern nation. Religion with this nation is more ethical than theological; philosophy more practical than metaphysical.

The classics of China are the sacred books and writings upon law and history. All education consists in memorizing the classics, and the whole national mind, as a consequence, has fallen into a servile literary imitation. In exalted conservatism, in veneration for custom, China is without a peer; but in the competition of human genius,-the struggle for those new combinations of thought and feeling which constitute progress, in short, in imagination,—she is far behind many of the younger nations. The civilization of China, like that of Egypt, has a significance of which her people are apparently unconscious. The design of her social and political life constitutes a beautiful system of ethics, and yet abuses and inconsistencies are admitted, which, when compared with this design, appear grotesque. In a word, the individual has become so highly disciplined that he is but a silent factor in the spirit of his race; he has become bewildered by the proportions of his own civilization.

The religion of China centres around the life and teachings of Confucius, one of the greatest moral teachers the world has known. What is most admirable in the Chinese faith is the absence of fable and superstition concerning this man, who, judged by accepted standards, was holy and inspired, and fully as worthy of being canonized or deified as any of the great prophets. It is instructive to see, after all, how little moral influence, or power for doing good, depends upon belief in the supernatural. All that appeals

'China was intersected with canals long before there were any in Europe. The great wall was built for defence against the fierce tribes of the North, two hundred years before Christ; it crosses mountains, descends into valleys, and is carried over rivers on arches; it is twelve hundred and forty miles long, twenty feet high, and has towers every hundred yards. In this country beautiful books were printed five hundred years before the invention of Gutenberg.

to the hearts and consciences of mankind, however expressed, must be human. Hence the extravagances of faith are unnatural, inartistic, irreligious.

Confucius was born, 551 B.C., in the province or state of Loo, now called Shan-tung, during the reign of Ling-wang, 23d emperor of the Teheou. His parents were of high dignity, but were poor, and the untimely death of the father early subjected the son to the discipline of toil. He was passionately attached to his mother; and when she died, he gave up a state office which he held, to mourn her. This, however, was not without precedent in the customs of his country. His character early attracted the attention of the Prince of his State, who offered him the revenues of an office without the duties, which he declined from a sense of honor.

Confucius was at length given the charge of a city, and immediately applied himself to the institution of reforms. "He punished false dealing, suppressed licentiousness, and reduced brigandage and baronial ambition." Troops of dancing-girls and fine horses were sent as bribes to the Prince by those who were inconvenienced by these reforms of the minister, which at last had the effect of securing his dismissal. For thirteen years he was an exile, and wandered from court to court teaching his principles of peace, national unity, and self-improvement. Some of the friends whom his principles had attracted followed him in these wanderings and were known as his disciples. Among them was Mencius, himself a very able and profound teacher, although entirely devoted to Confucius.

The incessant theme of Confucius, says Johnson, is the balance of character, the danger of one-sidedness, the mutual dependence of study and original thought, of sound sense and fine taste; that due observance of limits in which the virtue of any quality consists. Being asked by one of his disciples what constituted the perfect man, he drew no impossible picture of virtue, but simply responded: “Seeking to be established, the true man establishes others; wishing enlargement, he enlarges others."

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