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Philosophic Taoism continued in this time, aside from the church-Taoism of Chang Ling and, naturally, all kinds of contacts between these three currents occurred. The Chinese state cult, the cult of Heaven saturated with Confucianism, was another living form of religion. The alien rulers, in turn, had brought their own mixture of worship of Heaven and shamanism.
Shall they give place to dogmatic Christianity or, among the most cultured class, to agnosticism? Would it not be better to work for the retention at any rate of Buddhism and Confucianism in a purified form? My own wish would be that the religious-ethical principles of Buddhism should be applied to the details of civic righteousness.
I will next attempt short, vivid descriptions of the chief stages in the Jewish and Christian Religions, with a view to tracing here what may concern their progress; and will very shortly illustrate the main results attained by the corresponding main peculiarities of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism.
That was the age of idols for China as well as for India; and the old Chinese house, once empty, swept and garnished by Confucianism, was now filled with a mob of unclean spirits each worse than the first.
The position of women in China today, and the rules which govern the household of every orthodox Chinese, are the direct heritage of Confucianism. The following translation by Professor J. Legge from the Narratives of the Confucian School, chapter 26, is illuminating: Confucius said: "Man is the representative of heaven and is supreme over all things.
Hitherto the three religions of China Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism have been regarded as forming one organism, and as equally necessary to the national culture. Now, however, there is a danger that this hereditary union may cease, and that, in their disunited state, the three cults may be destined in course of time to disappear and perish.
Although Taoism, of which Lao-Tze was the founder and Chuang-Tze the chief apostle, was displaced by Confucianism, yet the spirit of this fable has penetrated deeply into Chinese life, making it more urbane and tolerant, more contemplative and observant, than the fiercer life of the West.
For our purpose the first of these is very much the most important, as Taoism, originally a philosophy, quickly degenerated into a system of magic, and Buddhism is imported into China, and has to be spoken of elsewhere. Confucianism, being the direct descendant of the old state religion of China, is the native growth of the mind of the nation.
But I will not pretend that this curt discussion is my real reason for accepting Christianity instead of taking the moral good of Christianity as I should take it out of Confucianism. I have another far more solid and central ground for submitting to it as a faith, instead of merely picking up hints from it as a scheme.
Boole, u. s. p. 399. I. s. xl. Leipzig, 1857. Boole, Laws of Thought, p. 410. Religion starts with a Prayer. This is an appeal to the unknown, and is indispensable in religious thought. The apparent exceptions of Buddhism and Confucianism. All prayers relate to the fulfilment of a wish. At first its direct object is alone thought of.
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