I shall not introduce the reader to all who justly bear the august title of sage; for China has had more and wiser sages than any other ancient country.  Some of them may be referred to in the sequel; but this chapter I shall devote chiefly to the two who by universal consent have no equals in the history of the Empire—­Confucius and Mencius.  These great men owe much of their fame to the learned Jesuits who first brought them on the stage, clad in the Roman toga, and made them citizens of the world by giving them the euphonious names by which they are popularly known.  Stripped of their disguise they appear respectively as K’ung Fu-tse and Meng-tse.  Exchanging the ore rotunda of Rome for the sibillation of China, they never could have been naturalised as they are now.

CONFUCIUS

Born in the year 549 B. C., Confucius was contemporaneous with Isaiah and Socrates.  Of a respectable but not opulent family he had to struggle for his [Page 90] education—­a fact which in after years he was so far from concealing that he ascribed to it much of his success in life.  To one who asked him, “How comes it that you are able to do so many things,” he replied, “I was born poor and had to learn.”  His schoolmasters are unknown; and it might be asked of him, as it was of a greater than Confucius, “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?”

Of his self-education, which continued through life, he gives the following concise account:  “At fifteen I entered on a life of study; at thirty I took my stand as a scholar; at forty my opinions were fixed; at fifty I knew how to judge and select; at sixty I never relapsed into a known fault; at seventy I could follow my inclinations without going wrong.”  Note how each stage marks an advance towards moral excellence.  Mark also that this passage gives an outline of self-discipline.  It says nothing of his books or of his work as a statesman and a reformer.

He is said to have had, first and last, three thousand disciples.  Those longest under instruction numbered twelve.  They studied, not with lectures and textbooks, as in modern schools, but by following his footsteps and taking the impress of his character, much as Peter and John followed the steps and studied the life of Christ.  Some of them followed Confucius when, bent on effecting a political as well as an ethical reform, he travelled from court to court among the petty principalities.  They have placed it on record that once, when exposed to great peril, he comforted them by saying, “If Heaven has made me the depositary of these teachings, what can my enemies do against [Page 91] me?” Nobly conscious of a more than human mission, so pure were his teachings that, though he taught morals, not religion, he might fairly, with Socrates, be allowed to claim a sort of inspiration.

The one God, of whom he knew little, he called Heaven, and he always spoke of Heaven with the profoundest reverence.  When neglected or misunderstood he consoled himself by saying, “Heaven knows me.”  During a serious illness a disciple inquired if he should pray for him, meaning the making of offerings at some temple.  Confucius answered, “I have long prayed,” or “I have long been in the habit of praying.”