ABSTRACT
ALL the world k110"'S that the Chinese have a system of morality which, in theory, is remarkably pure. They may not bea peculiarly moral people when compared with the rest of mankind, but they have a better system. of human duty than almost any other heathen nation, ancient or modern, Their sages have transmitted a multitude of excellent maxims, and have reasoned on moral questions; not seldom, very satisfactorily. Duty and morality are what every man can understand, To inculcate them is an easytask, because the appeal is made immediately to the conscience which Goel has bestowed upon all men. We cannot wonder that in Confucianism there should be found a good system of morality. Conscience and reflection guide at once to the discovery of it. The Jesuit missionaries, when they arrived in China, in the reign of our Queen Elizabeth, were charmed with the excellent doctrines of Confucius. They found there the Golden Rule of our Saviour in a slightly different form, The precept of Confu cius was, "Do not to others what you would not that they should do to you," They also found in the common conversation of the people antithetical sentences and fragments of familiar poetry, exhorting to virtue and 'Yarning against vice. They are in daily use aUl011g all classes, from the rich and educated to the labouring poor. For example.-c-" Among the hundred virtues, filial piety is the chief. Out of ten thousand crimes, adultery is the worst." "Fidelity, filial piety, chastity, and uprightness, diffuse fragrance through a hundred generations," They
spread through Europe the fame of the Chinese sages as excellent instructors in morality. Ricci thought that very nlany of them held views so good, that he felt no doubt they would be saved by the mercy of God in the next life. He says this in the rare and very interesting work, rc De Christiana Expeditione ad Sinas," from which M. Hue has drawn much of the materials for his history of Christianity in China.
