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are artificially hatched. Comparatively little beef is eaten, not so much because of the prevalence of Buddhism, which forbids the taking of life, as from a feeling of gratitude to the animal which renders the most important service in tilling the ground. Pork is the most used of all flesh meat, and the number of pigs is enormous. In addition to these animals, the seaboard, rivers, lakes, and ponds supply an immense quantity of excellent fish taken by the net. Angling is not much practised; but a boat with its complement of cormorants, trained to dive for the fish and bring them to their masters, is a pleasant sight. Shellfish also yield their quota to the food of the people. An idea is prevalent that the Chinese are gross feeders, but this is true only of the very poor. A first-class Chinese dinner with its twenty-seven courses may hold its own with most luxurious tables. The famed birds'-nest soup is a misnomer. Nests of the Collocalia esculenta, brought from the Indian Archipelago, are sliced into other soup, and supposed to impart to the compound an invigorating and stimulating quality, but the writer never felt that it added either to its flavour or piquancy.

For beverages the use of tea has nearly superseded every other. The plant does not grow in the north, but is cultivated extensively in the western provinces and in those south of the Great Chiang. The infusion of the leaves was little, if at all, drunk in ancient times, but now its use is universal. Fachien, Hût-pei, and Hû-nan produce most largely the black teas; the green comes chiefly from Cheh-chiang and An-hui; both kinds come from Kwan-tung and Sze-ch'wan. Next to silk, if not equally with it, tea is China's most valuable export; and by nothing does it contribute more to the comfort and well-being of the rest of the world. To the people themselves its use has been invaluable, and more than anything else has promoted the temperance that is characteristic of them. They are acquainted with distillation, and from rice and millet produce alcoholic liquors. Their literature abounds from the 12th century B.C. to the present dynasty with warnings against the injury of strong drink; but more effectual than the proclamations of authority has been the habit of drinking tea. As compared with the populations of western nations, the Chinese are sparing in the use of strong drink, and it is rare to see one of them intoxicated. They do not sit down to tea as a special meal, nor do they make it so strong as we do, or add sugar or cream to it, but they have it at hand, and offer it to visitors, all day long. The ordinary name of the plant is ch'a; but the leaf was first imported into England from Amoy in Fu-chien, where the dialectical pronunciation of the name is t'ay, which the Irishman still retains. The use of opium will be discussed in a separate article.

The next essential to food and drink in the economy of life is clothing, and for this China has abundant provision in its stores of silk, linen, and cotton. It was no doubt the original home of silk. From the 23d century B.C. and earlier, the care of the silkworm, and the spinning and weaving of its produce, have been the special work of woman. As it is the duty of the sovereign to turn over a few furrows in the spring to stimulate the people to their agricultural tasks, so his consort should perform an analogous ceremony with her silkworms and mulberry-trees. The tree grows everywhere, and in all the provinces some silk is produced; but Kwan-tung, Sze-ch'wan, and Chehchiang furnish the best and the most. The manufactures of silk are not inferior or less brilliant than any that are produced in Europe, and nothing can exceed the embroidery of the Chinese. Indigenous to the country also are hemp and other fibrous plants, such as the Bahmeria nivea, from which

the grass-cloth is made. The cotton-plant, though not indigenous, appears to have been introduced from. Khoten (Eastern Turkestan) in the 11th century, and is now found everywhere, but is culti vated most extensively in the great basin of the Chiang. The well-known nankeen is named from Nanking, a centre for its manufacture. The Chinese cotton is inferior to the imported cloth in its finish, but is heavier and more durable. (For the flora of China, see ASIA, Vol. I. p. 491.) Of woollen fabrics the production is not large; but we meet with felt caps, rugs of camels' hair, and furs of various kinds. As the houses have no fireplaces, people keep themselves warm in cold weather by increasing the number of garments which they wear. On the whole China has more resources in itself for the comfortable support and clothing of its vast population than most other countries.

For building materials the Chinese use, like ourselves, timber, bricks, and stone; but in the south inexpensive houses are often made of a kind of concrete called 'sifted earth,' a compound of decomposed granite and lime, with the addition sometimes of a little oil, pounded in a wooden framework, which is shifted till the walls have reached their intended height. Anciently, as we learn from the Shih King, the largest structures were raised in this way. The walls, if well protected by overhanging eaves and plaster against wet, are strong and durable. Granite and limestone are found in many places, and the largest rocks are ingeniously split and wrought into building blocks. The architecture of China is defective, however, in the grandeur and grace which mark that of some other countries; the best specimens of it are seen in the marble bridges and altars of Peking, and in the Buddhistic buildings on the Hill of Longevity' and other places in the neighbourhood. No one who has seen them can ever forget the gigantic figures of animals and the statues lining the road that leads to the tombs of several of the Ming emperors, a considerable distance north from the capital. In the country, houses are seldom of more than one story. Even in the cities the public offices and large business establishments are not remarkable for their height, but for their depth, as you pass from one series of rooms to another through intervening courts. Rising conspicuous above the other buildings are the pawnbrokers' establishments, whilst the most substantial and elegantly finished structures are the guildhalls belonging to the various trades, or to the merchants congregating in them from the different provinces. The most picturesque buildings are the pavilions and pagodas. Of the former the most striking is one in what has become famous by being miscalled the 'Summer Palace' at Peking, about 14 feet square and 20 high, made of pure copper. The pagodas are Buddhistic structures, borrowed from the topes of India, where they were built at first as depositories for the relics of Buddha and distinguished Arhats. In China they have taken a peculiar form, and are supposed to exercise mysterious geomantic influences. They are the most remarkable objects in the landscapes of the country, and there are few cities which cannot boast of one or more, always of an uneven number of stories. The most celebrated of them, the Porcelain Tower of Nanking, is now a thing of the past, having been blown up by the iconoclastic T'ai-p'ings in 1856. It was of an octagonal form, and was intended to be of thirteen stories, rising to a height of 329 feet; but only nine stories were completed, the building of which took nineteen years (1411-30). It was built massively of brick and faced with slabs of glazed porcelain-green, red, yellow and white; with lamps hanging outside from the projections of the

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different stories-one of the architectural wonders of the world.

In the cities, and studding the country also, are many P'ai-laus or Honorary Portals, which often carried the writer's thoughts to the old Temple Bar, though not of so substantial a construction as it was. They are tokens of imperial favour, erected in honour of distinguished persons, and many of them signalising the virtue of widows who steadfastly refused to be married a second time.

The streets of the cities, especially in the south, are not wider than so many lanes, and the streams of people hurrying through them give the stranger an idea that they are more populous than they really are, though against this hasty assumption must be set the rarity of the appearance of women in them. They are paved with slabs of stone, but badly drained, and the heat and stench render a promenade through them anything but agreeable. Most of them have high-sounding names, such as 'The Street of Benevolence and Righteousness.' As in the old Roman cities, tradesmen of the same pursuits are found very much together in the same street. The streets are wider in the northern cities, till we arrive at Peking, where the wide ways of the Mancha portion combine with the imposing walls and their lofty towers to make the visitor think for a time that he has arrived at the grandest city of the world.

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the deer family. The musk-deer is greatly valued. Among the more domestic quadrupeds, the breed of horses and cattle is dwarfish, and no attempts seem to be made to improve them. The ass is a more lively animal in the north than with us, and

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Temple of the Goddess Ma Tsu-pu, Ning-po. (From The Middle Kingdom, by S. W. Williams, LL.D.)

receives more attention. About Peking one is struck by many beautiful specimens of the mule. Princes are seen riding on mules, or drawn by them in elegant litters, while their attendants accompany them on horseback. The camel is only seen in the north. One of the first things that strikes a stranger in the capital is the troops of the shaggy animal lying or feeding about the walls, with their Mongol keepers, looking as uncouth as their charge.

The

The birds of prey are many. Minos, crows, and magpies abound. The last are 'sacred birds,' which it is not safe for the traveller to shoot. people are fond of song-birds, especially the lark, the thrush, and the canary. The song of the nightingale is familiar. The smaller birds are not so afraid of man as with us. Buddhism, with which life is sacred, has done much to secure for birds, both with old and young, immunity from molestation and death. The lovely gold and silver pheasants are well known, and also the Yuan-yang A(Anas galericulata), or mandarin duck, the emblem to the Chinese of conjugal fidelity.

When you enter the house of a well-to-do family, you find the furniture sufficient, though somewhat scanty and not luxurious. The floor may be covered with matting, but not with a carpet or rugs. The tables and straight-backed chairs are of a dark, heavy wood resembling ebony. A few pictures, not works of art, are hung on the walls, along with scrolls of fine writing, expressing moral sentiments or historical and topographical references, while some jars and other specimens of fine porcelain are put down here and there. There may be a couch or two made of bamboo and rattan, and stools of the same materials. The bamboo, that queen of the Arundinaceæ, deserves especial mention. clump of bamboos adds a graceful charm to the scenery, and there seems to be no end to the uses which the plant serves. The schoolmaster employs it for his ferule, and the mandarin or magistrate for his most common instrument of punishment. The writing paper is made from it. Its young shoots are used for food, and for comfits and pickles. Its stems, according to their size, are employed for pencil handles, for canes, and for poles. Fans, cages, baskets, and fish-creels are all constructed with it. Its roots are carved into grotesque figures, and fashioned into blocks of a peculiar shape to be used in divination. China would not be China without the bamboo.

The country is too thickly peopled and well cultivated to harbour many wild and dangerous animals, though one occasionally hears of a tiger that has ventured from the forest and been killed or captured. The lion was never a denizen of China, and is only to be seen rampant in stone in front of temples. The rhinoceros, elephant, and tapir are said still to exist in the forests and swamps of Yun-nan; but the supply of elephants at Peking for the carriage of the emperor when he proceeds to the great sacrificial altars has been decreasing for several reigns. Both the brown and black bear are met with, and several varieties of

The people are fond of flowers, and make excellent gardeners. You look in vain, however, in the gardens of the wealthy for the gay parterres which so please the eye in England. They cultivate their favourites mostly in pots; and the 'willowplate pattern,' with its arbours, bridges, and ponds, glowing often with the large and brilliant flowers of the nelumbium, supplies a good picture of a Chinese garden of a superior order.

But a

While the Chinese have, as we have seen, done justice to most of the natural capabilities of their country, they have greatly failed in developing its mineral resources. The skill which their lapidaries display in cutting crystal and other quartzose minerals is well known, and their work in jade, which they so highly prize, is very fine. mineral more valuable than any other has been comparatively neglected. The coalfields of China are enormous-more than twenty times the extent of those of Great Britain; but up to this time the majority of them can hardly be said to have been more than scratched. Immense quantities of iron ore, moreover, must have been extracted from the earth during the millenniums of its history, but a much greater amount is still untouched. Copper, lead, tin, silver, and gold are known to exist in

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many places, but little has been done to make the stores of them available. More attention has been

directed to their mines since the government and companies began to have steamers of their own; and a scheme has been approved by the government for working the gold-mines in the valley of the Amoor River. The government has become conscious of its mineral wealth, and there is no calculating the resources to which it may attain.

A gold and silver currency is one of the first things which it has to provide. Thus far the only currency has been the copper cash, cumbrous and often debased, varying in its relative value in every district, and the source of endless trouble to the traveller. Even foreign silver coins are treated as bullion, and taken by weight. What is called 'sycee silver' is made from them. After they have been defaced and broken to pieces, they are melted and cast into ingots of different sizes called 'shoes.' The comfort of the housekeeper, as well as of the traveller, is interfered with by the necessity of keeping small fine scales or steelyards to weigh every outlay and receipt. Paper money is indeed in circulation, but the banking system exists as yet only in a rudimentary condition.

Another want in China is that of good roads and comfortable conveyances. The necessity for good roads first presented itself to Shih Hwang Ti (214 B.C.), who, after he had extended the empire to nearly its present limits, ordered the preparation of them seven years before he commenced the building of the Great Wall; and it has been said that there are now 20,000 roads in China; but according to the reports of travellers in the present century, the good roads among them are very few. The government couriers perform their journeys on horseback. Where communication by water is abundant the want of roads is not so much felt; but in their absence in times of scarcity it is a most difficult thing to convey supplies to starving populations, as in the famine which prevailed in Shan-hsî_and other northern provinces a few years ago. It is owing doubtless to the want of roads that the wheelbarrow is so much used as the chief vehicle of communication and commerce from the Chiang northwards. The writer once had an experience of this, when, along with a companion, he was conveyed 280 miles on one of those cany wagons light' in about 8 days. Slow as the journey was, the fatigue was much less than if they had been jolted over the same distance in a springless mulecart in half the time. Even at Peking roads once paved with marble slabs have been allowed to fall into such a state of dilapidation as to be full of discomfort and danger; and the route and conveyances from the capital to T'ien-tsin, its port, are disgraceful to the government.

Social Habits.-The dress of the poor is very much alike in both sexes; and though it is regulated for all classes by sumptuary laws, it is varied among the wealthy by the richness of the materials and the various ornamentation. The most striking thing in the appearance of the men to a foreigner is the queue or plaited tail from the hair of the crown, all the rest of the head being shaved. This was not the old fashion of doing up the hair, but was enforced on the Chinese by the Manchus in 1627, when they had commenced the conquest of the empire. Inscriptions on stone tablets in old temples in Japan, erected by refugees of the 17th century, mention this degrading requirement as one of the reasons why they had fled from their country. All dislike to the custom, however, has now disappeared. A foreigner is surprised in the same way by the small feet of the more respectable women. These were not enforced upon them by the Manchu conquerors, whose women allow their feet to grow to the natural size, nor was it a very

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years, so as to prevent their further growth. The very poor and servants are not subjected to this torture, but such is the force of fashion that we have known humble girls of twelve or thirteen vainly try to reduce the size of their feet, thinking thereby to make themselves more attractive.

The separation of the sexes until marriage has been a feature of the social life from the earliest times. In the old feudal period, at the age of seven, boys and girls of the same family did not occupy the same mat, nor eat together, and at the age of ten a girl ceased to appear outside the women's apartments. Her governess taught her the arts of pleasing speech and manners, to be docile and obedient, to handle the hempen fibres, to deal with the cocoons, to weave silks and form fillets, to learn all woman's work, how to furnish garments, to watch the sacrifices, to supply the liquors and sauces, to fill the stands and dishes with pickles and brine, and to assist in setting forth the appurtenances for the ceremonies. At fifteen she assumed the hairpin (as a token that she had arrived at woman's estate), at twenty she was married, or if there were occasion for the delay, at twenty-three.' We read nothing of any literary training for the daughters then, nor is there any now, though Chinese history is not without instances of learned women and distinguished authoresses. In the important event of marriage the parents exercise a supreme control; and this has given rise to the class of match-makers or gobetweens, who are consulted by the parents, make inquiries, and by an examination of the horoscopes of the parties and other methods of their profession determine the question of the mutual suitability of the match. When a marriage has been agreed upon, it is carried through with a great variety of ceremonies, the parties most concerned being supposed never to have previously seen each other. In the majority of cases the husband and wife thus brought together seem to take to each other very well. Notwithstanding its defects and differences from our ideal, its result seems to be a fair amount of peace and happiness. When the wife becomes a mother she is treated as a sort of divinity in the household. There is but one proper wife (chăng-ch') in the family, but there is no law against a man's having secondary wives or concubines; and such connections are common wherever the means of the family are sufficient for their support. Many of the greatest names in the nation's history are stained with this practice, and the evils of it have been and are very great. There are seven legal grounds for divorcing a wife: Disobedience to her husband's parents; not giving birth to a son; dissolute conduct; jealousy (of her husband's attentions-i.e. to the other inmates of his harem); talkativeness;

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thieving; and leprosy. These grounds, however, may be nullified by the three considerations: If her parents be dead; if she have passed with her husband through the years of mourning for his parents; and if he have become rich from being poor. In many cases the betrothment of children is made at an early age, leading often to injurious and melancholy issues.

The charge of infanticide has been brought against the family life in China, the victims in the vast majority of instances being the female children. That it is stained by this crime, though not to the extent that has often been alleged, cannot be denied. It is among the very poor that the barbarity is chiefly perpetrated, and their poverty is the reason of it. From the ancestral worship which prevails among the people, the desire for male children is greater in China than perhaps in any other country. In one case the wife of a professing Christian asked the writer whether her husband might not be allowed, like any other person, to bring a concubine to the house, as children were denied to herself, and she would bring up any boy that might be born on her knees as her own child. Public opinion is certainly against the crime of infanticide; the government is to blame in that it does not address itself to punish the deed and put it down. Even the public opinion against it is not so emphatic as it ought to be. Foundling hospitals and asylums for the aged are to be found in most of the large towns, but their cleanliness and management are not satisfactory.

The complexion of the Chinese inclines to yellow -is, as they say themselves, of the colour of the olive.' The same coarse black hair and apparently oblique eyes, with high cheekbones and roundish face, belong to them all from the Great Wall to the island of Hai-nan. They are stout and muscular as compared with other eastern peoples, temperate, industrious, cheerful, and easily contented. They are addicted to gambling, and are generally held to be given also to mendacity and larceny. Many of them are so; and where is the country where there are not many such? The longer one lives among them, however, the better he likes them, and the better he thinks of them.

They bury their dead in graves which are built round in the form of a horseshoe, and often with much display and at great expense. The mourning rites are tedious, and embrace a variety of sacrifices and other observances. No subject occupies so large a portion of the Classic of Ritual Observances.

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There is no weekly day of worship and rest like our Sunday. At the New Year the government offices are shut for about a month. New-year's Day is the one universal holiday, and at this time shops are closed for several days. The whole nation seems to be dissolved in festivity and joy. The people dress in their best; the temples are visited; gambling tables are surrounded by crowds; the noise of fireworks or crackers' is incessant. Throughout the year every month has its festivals, of which the most general are that of Lanterns,' on the full moon of the first month; of the 'Tombs,' later on in the spring; of Dragon Boats,' in the fifth month; and of All Souls,' in the seventh month, for the benefit of departed relatives and hungry ghosts in the world of spirits. Theatrical representations are immensely popular. 'Strolling companies' can easily be hired; with the bamboo and matting, sheds, often very large, can be readily erected for the exhibition. Individual actors become celebrated as with us, and their services are well remunerated. Females do not appear on the stage. Their parts are performed by boys got up for the purpose.

History. The chronology of China is measured not by centuries, but by sexagenaries, the first

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cycle being made to commence with the sixtieth year of Hwang Tî in 2637 B.C. But this is merely a conventional arrangement. There were Chinese in China before Hwang Tî, and the cycle names for the years prior to 827 B.C. cannot be fully relied on. The documents of the Shû King begin with the reigns of Yâo and Shun (2356-2206 B.C.); and from various intimations in that work we brought to conclude that the nation then consisted of a collection of tribes or clans of the same race, ruled by a sovereign, nominated by his predecessor, and approved by the people as the worthiest man to reign over them.

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With Yü, the successor of Shun, and the hero of Yao's deluge to which we have already made reference, there came a change in the principle of succession to the throne. As it is expressed, 'He familied the kingdom.' Then commenced the Feudal State, which lasted under three dynasties (Hsiâ, 2205-1767 B.C.; Shang or Yin, 1766-1123 B.C.; and Châu, 1122-255 B.C.) for a period of nearly two thousand years. The feudal system of China was very similar to that which prevailed in Europe during what we call the middle ages. At a grand durbar held by Yü after his accession there were, it is said, ten thousand princes present with their jade symbols of rank. But the feudal states were constantly being absorbed by one another. On the rise of the Shang dynasty they were only somewhat over three thousand, which had decreased to thirteen hundred when King Wa established the sovereignty of the Châu. In 403 B.C. we find only seven great states, all sooner or later claiming to be the kingdom,' and contending for the supremacy, till Ts'in (Ch'in) put down all the others, and in 221 B.C. its king assumed the title of Hwang Tî, or Emperor, and determined that there should be no more feudal principalities, and that, as there is but one sun in the sky, there should be

but one ruler in the nation.

From that year dates the imperial form of the Chinese government, which has thus existed for more than 2100 years. The changes of dynasty have been many, two or more sometimes ruling together, each having but a nominal supremacy over the whole nation. The greater dynasties have been those of Han (206 B.C.-220 A.D.), T'ang (618-906), Sung (960-1279), Yuan (the Mongol, 1280-1367), the Ming (1368-1643), and the Ch'ing (Manchû-Tartar, 1643 to the present date).

The long and persistent existence of the Chinese nation has been owing partly to its geographical position keeping it apart from other great nations, and partly to its educational culture and training. Where the race came from at first takes us beyond the footsteps of history. The Chinese were not the earliest inhabitants of the country. They made their way from the north and west of China proper, pushing before them the older inhabitants, exterminating them or absorbing them, or leaving portions of them within their own ever-enlarging borders, as wrecks of tribes still subsisting here and there, and apparently mouldering to extinction. From the first appearance of the Chinese we find among them written characters (see the next article), and certain elements of intellectual and moral culture and religious beliefs. (The connection of Chinese culture with that of ancient Babylonia has been suggested but not proved.)

The Ruler and the Sage confront us in the earliest records of the nation; the Ruler to govern the people, and the Sage or Man of Intelligence to assist and advise him, and spread abroad among them the lessons of truth and duty. It is said in a document of the 18th century B.C., 'Heaven gives birth to the people with such desires that without a Ruler they will fall into all disorders, and heaven again gives birth to the Man of Intelligence to

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regulate them.' Thus the sovereign and the sage are both the ordinances of heaven; and it has been the rule in the various stages of the nation's history that officers of the government should possess whatever educational culture its institutions could supply. The same written character (shih) serves to designate both a scholar and an officer, and of the four classes of the people, scholars or officers, agriculturists, mechanics, and merchants,' the first has always been held to be the head.' Even in the feudal times the system of examinations for the selection of the officials existed in a rudimentary state, though it was not till our 7th century that it began to assume its present form, open to all, excepting 'monks, play-actors, and menial servants.'

This competitive system, as now existing with all the necessary machinery, is organised in three principal gradations-the provincial, the metropolitan, and the palace examinations. The students of each province who have attained at the district examinations to the style of Hsiú Ts'ai, or 'men of talent,' assemble at the provincial capital,

where as a rule every third year special examiners from Peking conduct the examination for the degree of Chü (Ku) jan, or 'men for promotion,' which perhaps three in a thousand of them may obtain, and which entitles them to some minor appointments. To take the third degree of Ts'in shih, or 'men to be presented to the emperor,' the successful Chu-jan from all the provinces must proceed to the metropolis, perhaps about six thousand in all, and there, also as a rule triennially, pass a test examination, the successful candidates at which then go in for the palace examination, conducted within the precincts of the imperial palace itself; after which the lists are published in three classes, the first being a tripos of the three best men, who become for the time the heroes of the day. They and a proportion of the others are admitted to the ranks of the members of the Han-lin, the Forest of Pencils,' or 'Grand Academy of Literature.' The remainder receive appointments in the provinces or at the capital, according as vacancies occur. Such is an outline, as large as our space will allow, of the competitive system of examina

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A Chinese School when the master has gone out (Peking). (From a Chinese Picture.)

tions by which the government of China seeks to secure the ablest men of the empire for its service. The examinations are testing and fairly conducted. The subjects are taken from the literature of the country itself. There are already indications not a few that the system will undergo the modifications made necessary by the new relations with other countries which have arisen in our own time; mathematics became a subject of examination in 1888. The system has tended to impress the people with the value of education; but it must not be supposed that as a whole they are highly educated. Everywhere indeed there are primary schools, not governmental, but maintained by the people themselves. A smattering of education is widely diffused; but apart from the official classes, those who can read freely or write readily are few.

The three religions of China are Confucianism, Tâoism, and Buddhism. Most writers represent the first not so much as a religion, but as a morality; but there always underlies its teachings a recognition of the religion which prevailed in the country from the most ancient times-the belief of a Supreme Power, expressed at first by the name 'Heaven,' which soon came to be desig nated also by the personal names Ti, 'the Ruler,'

and Shang-T, 'the Supreme Ruler.' The state worship of Heaven or God was, and still is, confined to the sovereign as the father and priest of the people. The will of God is to be learned from the moral principles of man's nature. Government is ordained by God for the good of the people, and as soon as a sovereign ceases to seek that good and his rule is antagonistic to it, he has forfeited his title to the throne; and thus it is that the changes of dynasty are always referred to as 'the will of Heaven,' and the sovereign professes to be such by the grace of God.' Associated with the worship of Heaven or God, there was the worship of heaven and earth and the powers of nature, but only as subordinate to God and fulfilling His will for the good of men; and also of distinguished men, as having by their discoveries and achievements defended, benefited, and blessed the people of their own and future times. There was also common to their sovereign and all the people the worship of their ancestors. This last was and is considered as an expression of filial piety, the perpetuation of the duty which every one owes to his parents-the first and chief of all virtues.' On this Confucius laid great stress, endeavouring to develop all other virtues from it.

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