But the loneliness of the missionary in Chining-chou is great, for he is far from congenial companionship. The tragedies of life are particularly heavy at such an isolated post. Mr. Laughlin showed me the house where his wife's body lay for a month after her death in May, 1899. Then, with his nine-year old daughter, he took the body in a house-boat down the Grand Canal to Chin-kiang, a journey of sixteen days. What a heart-breaking journey it must have been as the clumsy boat crept slowly along the sluggish canal and the silent stars looked down on the lonely husband beside the coffin of his beloved wife. Yet he bravely returned to Chining-chou and while I travelled on, he remained with only Dr. Lyon for a companion. I was sorry to part with them for we had shared many long-to-be-remembered experiences, while at that time there was believed to be no small risk in remaining at such an isolated post. But Dr. Johnson and I had to go, and so early on the morning of June 17, we bade the brave fellows an affectionate good-bye and left them in that far interior city, standing at the East Gate till we were out of sight.
Fortunately, the day was fine for rain would have made the flat, black soil almost impassible. But as it was, we had a comfortable, dustless ride of sixty li to Yen-chou-fu, a city of unusually massive walls, whose 60,000 people are reputed to be the most fiercely anti-foreign in Shantung. Comparatively few foreigners had been seen in this region and many of them had been mobbed. The Roman Catholic priests, who are the only missionaries here, have repeatedly been attacked, while an English traveller was also savagely assaulted by these turbulent conservatives. But the Roman Catholics with characteristic determination fought it out, the German consul coming from Peking to support them, and at the time of my visit, they were building a splendid church, the money like that for the Chining-chou cathedral, coming from the indemnity for the murder of the two priests in 1897, which was in this diocese. Though great crowds stared silently at us, no disrespect was shown. On the contrary, we found that by order of the district magistrate an inn had been specially prepared for us, with a plentiful supply of rugs and cushions and screens, while a few minutes after our arrival, the magistrate sent with his compliments a feast of twenty-five dishes. Another stage of nine miles brought us at four o'clock to the famous holy city of China, Ku-fu, the home and the grave of Confucius.
Leaving our shendzas at an inn, we mounted the cavalry horses of our escort and hurried to the celebrated temple which stands on the site of Confucius' house. But to our keen disappointment, the massive gates were closed. The keeper, in response to our knocks, peered through a crevice, and explained that it was the great feast of the fifth day of the fifth month, that the Duke was offering sacrifices, and that no one, not even officials, could enter till the sacrifices were completed. ``When will that be?'' we queried. ``They will continue all night and all day to-morrow,'' was the reply. We urged the shortness of our stay and solemnly promised to keep out of the Duke's way. The keeper's eyes watered as he imagined a present, but he replied that he did not dare let us in as his orders were strict and disobedience might cost him his position if not his life. So we sorrowfully turned away, and pushing through the dense throng which had swiftly assembled at the sight of a foreigner, we rode through the city and along the far- famed Spirit Road to the Most Holy Grove in which lies the body of Confucius. It is three li, about a mile, from the city gate. The road is shaded by ancient cedars and is called the Spirit Road because the spirit of Confucius is believed to walk back and forth upon it by night.
The famous cemetery is in three parts. The outer is said to be fifteen miles in circumference and is the burial-place of all who bear the honoured name of Confucius. Within, there is a smaller enclosure of about ten acres, which is the family burial place of the dukes who are lineal descendants of Confucius, mighty men who rank with the proudest governors of provinces. Within this second enclosure, is the Most Holy Cemetery itself, a plot of about two acres, shaded like the others by fine old cedars and cypresses. Here are only three graves, marked by huge mounds under which lie the dust of Confucius, his son and his grandson. That of the Sage, we estimated to be twenty-five feet high and 250 feet in circumference. In front of it is a stone monument about fifteen feet high, four feet wide and sixteen inches thick. Lying prone before that is another stone of nearly the same size supported by a heavy stone pedestal. There is no name, but on the upright monument are Chinese characters which Dr. Charles Johnson, my travelling companion, translated: ``The Acme of Perfection and Learning- Promoting King,'' or more freely—``The Most Illustrious Sage and Princely Teacher.''
Uncut grass and weeds grew rankly upon the mounds and all over the cemetery, giving everything an unkempt appearance. One species is said to grow nowhere else in China and to have such magical power in interpreting truth that if a leaf is laid upon an abstruse passage of Confucius, the meaning will immediately become clear. There are several small buildings in the enclosure, but dust and decay reign in all, for there is no merit in repairing a building that some one else has erected. As with his house, the Chinese will spend money freely to build a temple, but after that he does nothing. So even in the most sacred places, arches and walls and columns are usually crumbling, grounds are dirty and pavement stones out of place.
A feeling of awe came over me as I remembered that, with the possible exception of Buddha, the man whose dust lay before me had probably influenced more human beings than any other man whom the world has seen. Even Christ Himself has thus far not been known to so many people as Confucius, nor has any nation in which Christ is known so thoroughly accepted His teachings as China has accepted those of Confucius. Dr. Legge indeed declares that ``after long study of his character and opinions, I am unable to regard him as a great man,'' while Dr. Gibson ``seeks in vain in his recorded life and words for the secret of his power,'' and can only conjecture in explanation that ``he is for all time the typical Chinaman; but his greatness lies in his displaying the type on a grand scale, not in creating it.'' But it is difficult even for the non-Chinese mind to look at such a man with unbiassed eyes. Surely we need not begrudge the meed of greatness to one who has moulded so many hundreds of millions of human beings for 2,400 years and who is more influential at the end of that period than at its beginning. Grant that ``he is for all time the typical Chinaman.'' Could a small man have incarnated ``for all time'' the spirit of one-third of the human race? All over China the evidences of Confucius' power can be seen. Temples rise on every hand. Ancestral tablets adorn every house. The writings of the sage are diligently studied by the whole population. When, centuries ago, a jealous Emperor ruthlessly burned the Confucian books, patient scholars reproduced them, and to prevent a recurrence of such iconoclastic fury, the Great Confucian Temple and the Hall of Classics in Peking were erected and the books were inscribed on long rows of stone monuments so that they could never be destroyed again. As a token of the present attitude of the Imperial family, the Emperor once in a decade proceeds in solemn state to this temple and enthroned there expounds a passage of the sacred writings. For more than two millenniums, the boys of the most numerous people in the world have committed to memory the Confucian primer which declares that ``affection between father and son, concord between husband and wife, kindness on the part of the elder brother and deference on the part of the younger, order between seniors and juniors, sincerity between friends and associates, respect on the part of the ruler and loyalty on that of the minister—these are the ten righteous courses equally binding on all men;'' that ``the five regular constituents of our moral nature are benevolence, righteousness, propriety, knowledge, and truth;'' and that ``the five blessings are long life wealth, tranquillity, desire for virtue and a natural death.''
Surely these are noble principles. That their influence has been beneficial in many respects, it would be folly to deny. They have lifted the Chinese above the level of many other Asiatic nations by creating a more stable social order, by inculcating respect for parents and rulers, and by so honouring the mother that woman has a higher position in China than in most other non-Christian lands.
And yet Confucianism has been and is the most formidable obstacle to the regeneration of China. While it teaches some great truths, it ignores others that are vital. It has lifted the Chinese above the level of barbarism only to fix them almost immovably upon a plane considerably lower than Christianity. It has developed such a smug satisfaction with existing conditions that millions are well-nigh impervious to the influences of the modern world. It has debased respect for parents into a blind worship of ancestors so that a dead father, who may have been an ignorant and vicious man, takes the place of the living and righteous God. It has fostered not only premature marriages but concubinage in the anxiety to have sons who will care for parents in age and minister to them after death. It makes the child virtually a slave to the caprice or passion of the parent. It leads to a reverence for the past that makes change a disrespect to the dead, so that all progress is made exceedingly difficult and society becomes fossilized. ``Whatever is is right'' and ``custom'' is sacred. Man is led so to centralize his thought on his own family that he becomes selfish and provincial in spirit and conduct, with no outlook beyond his own narrow sphere. Expenditures which the poor can ill- afford are remorselessly exacted for the maintenance of ancestral worship so that the living are often impoverished for the sake of the dead. $151,752,000 annually, ancestral worship is said to cost—a heavy drain upon a people the majority of whom spend their lives in the most abject poverty, while the development of true patriotism and a strong and well-governed State has been effectively prevented by making the individual solicitous only for his own family and callously indifferent to the welfare of his country. Confucianism therefore is China's weakness as well as China's strength, the foe of all progress, the stagnation of all life.
Confucianism, too, halts on the threshold of life's profoundest problems. It has only dead maxims for the hour of deepest need. It gives no vision of a future beyond the grave. It is virtually an agnostic code of morals with some racial variations. Wu Ting Fang, formerly Chinese Minister to the United States, frankly declares that ``Confucianism is not a religion in the practical sense of the word,'' and that ``Confucius would be called an agnostic in these days.'' To ``the Venerable Teacher'' himself, philosophy opened no door of hope. Asked about this one day by a troubled inquirer, he dismissed the question with the characteristic aphorism— ``Imperfectly acquainted with life, how can we know death?'' And there the myriad millions of Confucianists have dully stood ever since, their faces towards the dead past, the future a darkness out of which no voice comes.
But just because their illustrious guide took them to the verge of the dark unknown and left them there, other teachers came in to occupy the region left so invitingly open. Less rational than Confucius, their success showed anew that the human mind cannot rest in a spiritual vacuum and that if faith does not enter, superstition will. Taoism and Buddhism proceeded to people the air and the future with strange and awful shapes. Popular Chinese belief as to the future is gruesomely illustrated in the Temple of Horrors in Canton with its formidable collection of wooden figures illustrating the various modes of punishment—sawing, decapitation, boiling in oil, covering with a hot bell, etc. At funerals, bits of perforated paper are freely scattered about in the hope that the inquisitive spirits will stop to examine them and thus give the body a chance to pass. In any Chinese cemetery, one may see little tables in front of the graves covered with tea, sweetmeats and sheets of gilt and silver paper, so that if a spirit is hungry, thirsty or in need of funds, it can get drink, food or money from the gold or silver mines (paper).