Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 242, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1913 — RELIGION OF CHINESE [ARTICLE]

RELIGION OF CHINESE

Is Not Worship but Merely a System of Ethics. Islamism Is an Exception—Moslems In Republic Are Very Numerous and Devout —Faith in Their Belief Is Strong In Them. Peking, China. —The great majority of the Chinese are Confucianists. They follow the ethical teachings of Confucius, the great sage of China, who lived from 650 to 477 doctrine of Confucius' deals with man’s relations to man, and not with his relations or responsibilities to I God. It can therefore not be considered a religion, but a system of ethics. The true follovKrs of Confuslus can properly be said to be irreligious, using the vgprd in its best sense. Besides the doctrines of the' sage most Confucianists have religious notions, borrowed-either from the Buddhist or Taoist religions, or from both. These religious notions do not tend to become convictions Influencing the lives of the believers nor to bind them together in religious communities. Worship, with the great majority -of the Chinese, Is an Individual matter. Ofie does not see people gather together in the temples for ensemble worship. This condition of affairs accounts In part for the strange Indifference which the Chinese show toward their own religious systems. There are very few fervent Confuslanists, Taoists or Buddhists. The vast majority of the Chinese do not take religion seriously. j In this respect the Chinese Mohammedans present a striking contrast to the rest of their fellow countrymen. Excepting the Christians they seem to be the only Chinese who are conscious of having a religion and whose lives are shaped by religious convictions. Tftey stand more or less apart and aloof from the rest of the Chinese. Firm in their conviction that they alone know the true God they despise their Idol worshipers. Mapy Chlnese? especially those who have been educated, are ashamed to admit that they have any religious convictions. The Mohammedans, on the contrary, affirm with pride their adherence to the doctrines of the prophet An American professor In the Chinese government university tells of an incident which illustrates the frank and courageous way in which the Chinese Mohammedans profess their faith. The professor in question was conducting a recitation in western history.' The topic of the day was the rise and spread of Islam. The professor asked one of the students to state the leading features of the Mohammedann religion. The student made a good recitation and enumerated the elements of strength in the Islamic faith. The professor then asked the student to point out some of the faults and weaknesses of this religion. The student answered firmly but respectfully, “I know of none; I am a Mohammedan.” Needless to say the professor marked the recitation perfect. In the same class of fifty students the Mohammedan was the only one who was willing to admit that he had any religious convictions. . The fidelity of the Chinese Moslems to their religion and the proud and manly way In which they profess their faith are refreshing to any one familiar with the indifference and callousness which the average Chinese manifests towards all things spiritual. Mohammedanism tn China dates from the year 757 A. D., when the emperor Hsuan Tsung of the Tang dynasty invited 4,000 Arabs to come to his assistance in a war against the Turks. By the assistance cWthe Arabs the emperor was able to recover his two capitals, Sianfu and Honanfu, and to drive the enemy back to their home on the northwest frontier. The Arab troops, who had probably come from some garrison on the frontier of Turkestan, never returned home, but remainned in China, settling at Sianfu, where they married Chinese wives and thus became the nucleus of Mohammedanism In China. This Mohammedan colony not only maintained Itself, but grew rapidly and became the parent of other Mohammedan colonies in western China. These colonists were greatly inereased after the conquests of Jenghis Khan had opened up a highway between the east and the west. His successors Ogotal and Kublal Khan were Probably the most tolerant rulers of their age. During their reigns a flood

of Mohammedans of all kinds, Arabs, Persians, Bokhariots and Turks took advantage of the hospitality of the Mongol rulers and settled in the leading cities of China. These Immigrants mixed with the Arab colonists of the eighth century and 1 thus formed a body of believers whose descendants today number some 10,000,000 souls.