Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1886 — The Religious Confucius. [ARTICLE]

The Religious Confucius.

While reverencing an unseen divinb power, Confucius yet never spoke of it as personal. He believed in spirits conformed of ceremonies, and did not check special praverS. Once, when sick, his friends asked that prayers should be made for his recovery. “Is that,” said he, “tho proper thing to do?” “It is so set down,” they answered, in the sacred book, ‘Address vour prayers,’ ” etc. He then uttered this memorable sentence: “The prayer of Confucius is constant.” Men observed that he sacrificed to the dead as if they were present; yet he evaded all questions concerning them. “Shall we serve tho spirits of the dead?” they asked; his answer was: “If you can not serve men, how will you serve spirits?" “I venture to ask about death,” said a disciple. “You know nothing about life, how can you know anything about death?” “Have the dead knowledge?” still urged the eager student. “You need not know whether they have or not,” said the master; “there is no hurry, hereafter you shall know.” “He ,taught,” we read elsewhere, “letters, morals, devotion of soul, and sincerity of heart,' bnt all mysterious occurrences—feats of dexterity, abnormal states, and the existence of spiritual beings, he shrank from discussing.” Yet the instant the sphere of practice was touched the trumpet gave no uncertain sound: “Without obeying the ordinances of heavens (i. e., the moral law j it is impossible to be a superior man.” “He who sins against heaven, to whom can he pray?” “No man knows me. Ido not complain; heaven alone knows me.” This is the nearest approach I find to the recognition of a personal God, and it does not amount even by monotheism as taught by Moses.— Good Wordx.