File:The Middle Kingdom - a survey of the geography, government, education, social life, arts, and history of the Chinese Empire and its inhabitants (1913) (14764341672).jpg

Identifier: middlekingdomsur01will (find matches)
Title: The Middle Kingdom : a survey of the geography, government, education, social life, arts, and history of the Chinese Empire and its inhabitants
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Williams, S. Wells (Samuel Wells), 1812-1884
Subjects: China
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Evangelists.Their freedom from descriptions of impurity and licentiousness,and alhisions to whatever debases and vitiates the heart, is aredeeming quality of the Chinese classics which should not beoverlooked. Chinese literature contains enough, indeed, to pol-lute even the mind of a heathen, but its scum has become thesediment; and little or nothing can be found in the writingsthat are most highly prized which will not bear perusal by anyperson in any country. Every one acquainted with the writingsof Hindu, Greek, and Koman poets knows the glowing de-scriptions of the amours of gods and goddesses which fill theirpages, and the purity of the Chinese canonical books in thisrespect must be considered as remarkable. For the most part the Chinese, in worshipping Confucius, con-tent themselves with erecting a simple tablet in his honor; tocarve imaiires for the cult of the sage is uncommon. The inci-dent represented in the adjoining wood-cut illustrates, however, WOKSHIP OF CONFUCIUS. 665
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Worship of Confucius and his Disciples. 666 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM. an exception to tlie prevailing severit)- of this worship. A cer-tain Wei Ki, a scholar living in the Tang dynasty (a.d. 657), notcontent, it is said, with giving instruction in the classics, set npthe life-size statues of Confucius and his seventy-two disciplesin order to incite the enthusiasm of his own pupils. Into thissanctuary of the divinities of learning were wont to come thesavant AYei and his scholars—among whom were numheredhoth his grandfather and several of his grandchildren—to pros-trate themselves before the ancient worthies. But of his de-scendants, concludes the chronicler, there were many whoarose to positions of eminence in the State. The last of the Fonr Books is nearly as large as the otherthree nnited, and consists entirely of the writings of Mencius,Mang tsz, or Mang fu-tsz, as he is called by the Chinese.This sage flourished npward of a century after the death of hismaster, and although, in esti

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