on sufficient data, the proposal of the former to "judge of the tree by its fruits" is nothing more than reasonable; and if we do this we shall certainly find the condition of the Chinese people to be "wholly inconsistent with the hypothesis of a very bad government, or a very vicious state of society."

CHAPTER IV.

RELIGION AND LITERATURE.

THE religion of the early Chinese was in all probability Sabæism; but it seems unquestionable that, in very remote periods, they possessed a knowledge of some superior power beyond and above the material heavens. This power is supposed by some to have been merely the peculiar god of the sovereign, from whom alone he received ceremonial worship; but in later times, and up to the present day, the mystic teen, or overruling providence, could in like manner be addressed only by the emperor or deputies appointed by him. This is in perfect accordance with the patriarchal system. The head of the family was the high priest as well as king. He was the link of communication with the Deity, and the mediator between God and man. To interfere with this spiritual duty of the emperor was an usurpation of his authority, and was denounced as impious, and punished

like temporal rebellion; but the inferior objects of worship, such as the stars and the demons, which might influence but could not determine the destinies of man, might receive the services of meaner ministers, and to these was accorded a regular priesthood.

But the patriarchal system gave rise to another peculiarity, which may be said to be the grand distinguishing feature of Chinese religion. The head of the family, set apart by this intimate and special communion with heaven during his life, did not perish in the grave like ordinary mortals. He was transferred to a higher ministry above, and the domestic priest and king received worship from his descendants as a god. Men may be wicked or irreligious; they may neglect the temples, or -worst crime of all-plot against the emperor; but no Chinese is so desperately depraved as to omit the religious rites due to his ancestors. The displeasure of the manes, not the anger of Heaven, is the consideration which upholds innocence, and gives terror to remorse; and even the convert to another faith transplants, as it were, his household gods to the new heaven of his worship.

Heaven, Earth, and the Ancestors are the three great objects of adoration; and after them, held in greater or less esteem, are Confucius; the inventors of agriculture and silk; the spirits of heaven, and the gods of the earth; the god of the current year; the worthies of antiquity; the stars, clouds, rain, and winds; the five mountains upon which the ancients sacrificed; the ocean, rivers, hills, and streams; the high roads; the god of artillery; the god of the gate; the goddess of the soil; the north pole, or the north star; and the deities who preside over the protection of the frontiers. The spiritual dominion of the emperor extends over the whole of this secondary class, and he assigns rank or takes it away; and at the prayer

of his subjects grants a patent of canonization to those they delight to honour.

But the same etiquette, unless when regulated by special edicts, prevails in the spiritual and in the temporal world; and when a great mandarin lodges in a temple, he orders down those images which represent personages inferior to himself in rank. It would thus seem that the inferior gods of the Chinese are objects of respect more than of divine worship. With the genii of external nature they mingle the spirits of public benefactors; but above them all they place their own ancestors. The two former are certainly not higher than the catholic saints; and as for heaven and earth, they are the concern of the emperor, who alone has the right to adore them, or employ others to adore them in his stead.

What, then, is the religion of the Chinese? The worship of heaven is a court pageant, which the people neither understand nor affect to understand; while their ancestors, although the objects of devout respect, are certainly not deities, since they depend upon the pious sacrifices of their children for subsistence. As for the altars the more ignorant set up near the tablet of ancestors, with representations of genii, dragons, serpents, &c., these are merely the symbols adopted by the uninformed classes in all circumstances, to bring within their grasp the more poetical superstitions of their superiors.

We are frequently told of the Confucian religion: but such a religion has no existence, there is no such thing. Confucius was a teacher of morals, not a promulgator of new creeds. He adopted the religion he found, because it was the existing religion,—the religion of his ancestors; but so far from boasting of any higher knowledge of the invisible world, he says as little about it as possible. He

advises men to pay the customary respect to gods, demons, and genii, but at the same time not to trouble themselves too much about them; and he throws out some hints that they themselves are merely spirits confined in a grosser element, and will one day mingle with the great soul of the universe. When asked by one of his disciples how he was to serve spiritual beings, he replied, "Not being able to serve men, how can you serve spirits?" And when questioned further about the dead, his answer was-" Not knowing the state of the living, how can you know anything about the dead?" Men, in fact, at least such of them as have attained to high distinction as sages, are placed above all inferior objects of worship, and next to heaven and earth, with which they form a triad of equally divided power. Confucius himself was of course one of these sages; and at this day, it is said, he has upwards of one thousand fivehundred and sixty temples, in which sixty-two thousand six hunded and six animals are immolated, and twentyseven thousand six hundred pieces of silk presented every year to his manes at the expense of government, besides the countless oblations of private individuals.

The Chinese writings are not wanting in those sublime thoughts upon which even the rudest nations have stumbled, when groping in intellectual darkness after the Unknown God:-that Light which, whether a tradition of the early world or an innate idea, has been sought for in all ages, and in all parts of the heavens, either by the love or fear of mankind. But the religion, as actually practised, is merely a gorgeous ceremonial of sacrifices and oblations in honour of some idol or of the spirit it represents. These must be made either personally or vicariously by the emperor, and the people are mere spectators. The Roman Catholic superstition, though