The childhood of religions

'The Five King' are the five canonical works, containing the truths upon the highest subjects from the sages of China, and which should be received as law by all generations. The term shoo simply means 'writings' or 'books.' ('The Chinese Classics, vol. i., p. 1.) The Five King are the Yih, or 'Book of Changes; the Shoo, or 'Book of Historical Documents;' the She, or Book of Poetry;' the Le-Ke, or 'Record of Rites;' and the Ch'un Ts'ew or 'Spring and Autumn,' annals extending from B.C. 721 to 480.

Confucius made some additions to the Yih, Shoo and She, but the Ch'un Ts'ew is the only one of the Five King which can, with an approximation to correctness, be described as of his own 66 making."

The four books are the Lun Yu, occupied chiefly with the sayings of Confucius; the T'a Heo, or Great Learning,' by Tsang-Sin, a disciple of Confucius; the Chung Yung or 'Doctrine of the Mean' (these three works will be found fully analysed in the first vol. of Legge's Chinese Classics') and the Works of Mencius, the 'Master's' most illustrious disciple. 'After the death of Confucius, there was an end of his exquisite words; and when his seventy disciples had passed away, violence began to be done to their meaning.' So runs the ancient chronicle, from which we further learn that to keep the people in ignorance the courtiers persuaded the Emperors of the Ts'in dynasty (B.C. 220-205) to burn the sacred books and the writings of the philosophers, and to slaughter a large number of scholars for keeping copies of the forbidden books. But when the Emperors of the Han dynasty came to the throne they set themselves to repair the loss, and by great effort succeeded in recovering the ancient literature, since which 'the successive dynasties have considered the literary monuments of the country to be an object of their special care,' and Dr Legge is satisfied that the

evidence is complete that the classical books of China have come down from at least a century before the Christian era, substantially the same as we have them at present.

See Legge's Life and Teachings of Confucius,' 10s. 6d. ; Ib. 'Works of Mencius,' 12s.; Ib. 'Chinese Classics,' £16, 16s, (Trübner); Freeman Clarke's 'Ten Great Religions (Trübner, 14s.); and the works of Archdeacon Hardwick, Doolittle, Meadows, &c.

The mere recital of the names of the sacred books which has filled the larger portion of these Notes indicates how impossible it is within the limits of a single life to acquire full knowledge of the book-religions of the world alone. And when we remember how hard it is to understand the nature of the doctrinal differences which divide Christendom into many sects, and to master the meaning of the technical terms of the separate organizations, we must not wonder if we fail to discern clearly the salient features of religions in the study of which these difficulties are multiplied a thousand-fold. But one thing we surely cannot fail to learn: the lesson of a larger charity towards all.

INDEX.