r his grave, and he received a homage little removed from
worship. His writings became a sacred rule of faith and practice;
schools were based upon them, and scholars devoted themselves to their
interpretation. For two thousand years Confucius has reigned
supreme,--the undisputed teacher of a population of three or four
hundred millions.

Confucius must be regarded as a man of great humility, conscious of
infirmities and faults, but striving after virtue and perfection. He
said of himself, "I have striven to become a man of perfect virtue, and
to teach others without weariness; but the character of the superior
man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what I have not
attained to. I am not one born in the possession of knowledge, but I am
one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there. I am a
transmitter, and not a maker." If he did not lay claim to divine
illumination, he felt that he was born into the world for a special
purpose; not to declare new truths, not to initiate any new ceremony,
but to confirm what he felt was in danger of being lost,--the most
conservative of all known reformers.

Confucius left behind voluminous writings, of which his Analects, his
book of Poetry, his book of History, and his Rules of Propriety are the
most important. It is these which are now taught, and have been taught
for two thousand years, in the schools and colleges of China. The
Chinese think that no man so great and perfect as he has ever lived. His
writings are held in the same veneration that Christians attach to their
own sacred literature. There is this one fundamental difference between
the authors of the Bible and the Chinese sage,--that he did not like to
talk of spiritual things; indeed, of them he was ignorant, professing no
interest in relation to the working out of abstruse questions, either of
philosophy or theology. He had no taste or capacity for such inquiries.
Hence, he did not aspire to throw any new light on the great problems of
human condition and destiny; nor did he speculate, like the Ionian
philosophers, on the creation or end of things. He was not troubled
about the origin or destiny of man. He meddled neither with physics nor
metaphysics, but he earnestly and consistently strove to bring to light
and to enforce those principles which had made remote generations wise
and virtuous. He confined his attention to outward phenomena,--to the
world of sense and matter; to forms, prece