s, which taught
nothing of a future life, was a preparation for Christianity; if, as the
early Christian Fathers asserted, Greek philosophy was also schoolmaster
to bring men to Christ; who can doubt that the truth and purity in the
teachings of Confucius were providentially intended to lead this great
nation in the right direction? Confucius is a Star in the East, to lead
his people to Christ. One of the most authentic of his sayings is this,
that "in the West the true Saint must be looked for and found." He has a
perception, such as truly great men have often had, of some one higher
than himself, who was to come after him. We cannot doubt, therefore, that
God, who forgets none of his children, has given this teacher to the
swarming millions of China to lead them on till they are ready for a
higher light. And certainly the temporal prosperity and external virtues
of this nation, and their long-continued stability amid the universal
changes of the world, are owing in no small decree to the lessons of
reverence for the past, of respect for knowledge, of peace and order, and
especially of filial piety, which he inculcated. In their case, if in no
other, has been fulfilled the promise of the divine commandment, "Honor
thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the
Lord thy God giveth thee."

In comparing the system of Confucius with Christianity, it appears at once
that Christianity differs from this system, as from most others, in its
greater completeness. Jesus says to the Chinese philosopher, as he said to
the Jewish law, "I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil." He fulfils
the Confucian reverence for the past by adding hope for the future; he
fulfils its stability by progress, its faith in man with faith in God, its
interest in this world with the expectation of another, its sense of time
with that of eternity. Confucius aims at peace, order, outward prosperity,
virtue, and good morals. All this belongs also to Christianity, but
Christianity adds a moral enthusiasm, a faith in the spiritual world, a
hope of immortal life, a sense of the Fatherly presence of God. So that
here, as before, we find that Christianity does not exclude other
religions, but includes them, and is distinguished by being deeper,
higher, broader, and more far-reaching than they.

A people with such institutions and such a social life as we have
described cannot be despised, and to call them uncivilized is as absurd i