KINGS AND SHOO.
The Chinese have varions sacred books, the principal of which are the
Five Kings. They have also four Holy Books, known as Shoo, and one
called Tao-te, though the word King is a term applied to all their
sacred books. Some of these Holy Bibles are attributed to Confucius, one
of them (Ta-heo, the Great Learning) to his grandson, and others to his
disciples. Some of the sects recognize thirteen Kings, or sacred books,
others only seven, and the principal sect but five. Some of these
Holy Books bear a resemblance to the Christian Gospels, others to the
Epistles; and one of them bears a considerable resemblance to Paul's
Epistle to the Hebrews. They are believed to be divinely inspired;
and all are regarded as authority in matters of faith, doctrine, and
practice. All of them inculcate virtue, and condemn vice and immorality.
I will present merely a brief exposition of a few of the leading books.
I. TA-HEO; OR, GREAT LEARNING.
This book forms the basis of the religious sect known as the Tao-ists.
It treats principally of doctrines, but enjoins many important
duties,--such as family government, the cultivation of the natural
faculties, the acquisition of knowledge, the duty of being honest and
sincere and rectifying the heart, and the moral obligation of having
good rulers and a righteous government as means of making all peaceful
and happy.
II. THE CHUNG YUNG; OR, THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN.
This book contains the Golden Rule: "What you do not like others to
do to you, do not so to them." It recommends a state of harmony in the
mental faculties as the path of duty and the road to happiness and to
heaven. It teaches that people should follow the dictates of their
own consciences, and cultivate and fully develop their natures. On the
whole, it admonishes a system of moral perfection. It declares that
spiritual beings are constantly around us, and we do nothing without
them, though we do not see nor hear them. Pretty good spiritualism!
III. THE BOOK OF MANG, OF MENCIUS.
Mang, or Mencius, the philosopher, lived about two hundred years after
Confucius. This Holy Book of his was not admitted into the Chinese canon
till several centuries after it was written. Up to that date it was
regarded as apocryphal, but is now held in high veneration as an
inspired book. It affirms the essential goodness of human nature,
instead of the Christian doctrine of "total depravity." It teaches that
all men are possessed of more or less goodness by nature, but are often
corrupted by bad example and bad governments. It argues the moral right
of the people to choose their own rulers.
IV. SHOO KING; OR, BOOK OF HISTORY.
This work is constituted of fifty-eight books. It throws much light on
the history of the Chinese Empire, and bears evidence of having been
written in a very remote age, but was compiled about 500 B.C. It
argues that people are not bad by nature, and that it is the duty of
governments to bless the good and punish the wicked. Otherwise they
need not expect the blessing of heaven, or the favor of the people.
It relates the case of an emperor who was reformed by reading the Holy
Book.
V. THE SHE KING; OR, BOOK OF POETRY.
This book is about as devoid of moral instruction as the Books of Ruth
and Esther in the Christian Bible. It is principally a display of human
emotions and social feelings. Yet almost every Chinese has committed
portions of it to memory. Being gotten up in the style of a poem, it is
well calculated to enlist the feelings of the devout disciple.
VI. THE CHUN TSEN; OR, SPRING AND SUMMER.
This is principally a historical record, and is interpreted as
representing spring and summer. It is held in high estimation as being
the production of the "Great Divine Man," Confucius; and it is wonderful
with what ingenuity its commentators and teachers have succeeded in
extracting from its dry details about wars, marriages, deaths, travels,
eclipses, battles, &c., the most profound lessons in morals. Like the
admirers and expounders of other Holy Books in all ages and countries,
they bestow the most recondite spiritual meanings on texts containing
nothing but nonsense, senseless verbiage, or immoral teachings.
VII. THE TAO-TE KING; OR, DOCTRINE OF REASON.
"Tao" means _absolute_, and "Te" means _virtue_; which indicates that
it teaches _absolute virtue_. Of all sacred books this is the most
philosophical. It seems to constitute both a revelation and system of
philosophy. It displays considerable wisdom and beauty, but is not free
from those gross and repulsive elements which characterize the Christian
and some other Bibles. It declares that God created, cherishes, and
loves all the world. It has no angry God, but one enjoining love and
benevolence, and the return of good for evil, upon all the human race.
It declares God made all beings: his essence formed them, his might
preserves them, his providence protects them, and his power perfects
them. It condemns war and weapons of death: it says that Tao does
not employ them, and all good men abhor them. It also condemns the
possession of worldly wealth as being in opposition to a spiritual
life, and as denoting the absence of good from the soul. Modesty, mercy,
benevolence, and contentment are recommended as the highest of human
virtues. An extensive commentary, written by a Chinese saint about 160
B.C., goes with this book to explain it, as all "divine revelations"
have to be revealed over again by the priests, who seem to assume that
Infinite Wisdom is too ignorant of human language to dictate a book that
can be understood. Must it not be mortifying to him to have his blunders
thus exposed?
ANALOGY OF THE CHINESE AND JEWISH RELIGIONS.
The Christian historian, Mr. Milne, expressed a fear that he might be
condemned for furnishing proof, that, before Jesus was born, a morality
as pure was inculcated in the celestial empire (China). As in the
Hindoo, Egyptian, and Persian religions, we find the Jewish and
Christian religions here amalgamated together. The Chinese had a
cosmogony, or story of creation similar in some respects to those
already noticed. These sacred books speak of a primitive paradise, in
which was a tree of knowledge and a tree of life; also of a deluge and
an ark. Baptism, the cross, and the miter are emblematical rites of
their religion. They also taught the doctrine of the eucharist and the
trinity, and practiced circumcision.
The Chinese have a story or tradition of an incarnate God, Natigai,
who, like Christ, was both creator and mediator. His system of religious
faith taught the doctrine of special providences, future rewards
and punishments, a general judgment-day, the duty of humility or
self-abasement, and the moral and religious obligation to observe strict
temperate habits, and to devote our whole lives to God, &c.
The Chinese religion inculcates many beautiful and sublime moral
precepts, which we have not space to notice here.
The historical books of China, comprising a hundred and fifty volumes,
and called "The Great Annals," and recently translated by a scientific
Frenchman, have a regular chronology, beginning nearly two thousand six
hundred years before the period assigned for the creation of Adam. And
they have calculations in astronomy at that remote period. The learned
men of Europe have decided that they made the calculation of an eclipse
about seven hundred years before the time of Moses. These facts are
sufficient to prove the existence of their religion long anterior to the
time of Adam.
CONCLUDING INFERENCE.
In addition to the facts and authorities we have cited to show that the
Hindoo, Egyptian, Persian, and Chinese religions were all established
prior to that of the Jews, there are other facts which demonstrate the
absolute impossibility of any of these religions obtaining any of their
religious elements or doctrines from the Jews.
1. We find both the Jewish and Christian doctrine interwoven into
each one of those Oriental systems. Hence, if they borrowed one, they
borrowed both. But that is impossible: for the Christian system is known
to be much younger.
2. Those Oriental religions are all conservative in character; so that
there has been scarcely any perceptible change in their doctrines during
the thousands of years of their known existence. Hence their very nature
would preclude them from borrowing any new doctrines.
3. On the contrary, the Jewish mind has been very vacillating. A
disposition to change their religion has been constantly manifested
through their whole history. Such facts as these settle the question.