40 in the Empire was erected, and here at the capital, with imposing ceremony, the Emperor officiated in person." Even here, however, ancestors and the spirits of the heavenly bodies shared in the honors. Not only are the Chinese eclectic, not only are animism, polytheism, and a tendency toward theism all to be found in the land, but, in the fifth place, a strong ethical sense exists. Both Buddhism and Confucianism lay much emphasis on right conduct, and in this have joined some of the earliest Taoist writers and most of the philosophers whom Confucian scholars reckon heterodox. Ethics and religion are not divorced but are held to be closely interrelated. With all this respect for ethics, however, no such marked sense of sin against a personal Deity is found as in the writings of the greatest of the Hebrews and in the New Testament. A sense of guilt is not lacking, but there seems not to be the poignancy to it nor the joyous sense of release from it that one finds in Christian writings and experience. Moreover, many of the folklore stories connected with animism have much of the immoral and are undoubtedly debasing. From Confucius and other Chinese scholars has come, however, an insistence that ethics are the basis of all ordered human society, and Buddhism teaches that a man's conduct in this life helps to determine his fate after death. If, therefore, ethics lack the impulse of duty to and love for God, and are hampered by animism, they are not wanting in strong sanctions. It is well to notice again that some of the early Taoist writings, nearly all the heretics of the Chou and of succeeding dynasties, and the Confucian scholars of all ages had this much in common: they were all interested in improving society. During at least part of their careers philosophers had usually been government officials and tended to look on the world through the eyes of those who are concerned with the welfare of the body politic and of existing civilization. They helped to create a frame of mind which tested systems of religion and ethics not so much by their absolute truth as by their social effects. In the sixth place, the Chinese are not primarily a mystical people. Mystics some of them have been and are, and even for the vast majority the mystical is not without its appeal. The Williams, Middle Kingdom, Vol. 2, pp. 196, 197; Edkins, Religion in China, pp. 18-28. The imperial ancestors and the spirits of the heavenly bodies as well as T'ien and Shang Ti were honored at the same time. 40 mystical element is by no means as strong as it is in India, however, and there is lacking that union of exalted mysticism and passion for individual and social righteousness which is the outstanding characteristic of the greater Hebrew prophets and psalmists. Those who have done most to mold the thought of native Chinese religion have been primarily scholars and administrators, philosophers and men of affairs. Righteousness arises not from any compelling vision of God, but from a prudential regard for society, a sense of civic or family duty, a genuine concern for the welfare of the people as a whole, a desire for a life of bliss hereafter, or the wish to perfect one's own character. In the last place, it is important to notice that the religions of China have been closely intertwined with the intellectual life and with the political and social institutions of the nation. Religion contained much of animism, but it had advanced far beyond primitive beliefs: some of the ablest minds that the race has known had devoted themselves to its development and interpretation. Confucianism especially was identified with scholarship, and was entrenched in the habits of thought, affections, and loyalties of the educated classes. Moreover, the state was committed to the existing faiths, especially to Confucianism. The Confucian classics were the basis of the education required of aspirants for civil office; many of the ceremonies associated with Confucianism were maintained at public expense; officials, including the Emperor himself, performed many of the duties usually assigned to a priesthood, and the very political theory on which the state rested derived much of its authority from Confucian teachings. Then, too, religion formed an integral part of village life. There were temples maintained by the village, and several of the festivals and processions in honor of particular divinities were community undertakings to which all were supposed to contribute. guilds into which the industry and commerce of the country were organized usually had patron gods and religious features. Above all, the family, the strongest social unit in China, had as an integral part of its structure the honoring of ancestors by rites that were religious in origin and that for the vast majority retained a religious significance. The From what has been said it is obvious that any religion arriving for the first time in China would have no easy time in becoming established. It would find already in the field highly organized faiths with elaborate philosophies entrenched in the traditions and the institutions of the people. If it could meet a real need and if it could tolerate the presence of existing religions, ideas, and institutions, it might find a welcome. It would run the danger, however, of being absorbed and of losing its distinctive characteristics and even its identity. If, on the other hand, the new religion proved intolerant of native faiths and if its acceptance would involve any revolutionary changes in thought or in social, political, and economic institutions, its path would not be smooth. It would have to attack some of the outstanding features of the nation's life and thought and effect their destruction or transformation. This process would entail prolonged and extensive missionary work and even then might be unsuccessful unless other forces were to aid in the disintegration of the nation's life. Under the most favorable circumstances the conquest of China by a new faith would be the work of centuries and of thousands of earnest agents. CHAPTER III THE OUTSTANDING CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE BEARING OF THESE UPON THE POSSIBLE ACCEPTANCE OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA WHAT are the outstanding characteristics of Christianity? To what extent are these in accord with existing religions and institutions in China? Has Christianity contributions for Chinese life which the older religions of the country have not been able to make and for which a need exists, either realized or unrealized? If it has these contributions, how important are they, and what changes will they probably work in the life of China? On the other hand, how far is Christianity antagonistic to existing beliefs and institutions, and what opposition may be expected? Under what conditions would it be likely to succeed? These are the questions which naturally arise as one turns from a study of the religious life of China to the history of the entrance of Christianity into that country. They may, too, be answered without passing judgment upon the validity of Christian beliefs. It is apparent at the very start that many somewhat different descriptions of Christianity can be given, each of them true, for the faith has taken different forms in the course of its history. It is, however, possible to come at the question with some hope of a successful answer if one asks what Christianity was at its inception and then what it became in the various forms in which it entered China. Even with this method of approach the task is not easy, for it involves dealing with subjects which have long been controversial. He who would attempt a summary should do so with modesty and with the full realization of the danger of being guilty of serious omissions and of faulty generalizations. The founder of Christianity arose out of a particular racial background and was heir to a national religious inheritance which was the accumulation of many generations of prophets, reformers, priests, and lawgivers, and of countless men and women, most of 2 them obscure, who had staked their all on their faith. This faith as he received it was, briefly, a belief in one God, who is the maker of heaven and earth. God could not be accurately represented by any physical image.' He was often spoken of in anthropomorphic terms, but in time the conception prevailed that God was so much greater than man that any attempt to portray him in the likeness of any visible being, even that of man, was hopelessly inadequate and hence should never be attempted.' Yet, while God so far transcended man that he could not be represented by the human form, man was sufficiently akin to him to have fellowship with him and to find his greatest happiness and his highest duty in reverent, joyous love and devotion to him and to his will." God, so many of the prophets said, took delight not in ritual, but in humility and in righteousness of life. This righteousness was not so much a formal ethical correctness as it was justice and mercy toward one's neighbor. This conception of God had seemingly been developed by long, painful stages from a belief in a tribal or national divinity who protected his people against their rivals, who was jealous of his dignity, and who demanded bloody sacrifices and elaborate ceremonies. With notable individual exceptions, the Jews as a people never succeeded in entirely emancipating their faith from these beliefs of their primitive days. One effect of the work of Jesus was to make possible the freeing of the conceptions of God and of ethics from their nationalistic swaddling clothes and from their formalism and legalism. He was at once the heir and the fulfiller of the prophetic desire; he accomplished that for which the noblest and most discerning of his race had been striving. He did more than this, however. By his words and his life he so interpreted and transmitted the best in the older faith that he made of it something new, a "good news" of great joy and peace. Many, perhaps most, of the details of his teaching can be paralleled in the older writings of his race, but he so gave to the whole the stamp of a creative spirit as to make of it something different. He talked of God not in terms of abstract monotheism, but as a powerful and loving father who was con |