Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston

“ The only source of comfort to a young wife who is unfortunate enough to displease her husband's mother is that some day, in the course of nature, she herself will be in the proud position of a mother-in-law. If she is of a cantankerous or tyrannical disposition, or if her temper has been soured by her own domestic troubles, she will then doubtless treat her son's wife with just as little kindness as she received in her own early days of wifehood, and her daughter-in-law will fear and dislike her just as she herself feared and disliked her own husband's mother. ”

“ But Japan is not China: and if Confucianism be such a good thing, exclaims the wondering European, how is it that China is in a state of decay, that Chinese officials are corrupt, that the population is sodden with opium, that the country is only now, after centuries of sloth and stagnation, beginning to show an interest in Western civilisation and modern science? The real condition of China, or at least of the Chinese people, is perhaps not so rotten as it is sometimes believed to be, in spite of the grave political and social dangers that at present lie ahead. ”

“ I worship them because my fathers did so before me! Are there not thousands and thousands of Western people who might in all sincerity use those very words? For in spite of everything that all the Churches and all the prophets and all the philosophers have done for us, in spite of all we have learned from dogmas and revelations and sacred books, we are still groping in darkness. The whole thing is a mystery, and the man who can solve it is wiser than any man who has yet lived. ”

“ China from a time when the ancestors of those administrators were painted savages and England was not even a name: it is filial piety, it is reverence for law and respect for those in authority, it is the cult of ancestors,—it is, in short, Confucianism. "The same readiness with which we serve our father," says one of the Chinese classics, "we should employ in serving our Ruler, and the reverence must be the same for both. To honour those who are in a high position and to respect those who are in authority is our first duty." ”

“ Those who know how sound China is at heart, how able, industrious and intelligent are her sons, and how well fitted their great country is in many ways to play a grand part in the history of the world and in the development of civilisation, are perhaps even more ready than others to denounce the Manchu government of China for its gross mismanagement of the internal and external affairs of the nation, its pitiful misuse of splendid material and its shameful waste of magnificent opportunities. ”

“ For the native magistrate, who knows without special training his countrymen's character and their peculiarities of thought and speech, it is, of course, much easier than it is for the European to detect the element of truth that lies embedded in the absurd and inaccurate statements made before him in court. To say that even a Chinese magistrate can always be sure when a man is speaking the truth would certainly be ridiculous; there are accomplished liars in China as in Europe, just as there are forgers so skilful that they can deceive experts in handwriting ”

“ Brave women do not give birth to ignoble sons; and when we contemplate the present and speculate as to the future condition of China we may do well to remember that women like those of whom we have just read are among the mothers of the great race that constitutes perhaps more than a quarter of the world's population. The woman who offers herself as a willing sacrifice to-day on the altar of what may be called a domestic ideal is the mother of a man who may, to-morrow, offer himself with readiness and gladness on the altar of a political or a national ideal. ”

“ One might almost suppose from this that in Christian England there is no cruelty, no fraud, no impurity. If a Chinese were to go to England and declare that the vices of the country were the results of Christianity he would probably be anathematised as a wicked blasphemer and hounded out of the land; why should the Western nations show surprise if the Chinese are indignant with foreigners who use words which in their obvious and natural sense would lead the world to suppose that the cases of cruelty, fraud and impurity one meets with in China are the result of Confucianism! ”

“ They died no doubt from a mistaken sense of duty: but to die for an idea that is based on error surely requires as much courage and resolution as to die for an idea that is radiant with truth, and—what is perhaps of greater practical significance—the women who go willingly to the grave for a cause that to us seems a poor one may be counted on to suffer as cheerfully and die as bravely for a cause that is truly great. ”

“ Be true to yourself and charitable towards your neighbour. Carry out those rites of filial piety and of religious worship that have been handed down to you by your fathers, even if you have doubts about the nature or even the very existence of the objects of your worship; there is nothing to be ashamed of in honest doubt, but do not let doubts interfere with your duty. Let not your knowledge and practice of the traditional rituals mislead you into thinking that you are on intimate terms with the spiritual world; treat the unseen Powers with all reverence but keep aloof from them. ”

“ Fire-crackers, the delight of old and young in China, are let off at every doorstep, helping at each explosion to dissipate any traces of bad luck that may be lingering in the neighbourhood and to frighten away the last malignant spirit who might otherwise mar the happiness of the New Year. ”

“ As nobody has yet invented a definition which will satisfy every one, we must perforce leave Confucianism unlabelled: though if we all agree that a religious attitude implies a deep sense of moral responsibility (either to our own higher selves or to an external Power) and a feeling that to do what we believe to be right—irrespective of how we come to have ideas of right and wrong at all—is "wisdom in the scorn of consequence," then we cannot go far astray in asserting that Confucianism is not an irreligious or unreligious system, but is merely an untheological one. ”

“ If I were to tell you that the dead are conscious, you might waste your substance in funerals and sacrifices, and thus neglect the living to pay court to the dead. If on the other hand I were to tell you that the dead are unconscious, filial piety might diminish and sons begin to leave the bodies of their parents uncared for and unburied. Seek not to know whether the departed are indeed conscious. If they are, you will know it some day; meanwhile study the world you live in and have no fear that you will exhaust its treasures of knowledge: the world takes a lot of knowing. ”

“ The temple then becomes one of the centres of attraction—indeed in all probability it is a god's birthday that is being celebrated—and its precincts are thronged from morning to night by crowds of well-dressed men and women and children, eager to register their vows or make their petitions. The worshippers knock their heads on the ground as an acknowledgment of humility and powerlessness, while the priest strikes a tinkling bronze bowl with a view to awaking the god from his slumbers. In front of every image stand jars containing sticks of burning incense, sending up clouds of fragrant smoke. ”

“ It must surely be clear to an unprejudiced mind that Confucius deserves no blame whatever for omitting to lay down the law on subjects about which he never professed to know anything. Men have existed on this planet for tens of thousands of years: if, as many occidental peoples hold, the Deity revealed Himself only nineteen centuries ago, it is absurd to find fault with an honest philosopher for not having known facts which had been preserved as a secret in the archives of heaven for countless ages in the past and were to remain undisclosed for another five hundred years in the future. ”

“ Indeed, in a region like the north-eastern extremity of Shantung, where there is of course no tropical vegetation and where timber is scarce, the wooded graveyards form one of the pleasantest features in every landscape. If while walking across the fields of the Weihaiwei Territory one comes across a thick plantation of trees—such as the fir and the Chinese oak, which is never leafless—one is sure to find that it marks the last resting-place of a family or a clan that inhabits or once inhabited some village not far away. ”

“ It is the hope of every Chinese, then, that when he dies he will be laid in his ancestral graveyard, and that he will be laid there in a state of organic completeness. But there are occasions, of course, when it has proved impossible to convey dead men's bones from one end of China to another, or home from a foreign land: sometimes the family cannot afford the expense, sometimes there are overwhelming difficulties with regard to transport. Chinese ingenuity long ago set itself to devise a means whereby even such bad cases as this might have a happy ending, and it succeeded. ”

“ The magistrate is supposed to be a kind of living embodiment of all the Confucian virtues, and therefore to look with extreme favour on any one whose words or conduct show him to be dutiful to his father, punctilious in serving the spirits of the dead, respectful to old age, a wise and good parent, industrious, honest in his dealings with his neighbours, and law-abiding. No litigant neglects an opportunity of showing that he possesses each and all of these qualities; and sometimes it is done cleverly and with an appearance of artlessness. A man brought an action against another for debt. ”

“ The highest praise is reserved for a woman who temporarily refrains from destroying herself in order that she may devote herself to her husband's parents and her own offspring, but who, when they are dead or independent of her care, then fulfils her original desire and sacrifices herself to the spirit of her dead husband. The fact that in any case the woman's relatives are considered bound to prevent, if possible, the act of suicide from taking place, shows the beginning of a realisation that self-destruction is in itself an evil. ”

“ Confucianism is not a mere code of rules that can be established or abrogated as the fancy takes any prominent statesman who happens to have the ear of the throne; it has intertwined itself with the very roots of the tree of Chinese life, and if that venerable tree, in spite of a mutilated branch or two, is still very far from hopeless decay it is to Confucianism that much of its strength and vigour is due. ”

“ Meanwhile, China is beginning to realise that the most wide-awake of modern states does not propose to hamper her own freedom by watching over a nation that has hitherto been regarded as the most somnolent in the world. Even the strong matronly arms of the United States might grow weary of carrying about so bulky an infant as a China that only woke up in order to experience the luxurious delight of going to sleep again. ”

“ Whatever the real origin of the legend may be there is no doubt that the city-god of Jung-ch'êng does share the honours of local worship with a female spirit whose image rests beside his own; and if any one questions whether she was ever a living human being he may ask for an introduction to the descendants of the very family to which she belonged,—for their name is Ts'ai and their home is in one of the city suburbs, where they flourish to this day. ”

“ It is obvious to every foreigner who knows China well that the first and most urgent necessity is the thorough reform of the entire Civil Service in all its branches. So long as offices are bought and sold, so long as salaries are so meagre that they must necessarily be supplemented in irregular ways, so long as revenue and expenditure accounts go through no proper system of audit, so long as bribery and the "squeeze" system are practically recognised as necessary features of civil administration—so long will it [443] be utterly futile to attempt far-reaching reforms in other directions. ”