Heathenism

I was born, according to the Gregorian calender, on the 28th of March, 1861. My family belonged to the warrior class; so I was born to fight,—vivere est militare,—from the very cradle. My Paternal grandfather was every-inch a soldier. He was never so happy as when he appeared in his ponderous armour, decked with a bamboo-bow and pheasant-feathered arrows and a 50-pound firelock. He lamented that the land was in peace, and died with regret that he never was able to put his trade in practice. My father was more cultured, could write good poetry, and was learned in the art ruling man. He too was a man of no mean military ability, and could lead a most turbulent regiment in a very creditable way.—Maternally, my grandfather was essentially an honest man. Indeed he had few other abilities than honesty, if honesty could be called an ability in this glorious selfish century. It is told of him that when he was asked to lend out some public money with usury-interest (a custom very common with treasurers of petty provincial lords, who of course pocketed the whole of the interest money), my grandfather was too wise to offend his head-officers by disobeying them, but was too conscientious to exact exorbitant rates from the poor borrowers, so he kept the money with him, and at the expiration of the term, he returned it to the usurious officers, with high interest upon it out of his own pocket. He also was a total abstainer. I do not believe more then twenty cups of firy drinks ever passed his lips in his life-time, and this only by the recommendation of his doctors.—My maternal grandmother was a worthy companion to this honest and abstemious man. She was born to work,—vivere est laborare for her,—and for forty years she did work as any frail human being could work. For fifty years she lived a life of widowhood, brought up and educated five children with her own hands, never proved false to her neighbor, never ran in debt; and now in her four-scores-and-four, with her ears closed to the noise and din of the world, her deep eyes ever bathed with tears, she calmly waits for the shadow to relieve her from the life she so bravely fought through. A pathos there is in “heathenism” so noble as hers. She is too sacred to be touched with the hand of inexperience whatever theologies and philosophies it can handle. Let the Spirit of God alone mould her, and no ill shall come to her well-tried soul.*—My mother has inherited from her mother this mania for work. She forgets all the pains and sorrows of life in her work. She is one of those who “can’t afford” to be gloomy because life is hard. Her little home is her kingdom, and she rules it, washes it, feeds it, as no queen has ever done.

* She passed away in peace during the preparation of this book.

Such was my parentage, and such were the hearts which moulded me. But to no one of them do I trace the origin of my “religious sensibilities” which I early acquired in my boyhood. My father was decidedly blasphemous toward heathen gods of all sorts. He once dropped a base coin into the money-chest of a Buddbist temple, and scornfully addressed the idols there that they would have another such coin if they would in any way help him to win a law-case in which he was then engaged;—a feat wholly beyond my power at any period of my religious experience. But I always thank my God that I never have tasted human flesh, or prostrated myself before the wheels of Juggernaut, or witnessed infants fed to gavials. If in my childhood I had no blessed Sabbath, home to draw upward my secret heart with influence sweet, I was spared much of mammonism, of the fearful curse of rum-traffic, so common in other doms than heathendoms. If there were no Gospel stories to calm down my childich passion’s rage, that excitement and rush of the so-called Christendom which whirls men and women into premature graves was unknown to me. If heathenism is the reign of darkness, it is the reign of moon and stars, of obscure lights no doubt, but withal of repose and comparative innocence.

My father was a good Confucian scholar, who could repeat from memory almost every passage in the writings and sayings of the sage. So naturally my early education was in that line; and though I could not understand the ethico-political precepts of the Chinese sages, I was imbued with the general sentiments of their teachings. Loyality to my feudal lords, and fidelity and respects to my parents and teachers, were the central themes of the Chinese ethics. Filial piety was taught to be the source of all virtues, akin to the Solomonic precept of “Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” The story of a filial youth responding to an unreasonable demand of an old parent to have a tender bamboo-shoot (the asparagus of the Orient) at midwinter of his search for it in forest, and of its miraculous sprout from under the snow is as vivid to the memory of every child in my land as the story of Joseph to that of every Christian youth. Even parental tyranny and oppression were to be meekly borne, and many illustrations were cited from the deeds of ancient worthies in this respect.—Loyality to feudal lords, especially in time of war, took more romantic shapes in the ethical conceptions of the youth of my land. He was to consider his life as light as dust when called to serve his lord in exigency; and the noblest spot where he could die was in front of his master’s steed, thrice blessed if his corpse was trumpled under its hoof.—No less weightier was to be the youth’s consideration for his master (his intellectual and moral preceptor), who was to him no mere school-teacher or college professor on quid pro quo principle, but a veritable didaskalos, in whom he could and must completely confide the care of his body and soul. The Lord, the Father, and the Master, constituted his Trinity. Neither one of them was inferior to any other in his consideration, and the most vexing question to him was which he would save, if the three of them were on the point of drowning at the same time, and he had ability to save but one. Then, their enemies were to be his own enemies, with whom he was not allowed to bear the same benignant heaven. These were to be pursued even to the very ends of the earth, and satisfaction must be had, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

Strong in inculcating obedience and reverence toward our superiors, the oriental precepts are not wanting in regard to our relations to our equals and inferiors. Sincerity in frinendship, harmony in brotherhood, and leniency toward the inferior and the governed are strongly insisted upon. Much reported cruelities of heathens toward women do not find encouragements to that effect in their moral code, neither is it entirely silent upon the subject. Our ideal mothers and wives and sisters are not very inferior to the conception of the highest Christian womanhood, and the very fact that some of them achieved high excellence in deeds and character without the exalting influence of Christianity makes me to admire them so much more.

Side by side with these and other instructions, not inferior, I sincerely believe, to those which are imparted to, and possessed by, many who call themselves Christians, I was not free from many drawbacks and much superstition.

The most defective point in Chinese ethics is its weakness when it deals with sexual morality. Not that it is wholly silent upon the virtue of social purity, but the way in which the violation of the law of chastity is usually dealt with, and its connivance upon the perpetrators of the same, resulted in general apathy in this respect. Polygamy in its strict sense has never entered into oriental minds; but concubinage, which amounts to the same thing, has met only mildest rebukes, if any, from their moralists. Amidst solemn instructions of my father about duty and high ambition, I discerned words of emulation for study and industry with an opulent harem in view. Great statesmanship and learning may exist without ideas of chastity. He that grasps the rein of the state in sober hours may rest upon a bosom of uncleanliness in less serious moments. Glaring profligacy does often attend acute intellect and high regard for public honor, and though I am not blind to darkness as great in other countries than my own, I do not hesitate in attributing impotence to Chinese ethics when it deals with questions of social purity.

But no retrospect of my bygone days causes in me a greater humiliation than the spiritual darkness I groped under, laboriously sustained with gross superstitions. I believed, and that sincerely, that there dwelt in each of innumerable temples its god, jealous over its jurisdiction, ready with punishment to any transgressor that fell under his displeasure. The god whom I reverenced and adored most was the god of learning and writing, for whom I faithfully observed the 25th of every month with due sanctity and sacrifice. I prostrated myself before his image, earnestly implored his aid to improve my handwriting and help my memory. Then there is a god who presides over rice-culture, and his errands unto mortals are white foxes. He can be approached with prayers to protect our houses from fire and robbery, and as my father was mostly away from home, and I was alone with my mother, I ceased not to beseach this god of rice to keep my poor home from the said disasters. There was another god whom I feared more than all others. His emblem was a black raven, and he was the searcher of man’s inmost heart. The keeper of his temple issued papers upon which ravens were printed in sombre colors, the whole having a miraculous property to cause immediate haemorage when taken into stomach by any one who told falsehood. I often vindicated my truthfulness before my comrades by calling upon them to test my veracity by the use of a piece of this sacred paper, if they stood in suspicion of what I asserted. Still another god exercises healing power upon those who suffer from toothache. Him also did I call upon, as I was a constant sufferer from this painful malady. He would exact from his devotee a vow to abstain from pears as specially obnoxious to him, and I was of course most willing to undergo the required privation. Future study in Chemistry and Toxicology revealed to me a good scientific foundation for this abstinence, as the injurious effect of grape-sugar upon the decaying teeth is well-known. But all of heathen superstitions cannot be so happily explained. One god would impose upon me abstinence from the use of eggs, another from beans, till after I made all my vows, many of my boyish delicacies were entered upon the prohibition list. Multiplicity of gods often involved the contradiction of the requirements of one god with those of another, and sad was the plight of a conscientious soul when he had to satisfy more than one god. With so many gods to satisfy and appease, I was naturally a fretful timid child. I framed a general prayer to be offered to every one of them, adding of course special requests appropriate to each, as I happened to pass before each temple. Every morning as soon as I washed myself, I offered this common prayer to each of the four groups of gods located in the four points of the compass, paying special attention to the eastern group, as the Rising Sun was the greatest of all gods. Where several temples were contiguous to one another, the trouble of repeating the same prayer so many times was very great; and I would often prefer a longer route with less number of sanctuaries in order to avoid the trouble of saying my prayers without scruples of my conscience. The number of dieties to be worshipped increased day by day, till I found my little soul totally incapable of pleasing them all. But a relief came at last.