60 



REV. ARTHUR ELWIN, ON CONFUCIANISM. 



Discussion. 



The Chairman. — We are very deeply indebted to the lecturer 

 for this very instructive and delightful paper. In the present day 

 ; there has been started what has been regarded as another subject 

 : of study, entitled that of comparative religion. I do not think that 

 we who hold. to the Christian faith need in the slightest degree be 

 .concerned with such a study as that. The paper has given to us 

 some little insight into Confucianism, which will enable us to see 

 its manifold defects ; defects which are supplied by that system of 

 faith which it is our privilege and blessing to hold. One cannot 

 help being struck, however, with the excellent philosophical 

 principles which appear in the teaching of Confucius here and 

 there. Philosophy, of course, is an extremely valuable subject for 

 the training and cultivation of the mind of man in every age and 

 under all kinds of circumstances; but it is evident, from the 

 experiences of the Chinese nation, that it is not such a study as 

 enables the human understanding to progress to the extent which it 

 needs progress. The stagnation of the Chinese nation, I think, can 

 be understood better now that we have such a paper before us, 

 telling us what their study has been, and how their minds have 

 been contracted into the narrow channels of the thoughts of 

 Confucius. As the paper has so very well remarked, it leaves man 

 in a condition of serious want and makes no provision for the 

 supply of that want. The man who is a bad man appears to have 

 little or no hope held out to him by the Confucian system of 

 philosophy or religion, in whichever way we may think it should 

 be regarded. That which is so serious a defect in the Chinese 

 philosophy and religion is only supplied adequately by the 

 Christian faith. I was very glad to hear from the reader of the 

 paper of the position which Christianity is now occupying in that 

 great and important nation. We shall doubtless hear more of the 

 Chinese nation in years to come than we have in the past. The 

 Yellow Peril is one that we need not concern ourselves greatly 

 about, but if there is one way by which the Yellow Peril may be 

 avoided more than another, it is by the circulation of that truth 

 which their present system of thought and life so earnestly claims 



