Page:Peking the Beautiful.pdf/62

 The Hall of the Great Perfection

more than twenty-five centuries a single man has held intellectual sway over one third of the human race! Every phase of life in the great "Flowery Middle Kingdora" has been guided by the genius of this man's mind into every city and hamlet of the land his influence O extends. In the schoolroom his wisdom is expounded, in the home his pietų is exemplified, in shop and factory his teaching is the ami TIDIUTÍ ULITINITi quiding motive. As the "unsceptered monarch" of his people, this man--Confucius — has held, and still holds, a place unique in the annals of the race. To-day every city in China has its Confucian temple where "sacrifices in honor of the Sage are still continued in the second month of spring and in the second month of autumn." But the homage paid him is purely commemorative. The Peking temple, known as the Ta Ch'êng Tien, is exceptionally fine. It is approached, as were the ancient shrines of Greece, and Rome, through an avenue of venerable cypress trees. This vast "Literary Hall," standing aloft on its terrace of chiseled stone, is said to rival in beauty the finest temples of Kyoto. Eighty-four feet across the front, its massive double roof is supported by gigantic wooden pillars over forty feet in height And "just as the doctrines have remained undimmed in their passage down the years, so the roofs glisten with perfect tiles that swim in a golden bath of sunbeams." From the fine, carved balustrades of polished marble that adorn its shining terraces to the colorful eaves and gilded tablet above the mammoth doorway, all is in perfect harmony and breathes an atmosphere of space and intellectual repose." Dithin, all is simple, quiet, and austere. There are no ornaments, and no symbols, except the vermilion laquered tablet in memory of the "Most Holy Ancestral Teacher, Confucius," together with four smaller tablets erected to the Master's four great disciples, and it the gathering shadows of the background, eight still smaller tablets to the eight Lesser disciples. The present spacious compound near the north wall has long been a temple site. The groves of hoary cypresses that adom its courts are centuries old. The one on the left of the temple steps, "whose gigantic girth carries us back to a distant age," was probably planted here in the time of the Sungs or even earlier, since when a thousand summers have come and gone. The first temple was probably built during the Yiian dynasty (A.D. 1280 1368). Since that date, however, it has been remodeled and rebuilt many times. The present structure is probably Ming (A.D. 1368-1844). This temple, with its spacious courtyards, beautiful gates, and handsome pavilions, is regarded by many students of Chinese art as the "most imposing specimen of purely Chinese architecture to be found among the omaments of the capital."