Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/170

124 that in the performance of moral duties, Confucius insisted upon the importance not of the what, but of the how. For herein lies the difference between what is called morality and religion, between mere rules of moral conduct and the vivfyingvivifying [sic] teaching of great and true religious teachers. Teachers of morality merely tell you what kind of action is moral and what kind of act-ion is immoral. But true religious teachers do not merely tell you this. True religious teachers do not merely inculcate the doing of the outward act, but insist upon the importance of the manner, the inwardness of the act. True religious teachers teach that the morality or immorality of our actions does not consist in what we do, but in how we do it.

This is what Matthew Arnold calls Christ's method in his teaching. When the poor widow gave her mite, it was not what she gave that Christ called the attention of his hearers to, but how she give it. The moralists said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." But Christ said, "I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery."

In the same way the moralists in Confucius' time said: Children must cut firewood and carry water for their parents and yield to them the best of the food and wine in the house: that is filial piety. But Confucius said, "No; that is not filial piety." True filial piety does not consist in the mere outward performance of these services to our parents. True filial piety consists in how, in what manner, with