Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/90

 belief that his children, grandchildren, great-grand-children, all those dearest to him, will remember him, think of him, love him, to the end of time, and in that way, in his imagination, dying, to a Chinese, is like going on a long, long journey, if not with the hope, at least with a great "perhaps" of meeting again. Thus this cult of ancestor-worship, together with the Divine duty of loyalty, in Confucianism gives to the Chinese people the same sense of permanence in their existence while they live and the same consolation when they die which the belief in a future life in religion gives to the mass of mankind in other countries. It is for his reason that the Chinese people attach the same importance to this cult of ancestor-worship as they do to the principle of the Divine duty of loyalty to the Emperor. Mencius said: "Of the three great sins against filial piety the greatest is to have no posterity." Thus the whole system of teaching of Confucius which I have called the State religion in China consists really only of two things, loyalty to the Emperor and filial piety to parents—in Chinese, Chung Hsiao. (忠孝) In fact, the three Articles of Faith, called in Chinese the san kang, (三綱) three cardinal duties in Confucianism or the State religion of China, are, in their order of importance first, absolute duty of loyalty to the Emperor; second, filial piety and ancestor-worship; third, inviolability of marriage and absolute submission of the wife to the husband. The last two of the three Articles were already in what I have called the Family religion, or religion of the old dispensation