The sky of bright promise was soon overcast. The marquis of Ts‘i and his advisers saw that if Confucius were allowed to prosecute his course, the influence of Lu would become supreme throughout the kingdom, and Ts‘i would be the first to suffer. A large company of beautiful women, trained in music and dancing, and a troop of fine horses, were sent to Lu. The bait took; the women were welcomed, and the sage was neglected. The marquis forgot the lessons of the master, and yielded supinely to the fascinations of the harem. Confucius felt that he must leave the state. The neglect of the marquis to send round, according to rule, among the ministers portions of the flesh after a great sacrifice, furnished a plausible reason for leaving the court. He withdrew, though very unwillingly and slowly, hoping that a change would come over the marquis and his counsellors, and a message of recall be sent to him. But no such message came; and he went forth in his fifty-sixth year to a weary period of wandering among various states.
It may be well to pause here in the sketch of his life, and consider what his object and hope had been.
A disciple once asked him what he would consider the first thing to be done, if intrusted with the government of a state. His reply was, “The rectification of names.” When told that such a thing was wide of the mark, he held to it, and indeed his whole social and political system was wrapped up in the saying. He had told the marquis of Ts‘i that good government obtained when the ruler was ruler, and the minister minister; when the father was father, and the son son. Society, he considered, was an ordinance of heaven, and was made up of five relationships,—ruler and subject, husband and wife, father and son, elder brothers and younger, and friends. There was rule on the one side of the first four, and submission on the other. The rule should be in righteousness and benevolence; the submission in righteousness and sincerity. Between friends the mutual promotion of virtue should be the guiding principle. It was true that the duties of the several relations were being continually violated by the passions of men, and the social state had become an anarchy. But Confucius had confidence in the preponderating goodness of human nature, and in the power of example in superiors. “Not more surely,” he said, “does the grass bend before the wind than the masses yield to the will of those above them.” Given the model ruler, and the model people would forthwith appear. And he himself could make the model ruler. He could tell the princes of the states what they ought to be; and he could point them to examples of perfect virtue in former times,—to the sage founders of their own dynasty; to the sage T‘ang, who had founded the previous dynasty of Shang; to the sage Yu, who first established a hereditary kingdom in China; and to the greater sages still who lived in a more distant golden age. With his own lessons and those patterns, any ruler of his day, who would listen to him, might reform and renovate his own state, and his influence would break forth beyond its limits till the face of the whole kingdom should be filled with a multitudinous relation-keeping, well-fed, happy people. “If any ruler,” he once said, “would submit to me as his director for twelve months, I should accomplish something considerable; and in three years I should attain the realization of my hopes.” Such were the ideas, the dreams of Confucius. But he had not been able to get the ruler of his native state to listen to him. His sage counsels had melted away before the glance of beauty and the pomps of life.
His professed disciples amounted to 3000, and among them were between 70 and 80 whom he described as “scholars of extraordinary ability.” The most attached of them were seldom long away from him. They stood or sat reverently by his side, watched the minutest particulars of his conduct, studied under his direction the ancient history, poetry, and rites of their country, and treasured up every syllable which dropped from his lips. They have told us how he never shot at a bird perching nor fished with a net, the creatures not having in such a case a fair chance for their lives; how he conducted himself in court and among villagers; how he ate his food, and lay in his bed, and sat in his carriage; how he rose up before the old man and the mourner; how he changed countenance when it thundered, and when he saw a grand display of viands at a feast. He was free and unreserved in his intercourse with them, and was hurt once when they seemed to think that he kept back some of his doctrines from them. Several of them were men of mark among the statesmen of the time, and it is the highest testimony to the character of Confucius that he inspired them with feelings of admiration and reverence. It was they who set the example of speaking of him as the greatest of mortal men; it was they who struck the first notes of that pæan which has gone on resounding to the present day.
Confucius was, it has been seen, in his fifty-sixth year when he left Lu; and thirteen years elapsed ere he returned to it. In this period were comprised his travels among the different states, when he hoped, and ever hoped in vain, to meet with some prince who would accept him as his counsellor, and initiate a government that should become the centre of an universal reformation. Several of the princes were willing to entertain and support him; but for all that he could say, they would not change their ways.
His first refuge was in Wei, a part of the present Ho-nan, the marquis of which received him kindly; but he was a weak man, ruled by his wife, a woman notorious for her accomplishments and wickedness. In attempting to pass from Wei to another state, Confucius was set upon by a mob, which mistook him for an officer who had made himself hated by his oppressive deeds. He himself was perfectly calm amid the danger, though his followers were filled with alarm. They were obliged, however, to retrace their way to Wei, and he had there to appear before the marchioness, who wished to see how a sage looked. There was a screen between them at the interview, such as the present regent-empresses of China use in giving audience to their ministers; but Tze-lu, one of his principal disciples, was indignant that the master should have demeaned himself to be near such a woman, and to pacify him Confucius swore an oath appealing to Heaven to reject him if he had acted improperly. Soon afterwards he left the state.
