The Christian conception, which requires
that a woman should love her husband, does not strictly accord with the
Confucian idea.
Christianity has taught us that when a man loves a woman purely and
makes her his wife, he should also have reverence for her, and that this
element should be an integral part of his love. Christianity also
teaches a reverence for children; and Wordsworth has but followed the
spirit of his great master, Christ, when expressing this beautiful
sentiment in his melodious numbers. Such ideas as these, however, are
discords in Japanese social life of the old order. So also the Christian
preaching of love to God, sounds outlandish to the men of Chinese mind
in the middle or the pupil kingdom, who seem to think that it can only
come from the lips of those who have not been properly trained. To "love
God" appears to them as being an unwarrantable patronage of, and
familiarity with "Heaven," or the King of Kings. The same difficulty,
which to-day troubles Christian preachers and translators, existed among
the Roman Catholic missionaries three centuries ago.[15] The moulds of
thought were not then, nor are they even now, entirely ready for the
full truth of Christian revelation.
Suicide Made Honorable.
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