While Confucius lived, few of his fellow-countrymen would listen to him. The princes, whom he tried to teach to govern wisely, made him sorrowful by refusing to follow his advice. On the last day of his life he was very sad and dragged himself about, slowly saying over and over again to himself: “The great mountain must crumble, The strong beam must break, And the wise man wither away like a plant.” But his labours were not lost. His wise words were put into a book by his followers, more than a hundred years after his death. Mencius, the greatest of his disciples, carried on his work. His fame spread all over China and far beyond it. Now there are 1500 temples in which he is worshipped by millions of people, and so great is the honour given to him that his followers say: “Confucius! Confucius! Great indeed are thou, O Confucius. Before thee None like unto thee! After thee None equal to thee. Confucius! Confucius! Great indeed are thou, O Confucius.” Confucius told the Chinese people that the most precious teaching handed down to them from long ago was that which taught them to honour their parents and those older than themselves. But both before and after the time of this great man, the Chinese went too far, not only reverencing, but also worshipping the dead. Perhaps we can imagine how this mistake crept in. They were afraid that they might forget their loved ones. Since it was not the custom with them long ago to put names upon gravestones, they wrote them in books and on slips of wood. These slips of wood, or ancestral tablets, were kept most carefully, as we have already seen, in the chief room of the house and in temples. The Chinese believed that each person had three souls, one which went into the unseen world at death, one which stayed in the grave, and one which lived in the slip of wood. They also thought that the souls in tablets or in graves depended on dutiful sons to offer food and sacrifices to them. Girls might not make these offerings, because, when married, they belonged to their husbands’ families. When parents had no baby boys, they were much troubled, not having anyone to grow up and worship their spirits, for they fear more than anything else to become ‘hungry demons’ after death, with no one to care for their needs. Now you know why Chinese people are anxious to have sons rather than daughters. Fear mixes with the worship of the dead at every turn. When people are sick or lose money or have some other trouble, they think that the spirits in the tablets are angry, and are bringing evil upon their home. They offer food, and burn paper clothes, houses, money, servants and horses to please them, thinking that when burnt, those things pass into the spirit-land, where their relatives enjoy them, and being pleased, give up troubling those on earth.