Sources.--The books thus condemned and thus recovered supply us with our knowledge of ancient China and of its religion. They are political rather than religious in their nature. China has no Bible, no book guarded by the ministers of religion as the basis of the system they conduct; the religious teachers of China, if there are any, are the literati, the books they preserve and study are the Classics. These are connected with the name of Confucius, who collected or edited them, and himself wrote one of them. They are not thought to be inspired, but are revered because of their immemorial antiquity. No people was ever more completely under the influence of a book, or set of books, than the Chinese. The learned class, who constitute the only nobility of China, receive their whole education from the books ascribed to Confucius; which, like other authoritative literatures, contain matter of various kinds. The Chinese collection consists of the five Classics (King) and the four books (Shu). The former were edited by Confucius; the latter are by the disciples of that sage or by Mencius, a distinguished teacher in his school about a century after him. The five Classics are the most sacred of all. They are as follows:-- I.--1. The _Yih-king_, or Book of Changes. This is a divining book; it consists of a set of interpretations by princes of the twelfth century B.C., of a set of lineal figures. The system is in itself of childlike simplicity, but use and age have collected mysteries about it. It was exempted from the proscription of Shi-Hoang-Ti. 2. The _Shu-king_, or Book of History, contains speeches and documents of the early princes from the twenty-fourth to the eighth century B.C. 3. The _Shi-king_, or Book of Poetry, consists of a collection of 300 songs, selected by Confucius from a mass ten times as great. Some of these pieces are extremely old. 4. The _Le ke_, or Record of Rites. This book is said to have been composed by the duke of Chow in the twelfth century B.C., and is the principal source of information about the ancient state religion of China. It contains precepts not only for religious ceremonies, but also for social and domestic duties, and is the Chinaman's manual of conduct to the present day. 5. _Chun Tsew_, Spring and Autumn, contains the annals of the principality of Loo, of which Confucius was a native, from 721-480 B.C. They are extremely dry; and if we could understand the statement of Mencius that Confucius by writing them (for they are his own work) produced a great effect on the minds of his contemporaries, many things about Chinese religion and manners would be clearer to us than they unfortunately are. To these five Classics is sometimes added, as a sixth, the _Hsiao-king_, or Book of Filial Piety, a conversation on that subject between Confucius and a disciple.