was no need, in his opinion, to trouble the mind about it. “While you cannot serve men,” he replied to the inquiry of Tze-lu, “how can you serve spirits?” And what becomes of a man's own self, when he has passed from the stage of life? The oracle of Confucius was equally dumb on this question. “While you do not know life,” he said to the same inquirer, “what can you know about death?” Doubts as to the continued existence of the departed were manifested by many leading men in China before the era of Confucius. In the pages of Tso K‘iu-ming, when men are swearing in the heat of passion, they sometimes pause, and rest the validity of their oaths on the proviso that the dead to whom they appeal really exist. The “expressive silence”[1] of Confucius has gone to confirm this scepticism.
His teaching was thus hardly more than a pure secularism. He had faith in man, man made for society, but he did not care to follow him out of society, nor to present to him motives of conduct derived from the consideration of a future state. Good and evil would be recompensed by the natural issues of conduct within the sphere of time,—if not in the person of the actor, yet in the persons of his descendants. If there were any joys of heaven to reward virtue, or terrors of future retribution to punish vice, the sage took no heed of the one or the other.
A very remarkable man Confucius was, persistent and condensed, but neither his views nor his character were perfect. In the China then existing he saw terrible evils and disorders, which he set himself, in the benevolence of his heart, to remedy, but of one principal cause of its unhappy condition he had no idea. Near the beginning of this article, the existence of polygamy and the evils flowing from it were referred to. Confucius never appeared to give the subject a thought. We saw how he mourned on the death of his mother; but no generous word ever passed his lips about woman as woman, and apparently no chivalrous sentiment ever kindled in his bosom. Nor had he the idea of any progress or regeneration of society. The stars all shone to him in the heavens behind; none beckoned brightly before. It was no doubt the moral element of his teaching, springing out of his view of human nature, which attracted many of his disciples, and still holds the best part of the Chinese men of learning bound to him; but the conservative tendency of his lessons—nowhere so apparent as in the Ch‘un Ts‘iu—is the chief reason why successive dynasties have delighted to do him honour.
CONGÉ D'ÉLIRE, a licence from the Crown issued under the Great Seal to the dean and chapter of the cathedral church of the diocese, authorizing them to elect a bishop or archbishop, as the case may be, upon the vacancy of any episcopal or archi-episcopal see in England or in Wales. According to the Chronicle of Ingulphus, abbot of Crowland, who wrote in the reign of William the Conqueror, the bishoprics in England had been, for many years prior to the Norman Conquest, royal donatives conferred by delivery of the ring and of the pastoral staff. Disputes arose for the first time between the Crown of England and the See of Rome in the reign of William Rufus, the Pope claiming to dispose of the English bishoprics; and ultimately King John, by his charter Ut liberæ sunt electiones totius Angliæ (1214), granted that the bishops should be elected freely by the deans and chaplains of the cathedral churches, provided the royal permission was first asked, and the royal assent was required after the election. This arrangement was confirmed by subsequent statutes passed in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward III. respectively, and the practice was ultimately settled in its present form by the statute for the non-payment of first-fruits to the bishop of Rome (25 Henry VIII. c. 20). According to the provisions of this statute, upon the avoidance of any episcopal see, the dean and chapter of the cathedral church are to certify the vacancy of the see to the Crown, and to pray that they may be allowed to proceed to a new election. The Crown thereupon grants to the dean and chapter its licence under the Great Seal to elect a new bishop, accompanied by a letter missive containing the name of the person whom the dean and chapter are to elect. The dean and chapter are thereupon bound to elect the person so named by the Crown within twelve days, in default of which the Crown is empowered by the statute to nominate by letters patent such person as it may think fit, to the vacant bishopric. Upon the return of the election of the new bishop, the metropolitan is required by the Crown to examine and to confirm the election, and the metropolitan's confirmation gives to the election its canonical completeness. In case of a vacancy in a metropolitical see, an episcopal commission is appointed by the guardians of the spiritualities of the vacant see to confirm the election of the new metropolitan.
CONGER. See Eel.
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Arms of Congleton. |
CONGLETON, a market-town and municipal borough of England, in the county of Cheshire, near the border of Staffordshire, 26 miles south of Manchester by rail. It is finely situated in a deep valley, on the banks of the Dane, a tributary of the Weaver. Its main streets are well built, and its western suburb consists of handsome villas and gardens. Though a place of considerable antiquity, it makes little figure in history, and possesses few buildings of architectural interest. The parish churches, the guildhall, built in 1822, the market hall, and the town-hall dating from 1864 are the most important. At one time the leather laces known as “Congleton points” were in high repute; but the principal industry of the town is now the manufacture of silk, which was introduced in 1752 by a Mr Pattison of London. The making of salt is carried on to an extent which gives employment to nearly 200 men; and at the census of 1871 upwards of 700 were engaged in the neighbouring coal mines. There is canal communication with Macclesfield. In 1871 the population of the municipal borough, which embraces 2564 acres, was 11,344, inhabiting 2559 houses.
CONGLETON, Henry Brook Parnell, First Baron (1776–1842), was the second son of Sir John Parnell, chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, and was educated at Eton and Cambridge. In 1801 he succeeded to the family estates, and married a daughter of the earl of Portarlington; and in 1802, by his father-in-law's interest, he was returned for Portarlington to Parliament, but he speedily resigned the seat. In 1806 he was returned for Queen's County, for which he sat till 1832, when he withdrew from the representation. In 1833, however, he was returned for Dundee; and after being twice re-elected for the same city (1835 and 1837), he was raised to the peerage in 1841 with the title of Baron Congleton of Congleton. In 1842, having suffered for some time from ill health and melancholy, he committed suicide. He was a liberal Whig, and took a prominent part in the struggle of his party. In 1806 he was a lord of the Treasury for Ireland; it was on his motion on the Civil List that the duke of Wellington was defeated in 1830; in that year and in 1831 he was secretary at war; and from 1835 till 1841 he was paymaster of the forces and treasurer of the ordnance and navy. He was the author of several volumes and pamphlets on matters connected with financial and
- ↑ James Thomson, "A Hymn" in The Seasons (1730).—ed.
