in them a belief in the continued existence of the spirits of the
departed; and by means of them the ancestors of the kings were raised to
the position of the Tutelary spirits of the dynasty; and the ancestors
of each family became its Tutelary spirits. Several of the pieces in
Part IV are appropriate, it will be observed, to sacrifices offered to
some one monarch. They would be used on particular occasions connected
with his achievements in the past, or when it was supposed that his help
would be valuable in contemplated enterprises. With regard to all the
ceremonies of the ancestral temple, Confucius gives the following
account of the purposes which they were intended to serve, hardly
adverting to their religious significance, in the nineteenth chapter of
the Doctrine of the Mean:--'By means of them they distinguished the
royal kindred according to their order of descent. By arranging those
present according to their rank, they distinguished the more noble and
the less. By the apportioning of duties at them, they made a distinction
of talents and worth. In the ceremony of general pledging, the inferiors
presented the cup to their superiors, and thus something was given to
the lowest to do. At the (concluding) feast places were given according
to the hair, and thus was marked the distinction of years.'

The worship paid to God.

The Shih does not speak of the worship which was paid to God, unless it
be incidentally. There were two grand occasions on which it was rendered
by the sovereign,--the summer and winter solstices. These two sacrifices
were offered on different altars, that in winter being often described
as offered to Heaven, and that in summer to Earth; but we have the
testimony of Confucius, in the nineteenth chapter of the Doctrine of the
Mean, that the object of them both was to serve Shang-Ti. Of the
ceremonies on these two occasions, however, I do not speak here, as