258.WHO WAS CONFUCIUS?
Years ago there used to a great many popular jokes that began: “Confucius say….” It seems as if everybody knows that Confucius said many wise things. Confucius was one of the greatest moral teachers of all time. He lived in China about five hundred years before Christ. Confucius studied ancient Chinese writings from which he took ideas that to him seemed important to the development of fine character. Then he taught these ideas to the princes and to the students of all classes who flocked to him for instruction. The rules he laid down 2,400 years ago are still held up as ideals.
Confucius’ Chinese name was Kung-Fu-tse. At the age of 22, three years after his marriage, Confucius began to teach men how to live happily. His principle rule for happiness, “What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others,” was much like the Golden Rule.
257.WHO WAS BUDDHA?
Buddhism is one of the great religions of the world. Most of its followers live in Ceylon, China, Japan, Korea, and Thailand, but there are Buddhists everywhere.
The founder of this religion was Prince Gautama Siddhartha, born to luxury. One day, as he left his palace he saw three men, one very sick, one very old, and one dead. Very disturbed by this evidence of man’s suffering, he began to wonder how man might find true and lasting happiness.
256.WHEN WERE THE WEDDING RINGS FIRST WORN?
The wearing of a wedding ring is one of the oldest and most universal customs of mankind. The tradition goes back so far that no one can really tell how it first began.
The fact that the ring is a circle may be one reason why it began to be used. The circle is a symbol of completeness. In connection with marriage, it represents the rounding out of the life of a person. We can see how a man without a wife, or a woman without a husband, could have been considered incomplete people. When they are married they make a complete unit, which the circle of the ring symbolizes.
