Verse 21
21. He knoweth it not The dead are ignorant of what takes place among the living. Compare Ecclesiastes 9:5-6. The poet laureate has transferred to his page the painful thought of Job.
His little daughter, whose sweet face
He kissed, taking his last embrace,
Becomes dishonour to her race
His sons grow up that bear his name,
Some grow to honour, some to shame;
But he is chill to praise or blame.
TENNYSON Two Voices.
On the contrary, the religion of Confucius, which consists of the worship of ancestors, hinges upon the knowledge that the dead still retain of the living. “They are regarded as watching with affectionate interest all the varied fortunes of their progeny, and urging them along the beaten road of duty to a higher and happier state of being.” HARDWICKE, Christ, etc. This dogma, apparently harmless, deteriorated into the dethronement of Deity and the worship of the dead. The ethics of Aristotle (i, chap. ix) read almost like a comment upon our text. He argues that “if any thing does pierce the veil and reach them, it must be something trivial and small, either in itself or to them.”
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