Debts owed are lost for want of evidence, with endless recriminations, abuse, and general confusion, all of which falls upon the three families--father's, mother's, and wife's--connected with the deceased.

These in their anger speak ill of him that is gone.

He sees his children become corrupt, and friends fall away.

Some, perhaps, may stroke the coffin and let fall a tear, departing quickly with a cold smile.

Worse than that, the wife sees her husband tortured in gaol; the husband sees his wife a victim to some horrible disease, lands gone, houses destroyed by flood or fire, and everything in an unutterable plight--the reward of former sins." Confucius declined absolutely to discuss the supernatural in any form or shape, his one object being to improve human conduct in this life, without attempting to probe that state from which man is divided by death.