Here is an English translation of the
Chen family generation names in Chinese:
Cover
Chen family generation names book
Page1
Chen family album collection in Wucheng County
There are two functions of the portraits of progenitor, the first one is that they are souvenirs to his offsprings, and the second one is that it will bring encouragement to the offsprings.
The body of the progenitor had been buried in the ground and will never be seen. So the portrait is very important for the offsprings to be used as a memorial no matter how many years had passed by.
The progenitor whose portraits will be hung and commemorated by the offspring must be chosen from the one who had pretty noble morality , very good reputation and famous in history.
Every time when the offsprings see the portraits, they will be encouraged to follow and study the spirits of the progenitor. Otherwise , it will be useless to paint portraits for them.
There were a lot of portraits in my book, all of them showed the ones who were loved and respected by the offspring.
When the offsprings saw those portraits, they would know the situation nowadays, it just likes we can understand the situation before from the ancient portraits.
The portraits in my book were collected according to the history and maybe there will be some ones were added later, so the book was called family album collection.
Printed in Kuala Lumpur
Page 2
The portrait of Marquis Laiwu
He was born in Jiaxiang County, Jining City, Shandong Province in September 4th, number 9 year of King Jing.
Page 3
The portrait of Saint Chen.
His scholarly attainments will be circulated forever and his contribution was as high as the sky.
He was born in Jiaxiang County in the winter of King Zhou.
Page 4
The mottos and instructions from Saint Chen
The principle of great scholarship is to promote the fair morality and make people to drop the old and seek for the new things, to make people stay in a prefect ideal state.
People who know the ideal state will have a firm ambition; a firm ambition will make people keep quiet; keep quiet will make the heart peaceful, a peaceful heart can make people consider everything in order, in order will make people gain their needs.
Everything had its roots and minor matters, and everything had a start and an end.
People can grasp the law of the development after they understand the rules of roots and minor and the rules of start and end.
In ancient time, the people who want to spread the great moralities should manage their country very well first; to achieve this, one should manage his clan and family very well first; to achieve this, then one should promote the morality of himself first; to achieve this, one should balance the thought of himself first; to achieve this, one should make his idea honest, to achieve this, one should learn enough knowledge; the way to gain knowledge is to research everything in the world.
So ,one can gain knowledge by the researching; then the idea will be honest; then the thought will be balanced; then the morality will be promoted; then the clan and family will be managed well; then the country will be managed very well too; then the country will be peaceful forever.
Everybody from the king to the common should make the promotion of morality as the root of life. If this root is broken, it is impossible to manage a family, a clan or a country very well.
