e boldly denounced vice
and misrule. It was not difficult for a Chinese scholar and teacher to
find access to the highest of the land. The Chinese believed in the
divine right of learning, just as they believed in the divine right of
kings. Mang employed every weapon of persuasion in trying to combat
heresy and oppression; alternately ridiculing and reproving: now
appealing in a burst of moral enthusiasm, and now denouncing in terms
of cutting sarcasm the abuses which after all he failed to check. The
last prince whom he successfully confronted was the Marquis of Lu, who
turned him carelessly away. He accepted this as the Divine sentence of
his failure, "That I have not found in this marquis, a ruler who would
hearken to me is an intimation of heaven." Henceforth he lived in
retirement until his ninety-seventh year; but from his apparent
failure sprang a practical success. His written teachings are amongst
the most lively and epigrammatic works of Chinese literature, have
done much to keep alive amongst his countrymen the spirit of
Confucianism, and even Western readers may drink wisdom from this
spring of Oriental lore. The following selections from his sayings
well exhibit the spirit of his system of philosophy and morality:

E. W.

BOOK I

_King Hwuy of Leang_

PART I

Mencius went to see King Hwuy of Leang.[35] The king said, "Venerable
Sir, since you have not counted it far to come here a distance of a
thousand li, may I presume that you are likewise provided with
counsels to profit my kingdom?" Mencius replied, "Why must your
Majesty use that word 'profit'? What I am likewise provided with are
counsels to benevolence and righteousness; and these are my only
topics.

"If your Majesty say, 'What is to be done to profit my kingdom?' the
great officers will say, 'What is to be done to profit our families?'
and the inferior officers and the common people will say, 'What is to
be done to profit our persons?' Superiors and inferiors will try to
take the profit the one from the other, and the kingdom will be
endangered. In the kingdom of ten thousand chariots, the murderer of
his ruler will be the chief of a family of a thousand chariots. In the
State of a thousand chariots, the murderer of his ruler will be the
chief of a family of a hundred chariots. To have a thousand in ten
thousand, and a hundred in a thousand, cannot be regarded as not a