ndate from God.

This same Minister is said to be responsible for the following
utterance:--

"Duke Huan asked Kuan Chang, saying, To what should a prince attach the
highest importance? To God, replied the Minister; at which Duke Huan
gazed upwards to the sky. The God I mean, continued Kuan Chung, is not
the illimitable blue above. A true prince makes the people his God."

Sacrifices.--Much has been recorded by the Chinese on the subject
of sacrifice,--more indeed than can be easily condensed into a small
compass. First of all, there were the great sacrifices to God and to
Earth, at the winter and summer solstices respectively, which were
reserved for the Son of Heaven alone. Besides what may be called private
sacrifices, the Emperor sacrificed also to the four quarters, and to the
mountains and rivers of the empire; while the feudal nobles sacrificed
each to his own quarter, and to the mountains and rivers of his own
domain. The victim offered by the Emperor on a blazing pile of wood was
an ox of one colour, always a young animal; a feudal noble would use any
fatted ox; and a petty official a sheep or a pig. When sacrificing to
the spirits of the land and of grain, the Son of Heaven used a bull, a
ram, and a boar; the feudal nobles only a ram and a boar; and the common
people, scallions and eggs in spring, wheat and fish in summer, millet
and a sucking-pig in autumn, and unhulled rice and a goose in winter.
If there was anything infelicitous about the victim intended for God, it
was used for Hou Chi. The victim intended for God required to be kept in
a clean stall for three months; that for Hou Chi simply required to
be perfect in its parts. This was the way in which they distinguished
between heavenly and earthly spirits.

In primeval times, we are told, sacrifices consisted of meat and drink,
the latter being the "mysterious liquid," water, for which wine was
substituted later on. The ancients roasted millet and pieces of pork;
they made a hole in the ground and scooped the water from it with their
two hands, beating upon an earthen drum with a clay drumstick. Thus they
expressed their reverence for spiritual beings.

"Sacrifices," according to the _Book of Rites_ (Legge's translation),
"should not be frequently repeated. Such frequency is an indication of
importunateness; and importunateness is inconsistent with reverence. Nor
should they be at distant intervals. Such infrequency is indicative
of indifference;