by a tiger, and my husband also; and now my son has met the same fate.'
'Why do you not leave the place?' asked Confucius. On her replying,
'There is here no oppressive government,' he turned to his disciples and
said, 'My children, remember this,--oppressive government is more cruel
than a tiger.'"

On another of their journeys they ran out of food, and one of the
disciples, faint with hunger, asked the sage, "Must the superior man
indeed suffer in this way?" "The superior man may have to suffer want,"
answered Confucius, "but the mean man, when he is in want, gives way to
unbridled license." The last five years of his life were spent in Loo,
his native state, in teaching and in finishing the works he had long
been writing.

Confucius was no philosopher in the ordinary sense. He was a moral
teacher, but devised no system of religion, telling his disciples that
the demands of this world were quite enough to engage the thoughts of
men, and that the future might be left to provide for itself. He cared
nothing about science and studied none of the laws of nature, but
devoted himself to the teaching of the principles of conduct, with
marked evidence of wisdom and practical common sense.

Of all the great men who have lived upon the earth, conquerors, writers,
inventors, and others, none have gained so wide a renown as this quiet
Chinese moral teacher, whose fame has reached the ears of more millions
of mankind than that of any other man who has ever lived. To-day his
descendants form the only hereditary nobility in China, with the
exception of those of his great disciple Mencius, who proved a worthy
successor to the sage.

It is to Confucius that we owe nearly all we possess of the early
literature of China. Of what are known as the "Five Classics," four are
by his hand. The "Book of Changes," the oldest classic, was written by a
mystic named Wan Wang, who lived about 1150 B.C. It is highly revered,
but no one pretends to understand it. The works of Confucius include the
"Book of History," the "Book of Odes," the "Book of Rites," and the
"Spring and Autumn Annals," all of them highly esteemed in China for the
knowledge they give of ancient days and ways.

The records of the early dynasties kept at the imperial court were
closely studied by Confucius, who selected from them all that he thought
worth preserving. This he compiled into the _Shoo King_, or "Book of
History." The contents of this work we have condensed in th