aya, in many ways, and
until recently, than most of Europe has been in most of _her_
manvantara. In Kienlung's reign, for example (1735-1795) there
were higher standards of life, more security, law, and order,
than in the Europe of Catherine of Russia, Frederick the Great,
Louis XV and the Revolution, and the English Georges. There was
far less ferment of the Spirit, true; less possibility of
progress;--but that is merely to say that China was in pralaya,
Europe in high manvantara. The explanation is that a stability
had been imparted to that Far Eastern civilization, which Europe
has lacked altogether; whose history, for all its splendid high-
lights, has had thousands of hideous shadows; has not been so
noble a thing as we tacitly and complacently assume; but a long
record of wars, confusions, disorder, and cruelities, with only
dawning now the possibility of that union which is the first
condition of true progress, as distinguished from the riot of
material inventions and political experiments that has gone by
that name.--But now, back to Mencius again.

In all things he tried to follow Confucius; beginning early by
being born in the latter's own district of Tsow in Shantung, and
having a woman in ten thousand for his mother;--she has been the
model held up to all Chinese mothers since. He grew up strong in
body and mind, thoughtful and fearless; a tireless student of
history, poetry, national institutions, and the lives of great
men. Like Confucius, he opened a school, and gathered disciples
about him: but there was never the bond of love here, that there
had been between Confucius and Tse Lu, Yen Huy, and the others.
These may have heard from their Master the pure deep things of
Theosophy; one would venture the statement that none of Mencius'
following heard the like from him. He saw in Confucius that
which he himself was fitted to be, and set out to become. He
went from court to court, and everywhere, as a great scholar, was
received with honor. (You will note as one more proof of an
immemorial culture, that then, as now the scholar, as such, was
at the very top of the social scale. There was but one word for
_scholar_ and _official._)--He proposed, like Confucius, that
some king should make him his minister; and like Confucius, he
was always disappointed. But in him we come on none of the soft
lights and tones that endear Confucius to us; he fell far short
of being Such a One. A clear, bold mind, w