RELIGIOUS RITES.

Mencius said, "Though a man may be wicked, yet if he adjust his thoughts, fast, and bathe, he may sacrifice to God.

"When a prince endangers the altars of the spirits of the land and grain, he is changed, and another appointed in his place.

"When the sacrificial victims have been perfect, the millet in its vessels all pure, and the sacrifices offered at their proper seasons, if yet there ensue drought, or the waters overflow, the spirits of the land and grain are changed, and others appointed in their place."

ON GIVING AND RECEIVING PRESENTS.

Wan Chang asked Mencius, saying, “I venture to ask what feeling of the mind is expressed in the presents of friendship." Mencius replied, " The feeling of respect."

"How is it," pursued Chang, "that the declining a present is accounted disrespectful?" The answer was, "When one of honorable rank presents a gift, to say in the mind, 'Was the way in which he got this righteous or not? I must know this before I can receive it;' this is deemed disrespectful, and therefore presents are not declined."

Wan Chang asked again, "When one does not take on him in so many express words to refuse the gift, but having declined it in his heart, saying, 'It was taken by him unrighteously from the people,' and then assigns II*

OF THE

UNIVERSIT

some other reason for not receiving it, is not this a proper course?" Mencius said, "When the donor offers it on a ground of reason, and his manner of doing so is according to propriety: in such a case, Confucius would have received it."

Wang Chang said, "Here, now, is one who stops and robs people outside the gates of the city. He offers his gift on a ground of reason, and does so in a manner according to propriety; would the reception of it, so acquired by robbery, be proper?" Mencius replied, "It would not be proper."

It is said in the Book of History, " In presenting an offering to a superior, most depends on the demonstrations of respect. If those demonstrations are not equal to the things offered, we say there is no offering: that is, there is no act of the will in presenting the offering."*

Mencius said, "To feed a scholar and not love him, is to treat him as a pig. To love him and not respect him, is to keep him as a domestic animal.

66

Honoring and respecting are what exist before any offering of gifts.

"If there be honoring and respecting without the reality of them, a superior man may not be retained by such empty demonstrations."

* A gift is valuable for the giver's sake, and for the motives which prompted it.

CHAPTER V.

MISCELLANEOUS.

HISTORICAL SCRAPS.

His

Ke-sun said, "A strange man was Tsze-shuh E. He pushed himself into the service of government. prince declining to employ him, he had to retire indeed, but he again schemed that his son or younger brother should be made a high officer. Who indeed is there of men but wishes for riches and honor? But he only, among the seekers of these, tried to monopolize the conspicuous mound.

"Of old time, the market-dealers exchanged the articles which they had for others which they had not, and simply had certain officers to keep order among them. It happened that there was a mean fellow, who made it a point to look out for a conspicuous mound, and get up upon it. Thence he looked right and left, to catch in his net the whole gain of the market. The people all thought his conduct mean, and therefore they proceeded to lay a tax upon his wares. The taxing of traders took its rise from this mean fellow."

There being some who would not become the subjects

of Chow, king Woo proceeded to punish them on the east. He gave tranquillity to their people, who welcomed him with baskets full of their black and yellow silks, saying, "From henceforth we shall serve the sovereign of our dynasty of Chow, that we may be made happy by him." So they joined themselves, as subjects, to the great city of Chow. Thus, the men of station of Shang took baskets full of black and yellow silks to meet the men of station of Chow, and the lower classes of the one met those of the other, with baskets of rice and vessels of congee. Woo saved the people from the midst of fire and water, seizing only their oppressors, and destroying them.

Mencius said, "When Shun was living amid the deep retired mountains, dwelling with the trees and rocks, and wandering among the deer and swine, the difference between him and the rude inhabitants of those remote hills appeared very small. But when he heard a single good word, or saw a single good action, he was like a stream or a river bursting its banks and flowing out in an irresistible flood."

ITEMS CONTAINING REFERENCES TO ANCIENT EMPERORS.

In the time of Yaou, when the world had not yet been perfectly reduced to order, the vast waters, flowing out of their channels, made a universal inundation. Vegetation was luxuriant, and birds and beasts swarmed. The various kinds of grain could not be grown. The birds and beasts pressed upon men. The paths marked by the feet of beasts and prints of birds crossed one another

throughout the Middle Kingdom. To Yaou alone this He raised Shun to office, and

caused anxious sorrow.

Shun

measures to regulate the disorder were set forth. committed to Yih the direction of the fire to be employed, and Yih set fire to, and consumed, the forests and vegetation on the mountains and in the marshes, so that the birds and beasts fled away to hide themselves. Yu separated the nine streams, cleared the courses of the Tse and T'ah, and led them all to the sea. He opened a vent also for the Joo and Han, and regulated the course of the Hwae and Sze, so that they all flowed into the Keang. When this was done, it became possible for the people of the Middle Kingdom to cultivate the ground and get food for themselves. During that time, Yu was eight years away from his home, and though he thrice passed the door of it, he did not enter. Although he had wished to cultivate the ground, could he have done so ?

A long time has elapsed since this world of men received its being, and there has been along its history now a period of good order, and now a period of confusion. In the time of Yaou, the waters, flowing out of their channels, inundated the Middle Kingdom. Snakes and dragons occupied it, and the people had no place where they could settle themselves. In the low grounds they made nests for themselves, and in the high grounds they made caves.*

It is said in the Book of History, “The

* The great Yu drained off the overflowed lands in the center of China, especially that through which the Yellow river flows, and rendered it habitable.

The "nests were huts on high-raised platforms. These are said to have been the summer habitations of the earliest men; and