here afforded for learning what causes may have operated towards the preservation of this one nation, while in all other parts of the earth thrones have been set up and demolished, and kingdoms have arisen and decayed in constant succession. This book is desirable, not as a curiosity merely: it contains a large amount of sound instruction. The chapter on Political Economy is worthy of careful study by all college professors. The considerations which should govern in the choice of public officers, the motives which should actuate the candidate in the acceptance of office, and the line of conduct which public men ought ever to pursue, are treated in an admirable style, and will be admired not only for their wisdom, but as particularly appropriate for the country and the times in which we live. Those fond of metaphysics and of ethics will, at least, be entertained with the readings under these heads, which are supplied from Mencius. The character which was impressed upon the old Puritan stock, and which through many generations has not yet been entirely worn away, was in part enstamped upon the susceptible minds of the children, while studying the pictures, the texts, and the sentiments which were cut in the bricks of those spacious fire-places in which they lived in Holland: so in China, the walls of their dwellings, shops, and public halls are adorned with scrolls on which are inscribed sentiments from their ancient authors; even the bowls with which three times a day their tables are set, and the cups from which at all hours they sip their tea, are written over with verses from the Book of Odes, with proverbs, and maxims. Let us, therefore, learn what is the character of the mottoes and maxims which they are constantly reading and repeating, and which must exert a powerful influence in forming and preserving, as it is, the character of this nation of three hundred and sixty or four hundred millions of people. The Chinese are proverbially a reading people : let us know what it is they read. The classics, especially the Four Books, are the Scriptures-the holy books of the Chinese. From them, and particularly from the Lun Yu of the Four Books, the themes are taken which are given to the students at the examinations. These books furnish the texts on which Chinese moralists of modern times found their discourses and tracts designed to exhort the people to virtue. These classical works, as well as all books put into the hands of children in the schools, are committed to memory by Chinese scholars, old and young; and they are so thoroughly learned that were every scrap of writing in China to be destroyed, they could be restored. again from the memories of many thousands of the lit erary men. Considering the high antiquity of these writings, their great intrinsic worth, the perfection in which they have been preserved, the vast number of people whose characters have been moulded by them, it is surprising that in all the world so few people outside of China have learned anything about them; now, however, as has been intimated, a desire is beginning to be awakened to learn more of China and its literature. In this volume will be found quotations from the Book of Rites, a few examples from the Book of Odes, and specimens of Chinese composition and style of thought of a later date than Confucius, and these on several subjects. We have spoken of the high estimation in which the people of China hold these works of their ancient sages; it amounts almost, if not quite, to a religious veneration; indeed, letters, in their view, are sacred: they allow no printed paper-nothing on which there is writing of any kind in the Chinese character-to be put to an ignoble use, to be used for wrapping paper, or to be trampled under foot. There are men employed to go around gathering up all waste documents and pieces of printed paper, which are burned in a formal manner near some shrine or temple. Further remarks to aid the reader may be found in an Introduction to the Four Books, in the body of the work. |