A CHINESE MILLENNIUM.*

FROM THE CHINESE CLASSICS.

EN HWUY, by designation Tsze-yuen, was a native of Loo, the favorite of his master, Confucius, whose junior he was by thirty years, and whose disciple he became when he was quite a youth.

"After I got Hwuy," Confucius remarked, "the disciples came closer to me."

We are told that once, when he found himself on the Nung hill with Hwuy, Tszeloo and Tsze-kung, Confucius asked them to tell him their different aims and he would choose between them.

Tsze-loo began; and when he had done, the master said,

"It marks your bravery."

Tsze-kung followed, on whose words the judgment was,

They show your discriminating elo

At last came Yen Yuen, who said,

"I should like to find an intelligent king and sage ruler whom I might assist. I would diffuse among the people instructions on the five great points, and lead them on by the rules of propriety and music, so that they should not care to fortify their cities by walls and moats, but would fuse their swords and spears into implements of agriculture. They should send forth their flocks without fear into the plains and forests. There should be no sunderings of families, no widows or widowers. For a thousand years there would be no calamity of war. Yew would have no

* Yen Hwuy, the favorite disciple of Confucius, was born

about 521 B. c. His idea as to how he could bring about a millennium is remarkable, but, considering mankind at that age especially, Utopian.

opportunity to display his bravery, or Ts'ze to display his oratory."

The master pronounced,

"How admirable is this virtue !"

When Hwuy was twenty-nine, his hair was all white, and in three years more he died. He was sacrificed to, along with Confucius, by the first emperor of the Han dynasty. The title which he now has in the sacrificial canon-" Continuator of the Sage" -was conferred in the ninth year of the emperor, or, to speak more correctly, of the period, Kea-tsing, A. D. 1530.

Translation of JAMES LEGGE, D. D.

MAN'S NATURE IS EVIL.

Mencius said, "Man has only to learn, and his nature becomes good," but I reply, It is not so. To say so shows that he had not attained to the knowledge of man's nature, nor examined into the difference between what is natural in man and what is factitious. The natural is what the constitution spontaneously moves to; it needs not to be learned,

it needs not to be followed hard after. Propriety and righteousness are what the sages have given birth to. It is by learning that men become capable of them; it is by hard practice that they achieve them. That which

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is in man, not needing to be learned and striven after, is what I call natural; that in man which is attained to by learning and achieved by hard striving is what I call factitious. This is the distinction between those two. By the nature of man the eyes are capable of seeing and the ears are capable of hearing, but the power of seeing is inseparable from the eyes and the power of hearing is inseparable from the ears. It is plain that the faculties of seeing and hearing do not need to be learned. Mencius says, "The nature of man is good, but all lose and ruin their nature, and therefore it becomes bad;" but I say that this representation is erroneous. Man being born with his nature, when he thereafter departs from its simple constituent elements he must lose it. From this consideration we may see clearly that man's nature is evil. What might be called the nature's being good would be if there were no departing from its simplicity to beautify it, no departing from its elementary dispositions to sharpen it. Suppose that those simple elements no more needed beautifying, and the mind's thoughts no more needed to be turned to good, than the power of vision, which is inseparable from the eyes, and the power of hearing, which is inseparable from the ears, need to be learned, then we might say that the nature is good, just as we say that the eyes see and the ears hear. It is the nature of man, when hungry, to desire to be filled; when cold, to desire to be warmed; when tired, to desire rest: these are the feelings and nature of man. But now a man is hungry, and in the presence of an elder he does not dare to eat before him: he is yielding to that elder. He is tired with

labor, and he does not dare to ask for rest: he is working for some one. A son's yielding to his father and a younger brother to his elder, a son's laboring for his father and a younger brother for his elder, these two instances of conduct are contrary to the nature and against the feelings, but they are according to the course laid down for a filial son and the refined distinctions of propriety and righteousness. It appears that if there were an accordance with the feelings and the nature there would be no self-denial and yielding to others. Self-denial and yielding to others are contrary to the feelings and the nature. In this way we come to see how clear it is that the nature of man is evil; the good which it shows is factitious.

An inquirer will ask, "If man's nature be evil, whence do propriety and righteousness arise?" I reply, All propriety and righteousness are the artificial production of the sages, and are not to be considered as growing out of the nature of man. It is just as when a potter makes a vessel from the clay : the vessel is the product of the workman's art, and is not to be considered as growing out of his nature. Or it is as when another workman cuts and hews a vessel out of wood: it is the product of his art, and is not to be considered as growing out of his nature. The sages pondered long in thought and gave themselves to practice, and so they succeeded in producing propriety and righteousness and setting up laws and regulations. Thus it is that propriety and righteousness, laws and regulations, are the artificial product of the sages, and are not to be considered as growing properly from the nature of man.

Translation of JAMES LEGGE.

I

GAUGE OF A MAN'S GREATNESS.

FIND the world's practice of recognizing great merit, for the most part, only after death to be so constant and so universal as to incline me to regard post-mortem praise as the best gauge of a man's greatness, and ante-mortem praise as a very doubtful measure of a man's worth. Also this I find, that the soul that enters this life bearing the impress of true greatness can plan and toil and sacrifice itself for mankind's good wholly unconcerned whether known or unknown, whether understood or misunderstood, whether appreciated or spurned, wholly unconcerned even when the laurel wreath that should encircle its brow is made to deck the head of a pigmy talent. The mind of a true genius, the heart of a real benefactor, is too noble to be incensed by the bids of vainglorious minds for immediate recognition and adoration.

The reputation that is easily won is generally easily lost. A distinguished youth is the forerunner of an obscure old age. The greatness that is readily understood and applauded by the masses, unless it be that of the rarest genius, is usually a misnomer, and it is generally short-lived. The truly great man is usually ahead of his time. A generation or two pass away before the people can catch up with him, before they can understand or appreciate him.

hotly engaged in proving themselves the survival of the fittest, to admit, without a bitter fight, another man's getting ahead or keeping in the lead. We must not believe, however, that it is always envy or malice that keeps contemporaries from recognizing and appreciating their own great men. Some great men take a lifetime in developing. They never belong to their own time. Years must elapse before they reach their full height and strength. Some provoke what at the time seems just hatred and opposition. They come as reformers and with uncompromising severity; they come to overthrow ways and methods, customs and beliefs that centuries have rooted deep in the hearts of the people.

Neither must we think that the true genius seeks praise or likes it. The greater the stress he lays upon reward or fame the less of a genius is he. True genius seldom quarrels with fate. It seldom beseeches our sympathy or asks our pity. It is seldom without its reward and praise—a praise such as contemporaries' lips can never utter. What praise higher than the praise of one's own conscience of having done one's duty!

RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF.

THE CAPTIVE.

very, still thou art a bitter draught, and, though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, Liberty-thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whom all in public or in private worship-whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so till Nature herself shall change. No tint of words can