The San Francisco call., 1909-11-21

THE Son of Heaven" This is the
rendering:
The shaker bird, his shakes are seven,
Winging his way to the topmost
heaven;
The son Of heaven he sees today,
So adds two shakes and files away.
Here are some of the sayings OF
Confucius that, under China's old ex
animation system, have been under
lying factors in making China the ma
tion that caused Napoleon to say,
There lies a giant; let him sleep" and
When China moves she will move the
world:
.I will not be aflicted at men not
knowing me; 1 Will be afflicted that
do not know men,"
The master said: The superior man
seeks to perfect the admirable qualities
of men and does not seek to perfect
their bad qualities. The mean man
does the opposite Of this"
All within the four seas (China) are
brothers"
The master said: I do not know
how a man without truthfulness is to
get on"
THE superior man in the world does
not set his mind for or against any
thing; what is right he will follow"
When a country is well governed
poverty and a mean condition are
things TO be ashamed Of. When a
country is i'll governed riches and honor
are things to be ashamed Of"
IT will be- noticed that all these say
ings have to do with relationships be-
tween men. This is almost true char
acteristic of Confucianism and, taken
IN connection with his failure to give
more than slight attention to a "Su-
preme Ruler" and to "the coming
life" is the main consideration which
necessitates calling Confucianism an
ethical system rather than a religion.
The practical, Immediately applicable
and high morality of Confucius' code
accounts for the relatively rapid rise of
Chinese civilization and also for It's
failure to go beyond a certain point,
thus bringing China in the long ago to
what Prof. Henry Drummond so aptly
styled "a state of arrested develop
ment."
Under the stimulus of this high eth
ical teaching and also under the sys
tenn of education which has had as one
of its fundamental tenets that saying
of Confucius, IL do not open up the
trust to one who is not eager to get
knowledge, nor help any one who is
not anxious to explain himself. When
I present one corner of subject to
any one and he can not from 1t learn
the other three, do not repeat my
lesson" the scholars in China have
developed brightness or nina ana
keenness in affairs
Not only does the confucian system
develop a keenness of mind and
poetic atmosphere, but it begets a gen
erosity toward worthy objects The
Chinese scholars are very liberal In
proportion to their means toward all
sorts of philanthropic enterprises
Here is a letter that came quite un-
solicited to the writer while in Tien-
tsin from an official friend in a city
about 100 miles away:
My Dear Friend: AS have not
seen you for a long time ! think you
have enjoyed good health. Now hav-
ing a meager presenting of $4,000
which are subscribed for the current
expenses of the association school by
me-hope you to receive numerically.
Please present my compliments to Mr..
Galley (the American general secre-
tary) and Mr. Chung Tzu Teng.
remain, yours truly"
The quaint English is due to the
fact that this official out of a busy life
has .toiled away in spare moments and
almost by himself to get q reading
and writing knowledge of. English. In
another letter he quotes a long and
Complicated formula from the abstruse
science of thermodynamics that very