Pythagoras, and Cyrus. About his time occurred the return of the Jews from
Babylon and the invasion of Greece by Xerxes. His descendants have always
enjoyed high privileges, and there are now some forty thousand of them in
China, seventy generations and more removed from their great ancestor. His
is the oldest family in the world, unless we consider the Jews as a single
family descended from Abraham. His influence, through his writings, on the
minds of so many millions of human beings is greater than that of any man
who ever lived, excepting the writers of the Bible; and in saying this we
do not forget the names of Mohammed, Aristotle, St. Augustine, and Luther.
So far as we can see, it is the influence of Confucius which has
maintained, though probably not originated, in China, that profound
reverence for parents, that strong family affection, that love of order,
that regard for knowledge and deference for literary men, which are
fundamental principles underlying all the Chinese institutions. His minute
and practical system of morals, studied as it is by all the learned, and
constituting the sum of knowledge and the principle of government in
China, has exerted and exerts an influence on that innumerable people
which it is impossible to estimate, but which makes us admire the power
which can emanate from a single soul.

To exert such an influence requires greatness. If the tree is to be known
by its fruits, Confucius must have been one of the master minds of our
race. The supposition that a man of low morals or small intellect, an
impostor or an enthusiast, could influence the world, is a theory which
is an insult to human nature. The time for such theories has happily gone
by. We now know that nothing can come of nothing,--that a fire of straw
may make a bright blaze, but must necessarily soon go out. A light which
illuminates centuries must be more than an ignis fatuus. Accordingly we
should approach Confucius with respect, and expect to find something good
and wise in his writings. It is only a loving spirit which will enable us