applied his theories of government, and tested their practicability. He
was then fifty years old. His success was soon apparent in the growing
prosperity of the whole people. Instead of the tyranny which before
prevailed, they were now ruled according to his idea of good
government,--that of the father of a family. Confidence was restored to
the public mind, and all good influences followed. But the tree was not
yet deeply enough rooted to resist accidents, and all his wise
arrangements were suddenly overthrown by the caprice of the monarch, who,
tired of the austere virtue of Confucius, suddenly plunged into a career
of dissipation. Confucius resigned his office, and again became a
wanderer, but now with a new motive. He had before travelled to learn, now
he travelled to teach. He collected disciples around him, and, no longer
seeking to gain the ear of princes, he diffused his ideas among the common
people by means of his disciples, whom he sent out everywhere to
communicate his doctrines. So, amid many vicissitudes of outward fortune,
he lived till he was seventy-three years old. In the last years of his
life he occupied himself in publishing his works, and in editing the
Sacred Books. His disciples had become very numerous, historians
estimating them at three thousand, of whom five hundred had attained to
official station, seventy-two had penetrated deeply into his system, and
ten, of the highest class of mind and character, were continually near his
person. Of these Hwuy was especially valued by him, as having early
attained superior virtue. He frequently referred to him in his
conversations. "I saw him continually advance," said he, "but I never saw
him stop in the path of knowledge." Again he says: "The wisest of my
disciples, having one idea, understands two. Hwuy, having one understands
ten." One of the select ten disciples, Tszee-loo, was rash and impetuous
like the Apostle Peter. Another, Tszee-Kung, was loving and tender like
the Apostle John; he built a house near the grave of Confucius, wherein to
mourn for him after his death.