wind and the grass. The grass must bend, when the wind blows
across it [1]."'
Example is not so powerful as Confucius in these and many
other passages represented it, but its influence is very great. Its
virtue is recognised in the family, and it is demanded in the
church of Christ. 'A bishop'-- and I quote the term with the simple
meaning of overseer-- 'must be blameless.' It seems to me,
however, that in the progress of society in the West we have
come to think less of the power of example in many departments
of state than we ought to do. It is thought of too little in the
army and the navy. We laugh at the 'self-denying ordinance,' and
the 'new model' of 1644, but there lay beneath them the principle
which Confucius so broadly propounded,-- the importance of
personal virtue in all who are in authority. Now that Great Britain
is the governing power over the masses of India and that we are
coming more and more into contact with tens of thousands of the
Chinese, this maxim of our sage is deserving of serious
consideration from all who bear rule, and especially from those
on whom devolves the conduct of affairs. His words on the
susceptibility of the people to be acted on by those above them
ought not to prove as water spilt on the ground.
But to return to Confucius.-- As he thus lays it down that
the mainspring of the well-being of society is the personal
character of the ruler, we look anxiously for what directions he
has given for the cultivation of that. But here he is very
defective. 'Self-adjustment and purification,' he said, 'with
careful regulation of his dress, and the not making a movement
contrary to the rules of propriety;-- this is the way for the ruler
to cultivate his person [2].' This is laying too much stress on what
is external; but even to attain to this is beyond unassisted human