reforms were executed, and down to the present day the best points in
Chinese government are based on his recommendations. If "no intelligent
monarch arose" in his time, the greatest emperors have since sought to
conform with his usages and to rule after the ideal of the great
philosopher. His name and his teachings were perpetuated by a band of
devoted disciples, and the book which contained the moral and
philosophical axioms of Confucius passed into the classic literature of
the country and stood in the place of a Bible for the Chinese. The list of
the great Chinese reformers is completed by the name of Mencius, who,
coming two centuries later, carried on with better opportunities the
reforming work of Confucius, and left behind him in his Sheking the most
popular book of Chinese poetry and a crowning tribute to the great Master.

From teachers we must again pass to the chronicle of kings, although few
of the later Chow emperors deserve their names to be rescued from
oblivion. One emperor suffered a severe defeat while attempting to
establish his authority over the troublesome tribes beyond the frontier;
of another it was written that "his good qualities merited a happier day,"
and the general character of the age may be inferred from its being
designated by the native chroniclers "The warlike period." At last, after
what seemed an interminable old age, marked by weakness and vice, the Chow
dynasty came to an end in the person of Nan Wang, who, although he reigned
for nearly sixty years, was deposed in ignominious fashion by one of his
great vassals, and reduced to a humble position. His conqueror became the
founder of the fourth Chinese dynasty.

During the period of internal strife which marked the last four centuries
of the Chow dynasty, one family had steadily waxed stronger and stronger
among the princes of China: the princes of Tsin, by a combination of
prudence and daring, gradually made themselves supreme among their