look among these, rather than among the King, for the really "Sacred Book" of Confucianism. We find it in the LUN YU, commonly called the Analects of Confucius.

THE ANALECTS

This is a book of the sayings of the Master. It is written by we know not whom, but apparently by a disciple who listened to the Master and set down his words upon the spot. The book, if the comparison may be suggested without irreverence, holds for Chinamen much the same position and importance as the Four Gospels hold for Christians. From the Analects we see and know with striking clearness both the man Confucius and his doctrines.

Second of importance among the Four Philosophers' Books we may perhaps rank the Sayings of Mencius. Some such position as the Apostle Paul held to Jesus did Mencius hold to Confucius. The Chinese world was slow in taking up the teachings of the Master. It might even have forgotten them. But then, more than a century after the Master's death, came Mencius, preaching the word, spreading it by his own enthusiasm, adding to it his own interpretation. So that Confucianism is to-day what Mencius made it. As, however, he wrote so many years later than Confucius we shall hold his book for a later volume.

We have yet to glance briefly at the two remaining Philosophers' Books. These, with the seeming inconsequence not unusual in Chinese systems, are grouped in the classic Li Ki, or Collection of Rites, but they are also regarded as having a separate existence of their own among the Four Books. They are the TA HSIO, or Great Learning, which consists of a brief summary of ideas by Confucius, expanded into many pages by the explanations of a disciple, and the CHUNG YUNG, or doctrine of the Equilibrium, a work preaching temperance or harmony in all things, and written by a grandson of the Master.

Yet another sacred book is the HSIAO KING, or Classic of Filial Piety. Its position is not quite definite. As its name implies, it is sometimes ranked among the King and regarded

as the work of Confucius himself. But it was more probably written in later years, and embodies only a tradition of the Master's teaching. In either case it has become perhaps the most popular of all the great books of Confucianism, and so finds a place in our present volume. It seeks to found a whole religion on the basis of "ancestor worship," or of children loving and honoring their parents. The reader may find a special interest in the Hsiao King from the fact that it has been the favorite study of Chinese emperors. Several of them have written commentaries upon it. They too, like lesser folk, have wanted their children to honor them.

One further matter about all these Ancient Classics may be worth pointing out to the careful reader. That is, the untrustworthy character of our present Chinese texts. The old books have been copied and recopied during many centuries. The copyists were never precise workmen, and a very slight change in a Chinese written character may alter its significance. A careful modern scholar has estimated that probably twenty-five per cent. of the words of the classics have thus been changed. For example, in the Shu King, the oldest work of all, there are traces of metrical structure which suggest that some of its pieces, and perhaps all, were originally in verse, though they are now in prose. In brief, we possess a fascinating treasure in the Chinese classics, but it is not the treasure of accurate scientific registration and preservation of the past. The vision of ancient days and ancient wisdom comes down to us through the hands of many generations of reverent, eager students; and these, unconsciously, have somewhat molded the Master's thought to their desires. Only recently has Western scholarship delved beneath Chinese interpretations to rediscover the real Confucius.

THE SHU KING

OR

CLASSIC OF HISTORY

"Be versed in ancient lore, and familiarize yourself with the modern; then may you become teachers."

- CONFUCIUS.

What a precious possession have later rulers in the records of the Shu!"

THE

THE SHU KING

(INTRODUCTION)

HE character of the Shu King as a collection of old dained general historic documents has been explained in the general introduction. These documents are divided into five parts, of which the first contains only a single brief book, the sacred book or Canon of Yao. The second part consists of the Books of Yu, of which there are four, all very short. These two parts of the Shu are probably not contemporary with the events they relate. They employ more than once the words, "Examining into antiquity we find."

The remaining and much more extensive parts of the Shu are probably contemporaneous records. Part three contains four documents of the Hsia Dynasty (2205-1767 B.C.), the oldest clearly established family, or dynasty, of Chinese kings. Part four contains eleven documents of the Shang or Yin Dynasty (1766-1123 B.C.). Part five, which is much the longest, contains thirty documents, some of them fairly long, relating to the Chau Dynasty, which succeeded that of Shang and was still in power in the days of Confucius.

A brief glance at early Chinese history will help the reader much in understanding the opening of the Shu. About three thousand years before Christ the earliest Chinese hero Fu-shi, and his successors, built up a little kingdom which in civilization and in strength outranked the more barbaric peoples around it. By the time of Yao (2357 B.C.), the first king mentioned in the Shu, this kingdom included twelve lesser regions or dukedoms. It had become a land of light in the midst of surrounding darkness, though we need not believe it so pure and so invincible, nor its chief men so humble and self-sacrificing as they are pictured in the Book of Yao. Yao was idealized in later times as a perfect monarch and his epoch as a golden age.