Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/411

 one resolute minister, plain and sincere, without other abilities, but having a simple, complacent mind, and possessed of generosity, regarding the talents of others, as if he himself possessed them: and when he finds accomplished and sage-like men, loving them in his heart more than his mouth expresses, really showing himself able to bear them:—such a minister would be able to preserve my descendants and my people, and would indeed be a giver of benefits' (Shoo King, v. 30. See also v. 19. 2).

These extracts, without giving an adequate notion of the very miscellaneous contents of the Shoo King, a work which could not be accomplished without an undue extension of the subdivision referring to it, will serve to show that its moral tone on matters relating to the government of a nation is not inferior to that of any of the productions of classical or Hebrew antiquity.

—The She King.

Whatever sanctity or authority may attach to the She King in the minds of the Chinese, must belong to it solely on account of its antiquity, for there is certainly nothing in the character of its contents that should entitle it to a place in the consecrated literature of a nation. Similar phenomena, however, are not unknown among more devout races than the Chinese. Thus the Hebrews admitted into their Canon the Books of Ruth and Esther, and the Song of Solomon, which contain but little of an edifying nature, though full of human interest. The same may be said of the She King. The play of human emotions is vividly represented in it, but there is not much in which moral or religious lessons are to be found, except by doing violence to the text.

The She King is a collection of ancient poems. Tradition attributes the arrangement and selection of the Odes now contained in it to Confucius, who is supposed to have selected them in accordance with some wise design from a much larger number. The present translator, however, assigns reasons for rejecting this tradition, and for believing that the She King was current in China long before his time in a form not very different from that in which we now possess it. At the present day,