Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 16.djvu/80

 249, to the effect that 'Tî is the lord who produces (all) things, the author of prosperity and increase.'

I must refer the reader to the translation in the body of the volume for the 9th paragraph, which is too long to be introduced here. As the 8th speaks directly of God, the 9th, we are told, 'speaks of all things following Him, from spring to winter, from the east to the north, in His progress throughout the year.' In words strikingly like those of the apostle Paul, when writing his Epistle to the Romans, Wan Khung-ung (of the Khang-hsî period) and his son, in their admirable work called, 'A New Digest of Collected Explanations of the Yî King,' say:—'God (Himself) cannot be seen; we see Him in the things (which He produces).' The first time I read these paragraphs with some understanding, I thought of Thomson's Hymn on the Seasons, and I have thought of it in connexion with them a hundred times since. Our English poet wrote:—

These, as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing spring Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love. Then comes Thy glory in the summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year. Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. In winter awful Thou!'

Prudish readers have found fault with some of Thomson's expressions, as if they savoured of pantheism. The language of the Chinese writer is not open to the same captious objection. Without poetic ornament, or swelling phrase of any kind, he gives emphatic testimony to God as renewing the face of the earth in spring, and not resting till He has crowned the year with His goodness.

And there is in the passage another thing equally wonderful. The 10th paragraph commences:—'When we speak of Spirit, we mean the subtle presence (and operation of God) with all things;' and the writer goes on to illustrate this sentiment from the action and influences symbolised