Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 3.djvu/253

 the sovereigns of Kâu, will greatly help you, and confer rewards, selecting you to stand in our royal court. Only be attentive to your duties, and you may rank among our great officers."

'The king says, "Oh! ye numerous officers, if you cannot exhort one another to pay a sincere regard to my charges, it will further show that you are unable to honour your sovereign; and all the people will (also) say, 'We will not honour him.' Thus will ye be proved slothful and perverse, greatly disobedient to the royal charges. Throughout your numerous regions you will bring on yourselves the terrors of Heaven, and I will then inflict on you its punishments, removing you far from your country."'

'The king says, "I do not (wish to) make these many declarations, but it is in a spirit of awe that I lay my commands before you." He further says, "You may now make a (new) beginning. If you cannot reverently realize the harmony (which I enjoin), do not (hereafter) murmur against me."'

phrase, 'the Establishment of Government,' occurs several times in the course of the Book, and is thence taken to denominate it,—appropriately enough. The subject treated of throughout, is how good government may be established.

Some Chinese critics maintain that the text as it stands is very confused, 'head and tail in disorder, and without connexion,' and various re-arrangements of it have been proposed, for which, however, there is no manuscript authority. Keeping to the received text, and dividing it into six chapters, we may adopt a summary of its contents approved by the editors of the Shû, which was published in the Yung-kăng reign of the