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chief called Hu-fu Ch'iu, seeing him in this condition, brought out a kettle of soup and fed him; and when the traveller had swallowed three mouthfuls he recovered so far as to be able to open his eyes. Then, gazing at his deliverer, he said, "Who are you?" “I am Hu-fu Ch'iu,” replied the robber. "What!" exclaimed Mr. Yuan; "why, you're a robber, aren't you? How is it you have given me food? My sense of rectitude forbids me to accept your hospitality." Whereupon he knelt with his two hands upon the ground and retched. He was unable, however, to vomit what he had eaten, but coughed and choked so violently that he fell flat down and expired. Now, it is true that Hu-fu Ch'iu was a robber, but his food had been honestly come by; so that to refuse to eat food because it is given by a robber, who only may have stolen it, is to lose both the substance and the shadow.

The Elixir of Life.

Once upon a time it was reported that there was a person who professed to have the secret of immortality. The King of Yen, therefore, sent messengers to inquire about it; but they dawdled on the road, and before they had arrived at their destination the man was already dead. Then the King was very angry, and sought to slay the messengers; but his favourite Minister expostulated with him, saying, "There is nothing which causes greater sorrow to men than death; there is nothing they value more highly than life. Now, the very man who said he possessed the secret of immortality is dead himself. How, then, could he have prevented your Majesty from dying?" So the men's lives were spared.

Doing Evil that Good may come.

There was once a man in Han-tan who presented a live pigeon to Chien-tzŭ at dawn one New Year's Day. Chien-tzŭ was delighted, and rewarded him liberally. A visitor asked him his reason for acting thus. "Because," said Chien-tzu, "it gives me an opportunity of releasing a captive bird; and to set living creatures free on New Year's morning is a special

manifestation of mercy." The visitor replied, "But if the people know that your Excellency is so fond of setting birds at liberty, they will vie with each other in catching them to begin with, and numbers of the birds will die. If your object is to save their lives, would it not be better to forbid the people to catch them at all? First to catch them, in order to let them go afterwards, is surely to destroy the just proportions of good and evil."

Then Chien-tzu acknowledged that his visitor was right.

A Youthful Anti-Teleologist.

There was a wealthy man of Chi, named T'ien Tsû, who daily fed a thousand people in his own mansion. Among them was one who reverently presented his host with a fish and a goose. Tien Tsû looked at the offering and sighed. "How bountiful," he exclaimed, "is Heaven to man! It gives us the nutritious grain for food, and produces birds and fishes for our use." All the guests applauded this pious sentiment to the echo, except the young son of a certain Mr. Pao, a lad of twelve years old, who, leaving his back seat and running forward, said

“You would be nearer the truth, Sir, if you said that Heaven, Earth, and everything else all belonged to the same category, and that, therefore, nothing in that category is superior to the rest. The only difference which exists is a matter of size, intelligence, and strength, by virtue of which all these things act and prey upon each other; so it is quite a mistake to say that one is created for the sake of the others. Whatever a man can get to eat, he eats; how can it be that Heaven originally intended it for the use of man, and therefore created it? Besides, we all know that gnats and mosquitoes suck our skins, and tigers and wolves devour our flesh; so that, according to your theory, we were ourselves created by Heaven for the special benefit of gnats, mosquitoes, tigers, and wolves! Do you believe that, pray?"

The Three Rules of Life.

Once upon a time there were three brothers who went abroad to study ethics. On their return their father said to the eldest

"Well, and what do ethics consist in ?"

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They teach me," replied his son, "to cherish my own health and life, and to regard fame as of secondary import

"And what have they taught you?" inquired the father, turning to his second son.

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'They teach me to kill myself, if necessary, in order to achieve fame," was the reply.

"And you?" said the father to the youngest.

"They teach me to preserve both body and fame intact,” replied the lad.

Now, here you have three different theories all proceeding from a recognised authority. Which of them is right, think you, and which wrong?

CHAPTER XI.

TAOIST HERMITS.

THE tendency of nearly all religions in the direction of asceticism is proved by the existence, in almost every quarter of the globe, of hermits. A desire to flee from the cares and enticements of the world, to shun the face of one's fellow-man, and to devote oneself entirely to the contemplation of the unseen constitutes, in most instances, that frame of mind which impels its subject to abjure the claims of family and friendship and all that makes life sweet. With the growth of enlightenment and the rationalistic spirit, the hermit-race has gradually been dying out. Early in the Middle Ages the anchorite was a recognised institution—a sort of "irregular" in the Church militant, yet one who very often came in for the highest honours of saintship. But it was not the hermit of poetry on whom the approval of the Church was principally bestowed. That variety represented the æsthetic rather than the ascetic type of anchoretics. He wore a very fine, full beard and flowing robes of serge. He lived in a charming grotto, adorned in picturesque fashion with a skull, a crucifix, and an enormous book, and slaked his thirst at the mountain rill which invariably babbled past his door. The hermits of whom saints were made were of a very different cut. They generally went naked,

and affected the peculiarities of Nebuchadnezzar during the seven years in which that hapless monarch was afflicted with lycanthropy. They slept in beds of nettles, in marshes reeking with miasmata and swarming with foul reptiles. They lacerated their skins, already covered with sores and smarting with the bites of insects. Cleanliness and comfort were loathed by them as crimes, dirt and misery being regarded as the highest indications of internal holiness. These men were reverenced in bygone days as saints of the purest ray; and the honour in which they were held was perfectly compatible with times when physical phenomena, such as earthquakes and disease, were attributed to the action of demons. We in the nineteenth century, of course, can see where the mischief lay in the case of these unfortunates. They were really raving lunatics, and at the present day would have been consigned to the restraints of an asylum. In China the hermit-race has never reached quite such an abyss of degradation as in Europe. Indeed the old Taoist and Buddhist mystics of whom we read, and specimens of whom we may even see around us now, were rather interesting characters. They generally chose for their retreat some rocky glen shut in by mountains, sheltered from the burning sun by the thick foliage of trees, and surrounded by every natural feature which makes a landscape lovely. There they passed their lives in that state of mental vacuity and freedom from interest in mundane matters which is the nearest approach to the summit of virtue and bliss. That summit in the articles of the Buddhist Church is called Nirvana. The Taoists look forward to very much the same condition. Their idea of happiness is, after all, a very wise and very pure