On the same subject of humility, an opinion of the philosopher Mang, or Mencius, may be compared with one of Christ's. There was a strife among the disciples of the latter which should be accounted the greatest. Christ said: "The kings of the earth have dominion over them, and they who have authority over them are called benefactors. But be not you so: but let the greater among you be as the younger, and he that leads as he that serves" (Lu. xxii. 25, 26). Now Mang in like manner warns his disciples against the craving for authority. "Mencius said: 'The superior man has three things in which he delights, and to be ruler over the empire is not one of them. That his father and mother are both alive, and that the condition of his brothers affords no cause for anxiety;—this is one delight. That, when looking up, he has no occasion for shame before heaven; and below, he has no occasion to blush before men;—this is a second delight. That he can get from the whole empire the most talented individuals, and teach and nourish them;—this is the third delight. The superior man has three things in which he delights, and to be ruler over the empire is not one of them'" (Mang, vii. 1, 20.—C. C., vol. ii. p. 334). This definition of the pleasures of the high-minded man is quite equal of its kind to anything that has been said on the same subject by Jesus. It is true that Mang ranges over a somewhat wider field, and that therefore the sentences just quoted do not admit of exact comparison with anything coming from Jesus. But while both agree in reprobating the desire to exercise power, Mang goes beyond Jesus in proposing to substitute other interests for that of political ambition. And these interests are of the best kind. His "superior man" rejoices in the prosperity of his family, in the consciousness of his innocence of any disgraceful conduct, and in his opportunities of teaching those who are most worthy of his instructions and most likely to carry on his work. The latter is a pleasure which is rarely mentioned, and it shows much thoughtfulness on the part of the philosopher to have upheld it as an object in life. Curiously enough, another Chinese sage has anticipated another of the best points in the doctrine of Jesus. Jesus enjoined his hearers not to practice charity in a public and ostentatious manner, like the hypocrites, "but when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth" (Mt. vi, 3). In this admirable maxim he would have had the support of all true Confucians, for one of their canonical writers had also told them that "it is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and it is the way of the mean man to seek notoriety, while he daily goes more and more to ruin" (C. C., i. 295.—Chung Yung, ch. xxxiii. 1).