Confucianism does not believe in government by the people, of the people, for the people; but it believes very strongly in government for the people by the rulers. Many of its maxims might be cut out as texts, and hung up in the House of Commons with great appropriateness. It constantly pictures a well-ordered peaceful state, in which the dignity of government is well maintained, and where the working-man shall profit by his work through justice and peace, and the trader grow rich in confident security. In all this teaching it is not opposed to Western civilisation. Confucius advocates the reform of society by the action of the State. Thus the sanitary laws, the education laws, the temperance laws of the West are thoroughly consistent with the teaching of Confucius. Where that teaching differs from the West is that it disbelieves in democracy. Yet Confucianism cares nothing for a man's birth: all men are born equal to the Confucianist as to the Christian; and so Confucianism has, for many centuries, welcomed people of the lowest birth as Governors, if they could pass the requisite examinations, and, having given every opportunity to men of all classes to become officials, it entrusts them and not the people with the government of the country. In another way Confucianism is opposed to Western civilisation. Confucianism believes intensely in the dignity of government; their classics are full {166} of examples of people who, at the risk of their lives, defied kings and maintained the dignity of their positions; and this doctrine of dignity is consequently very deeply ingrained in Chinese thought; it is in reality the base of that curious doctrine of "face" by which a man will do anything rather than confess that he is wrong. A great missionary recounts how his wonderful work at Tientsin was once threatened with destruction because a boy from the south of China knocked a boy from the north off his bicycle, with the result that the college was soon divided into two factions on the question as to who should pay for the injured bicycle. The matter was only with difficulty arranged by the President paying for the bicycle and charging it to the guilty boy; but the boy did not mind paying--he minded confessing that he was wrong. There was another case in this same college where a boy had been induced to confess privately his sorrow that he had wilfully insulted a master. He was prepared to suffer expulsion rather than confess his fault openly. He was miserable at the prospect of leaving the college, and when a great appeal was made to his better feelings to say that he was sorry, he shook his head sadly. At last he was asked, "Have you never allowed you were wrong in your whole life?" "No," he said, with a look of pride, "_never_." Odious and detestable as this doctrine is in private life, I think I have the authority of St. Augustine for saying that it is a maxim of good government that however wrong an {167} order may be,