In this quaint address is shadowed forth the beautiful idea that the Emperor is responsible to God for his people, though they are not responsible for him. A similar thought is apparent in the following quotation from a kind of penitential psalm which the same Emperor is said to have composed on the occasion of a famine which decimated China during his reign. Feeling that he must have done something to arouse the wrath of Heaven, he cut off the long hair and nails which are the special pride of highly-born Celestials, and laying aside his Imperial robes, wrapped himself in the skins of beasts. Thus disguised he went forth alone to a mountain and vented his grief and remorse for having: 1. Neglected to instruct his subjects as he ought to have done. 2. For failing to win them back to their duty when they had departed from it. 3. For having built grand palaces, and incurred other expenses by unnecessary building. 4. For having too many wives, and loving them too much. 5. For caring too much for the delicacies of the table. 6. And lastly, for having lent too ready an ear to the flattery of his favourites, and of certain high officials of his court. [Sidenote: LAO-TSZE] [Illustration: FIG. 23.--LAO-TSZE. (_Univers Pittoresque._)] Another significant and noteworthy fact brought out alike in the proclamation and confession of this enlightened ruler is, that there is no idea of any intermediary being necessary between him and God. It is the same to this day, no priest intervenes between the Emperor and Shang-Ti, and the bonzes who spend their lives studying the moral precepts of Lao-Tsze and Confucius are merely thinkers who never interfere in affairs of State or with the religious teaching of the people. Hence the total indifference of the Chinese to matters of faith; they believe in free-will, and act in accordance with that belief. In the sixth and seventh centuries before our era the Chinese Empire was in a condition little short of anarchy. The wealthy were depraved, the poor were steeped in misery, and everywhere injustice and oppression were the rule. The emperors frittered away their lives in their harems, giving no thought to the welfare of their people. It was time indeed for a reformer to arise, and the first to appear was the great Lao-Tsze, who is supposed to have been born about 604 B.C., fifty years before the yet greater Kung-Fu-tze, or, as he is called by Europeans, Confucius. [Sidenote: LIFE OF LAO-TSZE]