"The sacred books of China are called the _Kings_, and are five in number, containing _treatises on morals_, books of rites, poems, and history. They are of great age, perhaps as old as the earliest hymns of the Rig-Veda, _and are free from any impure thoughts_. [Which is much more than can be said of our own sacred books, which are not so old.] In the Book of Poetry are three hundred pieces, but the design of them all may be embraced in that one sentence, '_Have no depraved thoughts._' "At the time when Confucius lived, China was divided into a number of petty kingdoms whose rulers were ever quarrelling, and although he became engaged in various public situations of trust, the disorder of the State at last caused him to resign them, and he retired to another part of the country. He then continued the life of a public teacher, instructing men in the simple moral truths by which he sought to govern his own life. The purity of that life, and the example of veneration for the old laws which he set, gathered round him many grave and thoughtful men, who worked with him for the common good." Confucius said among other wise and moral things: "Coarse rice for food, water to drink, the bended arm for a pillow--happiness may be enjoyed even with these; but without virtue, both riches and honor seem to me like the passing cloud.... Our passions shut up the door of our souls against God." What we are pleased to call "the golden rule," and to look upon as purely Christian, he gave in these words 500 years before Christ was born: "Tsze-kung said, '_What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men._' The Master said, 'You have not attained to that.' "Such is the power of words, that those uttered by this intensely earnest man, whose work was ended only by death, have kept alive throughout the vast empire of China a reverence for the past _and a sense of duty to the present which_ have made the Chinese the most orderly and moral people in the world." So much for the great religions that are older than our own and _could not have_ borrowed from us. So much for the moral sentiments of the peoples who developed them, and who live and die happy with them to-day. It leaves only a small part of this globe and a comparatively small number of its inhabitants who believe in and are guided by the Bible, or by the morality which has grown side-by-side with it. But there is one other great religion which is of interest to us: * * See Appendix R. "And the value of Islam, the youngest of the great religions, is that we are able to see how its first simple form became overlaid with legend and foolish superstition, and thus learn how, in like manner, myth and fable have grown around more ancient religions [and around our own]. "For example; although Mohammed came into the world like other children, wonderful things are said to have taken place at his birth.