Another feature which the Chinese hold up in bold relief is the fact that in those days the occupancy of the throne was not hereditary. Yao is said to have reigned a hundred years. When he was growing old he saw with grief that his son showed no signs of being a worthy successor. Setting him aside, therefore, he asked his ministers to recommend someone as his heir. They all agreed in nominating Shun. "What are his merits?" asked the King. "Filial piety and fraternal kindness," they replied. "By these virtues he has wrought a reform in a family noted for perverseness." The King desiring to know the facts, they related the following story: "Shun's father is an ill-natured, blind man. He has a cruel stepmother and a selfish, petulant younger brother. This boy, the pet of his parents, treated Shun with insolence; and the father and mother joined in persecuting the elder son. Shun, without showing resentment, cried aloud to Heaven and obtained [Page 74] patience to bear their harshness. By duty and affection he has won the hearts of all three." "Bring him before me," said the King; "I have yet another trial by which to test his virtues." Yao made him his son-in-law, giving him his two daughters at once. He wished to see whether the good son and brother would also be a good husband and father--an example for his people in all their domestic relations. Shun accepted the test with becoming resignation and comported himself to the satisfaction of the old king, who raised him to the throne. After a reign of fifty years, partly as Yao's associate, Shun followed the example of his father-in-law. Passing by his own son, he left the throne to Ta-yü or Yü, a man who had been subjected to trials far more serious than that of having to live in the same house with a pair of pretty princesses. A question discussed in the school of Mencius, many centuries later, may be cited here for the light it throws on the use made by Chinese schoolmen of the examples of this period. "Suppose," said one of his students, "that Shun's father had killed a man, would Shun, being king, have allowed him to be condemned?" "No," replied the master; "he would have renounced the throne and, taking his father on his shoulders, he would have fled away to the seaside, rejoicing in the consciousness of having performed the duty of a filial son." Shun continues to be cited as the paragon of domestic virtues, occupying the first place in a list of twenty-four who are noted for filial piety.