of Ch'i had been murdered by one of his officers. Confucius was moved with indignation. Such an outrage he felt, called for his solemn interference. He bathed, went to court, and represented the matter to the duke, saying, 'Ch'an Hang has slain his sovereign, I beg that you will undertake to punish him.' The duke pleaded his incapacity, urging that Lu was weak compared with Ch'i, but Confucius replied, 'One half the people of Ch'i are not consenting to the deed. If you add to the people of Lu one half the people of Ch'i, you are sure to overcome.' But he could not infuse his spirit into the duke, who told him to go and lay the matter before the chiefs of the three Families. Sorely against his sense of propriety, he did so, but they would not act, and he withdrew with the remark, 'Following in the rear of the great officers, I did not dare not to represent such a matter [1].' In the year B.C. 479, Confucius had to mourn the death of another of his disciples, one of those who had been longest with him, the well-known Tsze-lu. He stands out a sort of Peter in the Confucian school, a man of impulse, prompt to speak and prompt to act. He gets many a check from the master, but there is evidently a strong sympathy between them. Tsze-lu uses a freedom with him on which none of the other disciples dares to venture, and there is not one among them all, for whom, if I may speak from my own feeling, the foreign student comes to form such a liking. A pleasant picture is presented to us in one passage of the Analects. It is said, 'The disciple Min was standing by his side, looking bland and precise; Tsze-lu (named Yu), looking bold and soldierly; Yen Yu and Tsze-kung, with a free and straightforward manner. The master was pleased, but he observed, "Yu there!-- he will not die a natural death [2]."' This prediction was verified. When Confucius returned to Lu from Wei, he left Tsze-lu and Tsze-kao [3] engaged there in official service. Troubles arose. News came to Lu, B.C. 479, that a revolution was in progress in Wei, and when Confucius heard it, he said, 'Ch'ai will come here, but Yu will die [4].' So it turned out. When Tsze-kao saw that matters were desperate he made his escape, but Tsze-lu would not forsake the chief who had treated 1 See the 左傳, 哀公十四年 and Analects XIV. xxii. 2 Ana. XI. xii. 3 子羔, by surname Kao (高), and name Ch'ai (柴). 4 See the 左傳, 哀公十五年. him well. He threw himself into the melee, and was slain. Confucius wept sore for him, but his own death was not far off. It took place on the eleventh day of the fourth month in the same year, B.C. 479 [1]. Early one morning, we are told, he got up, and with his hands behind his back, dragging his staff, he moved about by his door, crooning over,-- 'The great mountain must crumble; The strong beam must break; And the wise man wither away like a plant.'