It is this entire purity from all taint of personal religion; this distaste for prayer and unrelish for soul-salvation; this sweet clean impersonality of God and man, that makes the missionary writers find him so cold and lifeless. But when you look at him, it is a marvelously warm-hearted magnetic man you see: Such a One as wins hearts to endless devotion. Many of the disciples were men who commanded very much the respect of the world. The king of Ts'u proposed to give Confucius an independent duchy: to make a sovereign prince of him, with territories absolutely his own. But one of his ministers dissuaded him thus: "Has your majesty," said he, "any diplomatist in your service like Tse Kung? Or anyone so fitted to be prime minister as Yen Huy? Or a general to compare with Tse Lu? . . . If K'ung Ch'iu were to acquire territory, with such men as these to serve him, it would not be to the prosperity of Ts'u."--And yet those three brilliant men were content--no, proud--to follow him on his hopeless wanderings, sharing all his long sorrow; they were utterly devoted to him. Indeed, we read of none of his disciples turning against him;--which also speaks mighty well for the stuff that was to be found in Chinese humanity in those days. Tse Kung was told that some prince or minister had said that he, Tse Kung, was a greater man than Confucius. He answered: "The wall of my house rises only to the height of a man's shoulders; anyone can look in and see whatever excellence is within. But the Master's wall is many fathoms in height; so that who fails to find the gateway cannot see the beauties of the temple within nor the rich apparel of the officiating priests. It may be that only a few will find the gate. Need we be surprised, then, at His Excellency's remark?" Yen Huy said:--"The Master knows how to draw us after him by regular steps. He broadens our outlook with polite learning, and restrains our impulses by teaching us self-control." Only once, I think, is he recorded to have spoken of prayer. He was very ill, and Tse Lu proposed to pray for his recovery. Said Confucius: "What precedent is there for that?"--There was great stuff in that Tse Lu: a bold warriorlike nature; not very pliable; not too easy to teach, I imagine, but wonderfully paying for any lesson taught and learned. He figures often as the one who clings to the letter, and misses vision of the spirit of the teaching; so now the Master plays him a little with this as to precedent,--which weighed always more strongly with Tse Lu than with Confucius.--"In the _Eulogies,"_ said Tse Lu, (it is a lost work), "it is written: 'We pray to you, O Spirits of Heaven and Earth."--"Ah!" said Confucius, "my prayers began long, long ago." But he never did pray, in the Western sense. His _life_ was one great intercession and petition for his people.