Soon the vision embraced a scene of Oriental pomp--a pageant, with its ceremonies, gorgeous displays and vain-glorious crudities. This narrative must dispense with the description, nor could the reader be made to receive the impression produced on the visitor from the West, while gazing on the dramas of the East. His Celestial Majesty--“brother of the sun and cousin of the stars”--is now enthroned in his extended residence, amid princely persons, political potentates and priestly dignitaries, surrounded by every burnishment and administered to by varied flattery and all servility. The _voyageurs_ suddenly appear before and among them. _Emperor._--“Ha! what means this intrusion? Chamberlain of the Palace, accursed Mandarin! you shall lose your life for this. How came these persons into the Celestial Presence without permission and the salaam reverences? Hold! they have wings! Can they be Celestial? Spirit of Koong-Foo-tse! come, protect, guard us! Let all the great gongs be beaten! let dreadful sounds frighten them away!” The Immortal, with a gesture, awes all into silence and composure. _American to Emperor._--“Man, what mean these presumptions? What does your ridiculous and despotic power claim?” _Emperor._--“Not read the ‘Books!’ Read them. My power is immemorial and supreme. Yang and Yn, time and Koong-Foo-tse have founded it--yes, founded it on the analogy of parental authority, which they declare absolute. The nation is my family, and I am its father. I am sole entitled ruler, and I am--holy and sacred! Nor will I have contact with strangers and barbarians.” _American._--“What means he? What of Confucius?” _Immortal._--“Confucius was a Chinaman, who lived 550 years before Christ. He was a teacher of morals, rather than a founder of religion. For those dark ages, he was an extraordinary man; he was great as a philosopher, a moralist and a statesman. He made no pretence to inspiration. He inculcated the training of the physical system. The five elements, fire, water, wood, metal and earth (he called them _Kings_) were the basis of his system of philosophy. He maintained that the universe was generated by the union of two _material_ principles--a heavenly and an earthly--Yang and Yn--but there is no mention of a Creator in his system. Man, he asserted, fell from purity and happiness by his own act; and by his own act he can or must recover them. His political system, which is one of pure despotism, has been give by the Emperor. Spirit of Koong-Foo-tse, come forth!” The apparition of Confucius here takes visible shape, and startles the assembly. The other or American immaterialized human, addresses him: “Confucius, thy soul has now learned wisdom. How is it, that in life your great reason did not perceive and conceive that there must be and was a Being, all wise, all powerful, all good, eternal, and with His infinity universally present--the God and Creator?” _Confucius._--“_I had no revelation!_”