The Emperor Kwang-Hsu was barely eighteen years old when Her Majesty the Empress Dowager, Regent of the Empire, handed over to him the reins of Government, admonishing him in a parting Imperial Decree to “discipline his body, develop his mind, love his People, and give unceasing attention to the administration of Government,” which Decree His Majesty responded to in fitting terms, by another Decree, begging “Her Majesty the Empress Dowager to continue to advise him in important affairs,” saying he “would not dare to be indolent,” that only after prayer and sacrifice “to Heaven and Earth and his Ancestors would he Himself begin to administer affairs of State on the 15th day of the First moon of the 13th year of his Reign”! He began to reign by our count the 25th day of February, 1889, under the appellation of “Kwang-Hsu” (Glorious Succession). The name under which an Emperor of China reigns is not his own, but one chosen for him, and has generally some appropriate signification or some symbolic meaning. His Majesty Kwang-Hsu is the twelfth Emperor, who has reigned over China, of the Dynasty of the “Great Purity,” as the Manchu Dynasty is called.[2] His reign began at the age of five years, under the Co-Regency of the Empress of the Eastern and Empress of the Western Palaces. The former died in 1881, and from that time on Her Majesty, the present Empress Dowager, ruled alone as “Regent.” His reign, counting the years of the Regency, has already lasted thirty years, the third in point of length of any of the Emperors of the Manchu Dynasty. [2] Confucius says “Purity is the Essence of Heaven.” Did the Manchus call theirs the “Dynasty of the Great Purity” with a knowledge of Confucian teaching, that the descendants of the Dynasty of the Great Purity (Essence of Heaven) might become literally the “Sons of Heaven,” the appellation borne by the Emperors of China?