Nov. 12.
Wuatever may be our political opinions, and our judgments concerning the kings and queens whose names live in history, there can be few who do not feel at least a sentimental regret over the gradual passing away! of monarchy political' institution. For in its time and at its best it contributed much to human progress by unifying clans and tribes into peoples and establishing authority, Jaw and order. And the loyal devotion with which a king was served, extending often to the sacrifice of property and life, was" the expression of an. ideal which has done much to elevate mankind.
The king was regarded as the symbol or embodiment of all] that a nation most prized. There. without permission. are still a few monarchs to whom this love and reverence are given. Speaking generally, however, the pomp and power of royalty have vanished. Sie transit gloria munch, In one of Shakespeare's tragedies a king gives sad expression to his sense of the instability and perils earthly greatness: "Of comfort et no man speak'... Nothing can we call. our own, but death.... Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death, of kings." Words of which we can feel the -pathos even in these democratic days. The Iffest monarch to be deprived of the outward show of royalty, is the ex-Emperor of China.
To educated, thoughtful Chinese the abolition of their ancient monarchy must mean far more than the dethronement, banish ment, or execution of monarchs mean to peoples in other parts of the world, It is more than a mere change in the form of political government. It involves profound change in their religious ideas. For the Chinese believed their Emperor wielded immense power in the spiritual world, obtaining by his propitiation of the gods temporal pr sperity for his people and also exercising for their good considerable control' over minor deities, spirits, ghosts and demons, He was also credited with other supernatural powers, Beliefs such as these are now untenable. This is not wholly regrettable; in any case, the spread of education would have caused them to disappear in time, But what is to take their place in the minds of the multitude, who suddenly have no one to regard a3 a spiritual representative? Moreover, the adoption of a democratic form of government under which the ignorant and unscrupulous push their way to the front, cannot but affect the authority' of Confucius, their greatest sage and example, whose teaching has 80 powerfully influenced the thought and conduct of the Chinese for over twenty centuries, and has welded them as a nation into political and religious unity. For with all his popularity, Confucius, as has been said elsewhere, was no flatterer of the passions or weaknesses of the multitude.
"With him there was no vox populi vox Dei. He was a profound believer in the divine right of princes, and anything approaching to a popular gavel ment was quite outside the theory of state-craft which he enunciated. His great desire was to see the people well governed; but he considered that this could only be effected by the action of those who had been appointed by a divine decree to rule over thei." The king was the father of his people, and their obedience to him was filial piety.
Yet Confucius was no worshipper of the god of things as they are. According to him the decrees of heaven are not immutable; a throne may be tained by virtue and lost by vice.. Perhaps if he were living now and knew of the spread of democratic ideas over the whole world he would admit that the days of absolute monarchy were over. Nevertheless, he would insist that if possible the new should be better than the old; that "whatever changes were introduced should make for the greater prosperity and happiness of the Chinese people. He would demand that rulers of every. grade should be "princely men," that is to say, men of high intelligence who revere and practise the five cardinal virtues as expotinded by him: benevolence humanity, that—sympathy which should-exist between man and man without distinction of class and race; justice or righteousness,..which gives to every min his due; order, or
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.