own. We pass from one care to another, never
sharing it, but always the objects of it.

When we consider what the life of a mother
is from first to last, we should learn to be grateful,
and strive to show our gratitude. It seems
almost a hard doctrine that a man should leave
his mother and cleave to his wife. As a matter
of social polity, it may be necessary that he
should do so; but in purity and sacredness, no
love can exceed that which a man feels for his
mother. No other love should be allowed to
interfere with this. It is the love of Heaven
itself.

When we reflect upon what mothers have to
endure, we may allow that novelists are right in
making the culminating point of happiness the
marriage of their heroines. After that their
trouble begins. Man, in his self-importance,
has applied the proverb to himself;  but it should
be, "When a woman marries her trouble begins."
It is she who feels the needles and pins of life.
Man it is, rather, who sharpens their points.
Woman's is a subjective life from first to last.
No man knows what a woman suffers in bearing
and bringing up a family of children. Only
Heaven knows—Heaven which has endowed
her with that wondrous love which redeems her
existence from being an intolerable slavery.
And when the task is done, and the children
have gone forth into the world, how hard it is
to be left alone with a full heart—with love
still warm and sympathy still unexhausted. Ah
me! ah me! my heart bleeds when I think of
the widowed mother wafting her loving thoughts
across the seas upon the wings of sighs, nursing
us again in thought, fondling us once more in
the arms of her imagination. This is the
mother's fate often; the father's seldom. The
father, when he becomes a widower, is never too
old to begin his life all over again. The mother,
in most cases, holds the old love too sacred to
pollute it with another. She is content to live
upon the memories of the past—to wait patiently
until God calls her to that land, where the love
of the mother is known, though there is neither
marrying nor giving in marriage.

CHINESE THOUGHTS.

NEXT to Confucius stands Mencius, in the
estimation of the Chinese. Like Confucius, he
was a great traveller, and visited many of the
states adjacent to and dependent upon China.
He was generally accompanied by his disciples.
Remusat says that his style, though less
concise and elevated than that of "the prince of
letters," is equally noble, and more adorned and
elegant. His conversations have more variety
than is to be found in the apophthegms and
maxims of Confucius—who is always grave and
sometimes austere. He raises virtue into ideal
regions, and repulses vice with cold indignation.
Mencius, with an equal love of virtue, speaks of
vice with more of scorn than of horror; he
reasons with it, even seeks to make it ridiculous.
He has a sort of a Socratic irony. He ventures
to utter the boldest and bitterest truths to
princes and grandees who sought his laudation.
He exhibits nothing of Oriental servility. He
is rather Diogenes than Aristippus, but with
more of sagacity and decorum; he is always
inspired by zeal for the public good. Extracts
from his writings are to be found in the second
volume of the Mélanges Asiatiques, and some
of them will serve to illustrate his merits, and
at the same time the highest reach of wisdom
in the thoughts of the Chinese.

"If you will have robes of silk, you must plant
the mulberry-tree." A Chinese proverb prettily
says, "A splendid garment is in the leaf of the
mulberry." Mencius thus reproved a prince:
"What avails it that your kitchen overflows
with food, and that your stables are filled with
fat horses, if your people are pale with hunger,
and their famished corpses cover your fields?"

"As water subdues fire, the humane
principle subdues the non-humane. But if a man
threw without effect a cup of water to extinguish
chariots filled with burning wood, can he
say, 'Water will not subdue fire?' The
humane must not bring feebleness to the rescue
of those who suffer. Humanity must, therefore,
not be weak, but energetic."

"Gold is heavier than feathers. Is a cartload
of feathers, therefore, weightier than a
button of gold?"

Mencius thus describes the habits of his day:
"In the spring-time the emperor visits the
labourers who prepare the soil, and assists
those who are in want. In autumn he visits
the harvesters who gather in the fruits, and
aids those who have not a sufficiency."

"When the emperor entered the boundaries of
his (vassal) princes, if he found the land free
from weeds, if the fields were well cultivated, if
the old were provided for from the public
revenues, if the sages were honoured, if the most
distinguished were called to public employments,
he rewarded the prince by an extension of his
domains.

"But if he found none of these things, he
punished the (vassal) princes. If they failed to
pay their visit of homage, and to produce their
accounts and tribute, he lowered them one
degree in dignity; if they failed twice, he
diminished the extent of their territory; if thrice,
he sent six military bodies, who removed them
from their government.

"The federal compact was proclaimed by the
highest of the vassal princes, in the presence of
the rest. The victim was tied to the sacrificial
altar; the book containing the compact was
placed upon the victim. These were the
decrees:

"1.  Let the children who are wanting in filial
piety be put to death. Deprive not the legitimate
son of his inheritance to give it to another.
Make not a wife of your concubine.

"2.  Honour the sages. Give recompenses to
the men of talent and genius. Bring forward
virtuous men.