the palm. The result in each ease was the same. The dynasty perished.
Shun, on the other hand, confidently availed himself of the incomparable societies of his day; and no one has ever said that his confidence was misplaced. In point of fact, he is always extolled as an enlightened and discriminating ruler. In Wu Wang’s time, three thousand officers of State formed themselves into a society famed ever since for its numbers and power. And Wu Wang availed himself of this association,―and the empire prospered. The society was indeed large; but its members were not one too many.[1]
Your Majesty will doubtless not fail to be instructed by these examples of national prosperity and decay.
RELEASING PRISONERS.
Sincerity and a sense of duty,―these are the attributes of the virtuous. Punishment and death,―these are the portion of the depraved. To deserve death in the iniquity of guilt,―this is the climax of crime. To die without regret at the call of duty,―this is the acme of heroism.
When the second Emperor of the late T‘ang dynasty had just been six years upon the throne, he released more than 300 condemned criminals, and sent them to their homes on condition that within a certain period they should inflict upon themselves the penalty of death. This was simply to bid those unprincipled wretches play the difficult rôle of heroes.
At the expiry of the time, they all returned to the Emperor without one exception. No true hero could have acted thus: those men found it easy enough. It was, to say the least of it, unnatural.
A friend has suggested that in spite of their deep-dyed guilt and unqualified want of principle, the Emperor’s act of grace might possibly have converted them from their evil ways; such a marvellous and speedy conversion not being without precedent. But I say
- ↑ “For the same reason he (Lord Ripon) has begun to consult the popular Associations, hundreds of which have sprung up in recent years, which are springing up day by day, and which reflect educated opinion on such great questions as education, local self-rule, usury laws, agrarian questions and the like.”―Daily News, 6th Sept., 1883.
