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?”
_Immortal._--“Creation itself suggests and proves a Creator; it is His greatest revelation. The dual-elements in man (mind and matter,) should recognize His existence and essence.”
_Confucius._--“I dimly perceived that there were _two_ principles, but not precisely those of good and evil. _I did not reason sufficiently at large. I thought only of earth, not of religion; of the material, not the divine._ Zoroaster surpassed me in these regards.”