As the people, so the priests.

The works of Confucius and his commentators are as level as the valley of their great river, the Yang-tse-kiang, which the tide ascends for four hundred miles.

All in these writings is calm, serious, and moral They assume that all men desire to be made better, and will take the trouble to find out how they can be made so.

It is not thought necessary to entice them into goodness by the attractions of eloquence, the charm of imagery, or the fascinations of a brilliant wit.

These philosophers have a Quaker style, a dress of plain drab, used only for clothing the thought, not at all for its ornament.
And surely we ought not to ask for any other attraction than the subject itself, in order to find interest in China and its teachers.