One of the most authentic of his sayings is this, that "in the West the true Saint must be looked for and found." He has a perception, such as truly great men have often had, of some one higher than himself, who was to come after him.

We cannot doubt, therefore, that God, who forgets none of his children, has given this teacher to the swarming millions of China to lead them on till they are ready for a higher light.

And certainly the temporal prosperity and external virtues of this nation, and their long-continued stability amid the universal changes of the world, are owing in no small decree to the lessons of reverence for the past, of respect for knowledge, of peace and order, and especially of filial piety, which he inculcated.

In their case, if in no other, has been fulfilled the promise of the divine commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." In comparing the system of Confucius with Christianity, it appears at once that Christianity differs from this system, as from most others, in its greater completeness.

Jesus says to the Chinese philosopher, as he said to the Jewish law, "I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil." He fulfils the Confucian reverence for the past by adding hope for the future; he fulfils its stability by progress, its faith in man with faith in God, its interest in this world with the expectation of another, its sense of time with that of eternity.