the nearest thing possible to a standard for measuring them; and here the virtue of Taoism, and one greatest lesson we may learn from it.  Are we to judge by the impressiveness of the personality?  No; the Man of Tao is not a personality at all.  He makes one to use, but is not identified with it; his personality will not be great or small, or enchanting or repellent, but simply adapted to the needs.—­Is it the depth and fulness of the philosophv he gives out?  No; it may be wiser and also more difficult to keep silent on main points, than to proclaim them broadcast; and for this end he may elect even not to know (with conscious brain-mind) too much;—­not to have the deep things within his normal consciousness.  But he comes into the world to meet a situation; to give the course of history a twist in a desired direction; and the sign and measure of his greatness is, it seems to me, his ability to meet the situation at all points, and to do just what is necessary for the giving of the twist,—­no more and no less.  And then, of course, it takes a thousand years or so before you can judge.  One is not speaking of common statesmen, who effect quick changes that are no changes at all, but of the Men who shepherd the Host of Souls.

I like to imagine, before the birth of Such a One, a consultation of the Gods upon the Mountain of Heaven.  A synod of the kind (for China) would have taken place in the sixth century B. C., no doubt; because in those days certainly there was a “decline of virtue and an insurrection of vice and injustice in the world.”  Transport yourselves then, say in the year 552, to the peaks of Tien Shan of Kuen Lun, or high Tai-hsing, or the grand South Mountain; and see the Pantheon assembled.

They look down over Chu Hia; they know that in three centuries or so a manvantara will be beginning there, and grow anxious lest anything has been left undone to insure its success.  They note Laotse (whom they sent some fifty years earlier) at his labors; and consider, what those labors would achieve for the Black-haired People.  He would bring light to the most excellent minds; the God of Light said, “I have seen to that.”  He would in time waken the lute-strings of the Spirit, and set Chu Hia all a-song; the God of Music said, “I have seen to that.”  They foresaw Wu Taotse and Ma Yuan; they foresaw Ssu-k’ung T’u and the Banished Angel; and asked “Is it not enough?” And the thought grew on them that it was not enough, till they sighed with the apprehensions that troubled them.  Only a few minds among the millions, they foresaw, would have proper understanding of Tao.

Now, Gods of whatever land they may be, there are those three Bardic Brothers amongst them:  He of Light, who awakens vision; He of Song, who rouses up the harmonies and ennobling vibrations; and He of Strength, whose gloves hold all things fast, and neither force nor slipperiness will avail against them.  It was this third of them, Gwron, who propounded the plan that satisfied the Pantheon.  I will send one among them, with the “Gloves for his treasure,” said he.