God is on your side!

was the cry which stimulated King Wu to break down the opposing ranks of Shang.  To King Wu’s father, and others, direct communications had previously been made from heaven, with a view to the regeneration of the empire:—­

     The dynasties of Hsia and Shang
     Had not satisfied God with their government;
     So throughout the various States
     He sought and considered
     For a State on which He might confer the rule.

     God said to King Wen,
     I am pleased with your conspicuous virtue,
     Without noise and without display,
     Without heat and without change,
     Without consciousness of effort,
     Following the pattern of God.

     God said to King Wen,
     Take measures against hostile States,
     Along with your brethren,
     Get ready your grappling-irons,
     And your engines of assault,
     To attack the walls of Ts’ung.

God sends Famine.—­The Ode from which the following extract is taken carries us back to the ninth century B.C., at the time of a prolonged and disastrous drought:—­

     Glorious was the Milky Way,
     Revolving brightly in the sky,
     When the king said, Alas! 
     What crime have my people committed now,
     That God sends down death and disorder,
     And famine comes upon us again? 
     There is no spirit to whom I have not sacrificed;
     There is no victim that I have grudged;
     Our sacrificial symbols are all used up;—­
     How is it that I am not heard?

The Confucian Criterion.—­The keystone of the Confucian philosophy, that man is born good, will be found in the following lines:—­

     How mighty is God! 
     How clothed in majesty is God,
     And how unsearchable are His judgments! 
     God gives birth to the people,
     But their natures are not constant;
     All have the same beginning,
     But few have the same end.

God, however, is not held responsible for the sufferings of mankind.  King Wen, in an address to the last tyrant of the House of Shang, says plainly,

     It is not God who has caused this evil time,
     But it is you who have strayed from the old paths.

The Associate of God.—­Worshipped on certain occasions as the Associate of God, and often summoned to aid in hours of distress or danger, was a personage known as Hou Chi, said to have been the original ancestor of the House of Chou.  His story, sufficiently told in the Odes, is curious for several reasons, and especially for an instance in Chinese literature, which, in the absence of any known husband, comes near suggesting the much-vexed question of parthenogenesis:—­