"What are mandarins, please, father?" asked Leonard.
"Chinese officials, of which there are many grades, and many in each grade, all of whom are paid by Government. To every province there is a viceroy, to every city a governor, and to the village a mandarin, who is elected to rule over it for three years; and all these, again, have many officers under them. There are also a great many military mandarins. A great mark of imperial favour is to allow mandarins, civil or military, to wear a peacock's feather in their caps, which hangs down over the back, and the ball placed on the top shows, by its colour and material, the rank of the wearer. Soldiers fighting very bravely are often buoyed up with the hope of receiving one of these feathers.
"Mandarins, who stand in a sort of fatherly relationship towards their people, although they do not always behave like fathers towards them, look for implicit obedience from them."
"Can a mandarin be punished when he does wrong?" Leonard asked. "And what sort of dress does he wear?"
A MANDARIN WITH PEACOCK'S FEATHER.
"He can be punished when he does wrong; and as well as I can remember, those mandarins that I saw, who were in high office, wore a long, loose robe of blue silk, embroidered with gold threads. This reached to their ankles, being fastened round their waists with a belt. Over this was a violet tunic, coming just below the knees, which had very wide, long sleeves, usually worn turned back, but if not, hanging over the hands."
"Will you please go on about the religion now, father?" Sybil then said. "You had just told us that the Confucianists were taught that man was made good."
"Yes; and their worship is paid almost entirely to their ancestors, which worship they look upon as a continuation of the reverence they had been taught to show them while on earth. I will tell you more about ancestral worship presently.
"Many people, as you can well understand, were not satisfied with Confucianism as a religion, as it could not satisfy their spiritual wants, especially as the Pearly Emperor, or Supreme Ruler, generally looked upon as the highest divinity worshipped by the Chinese, might only be approached by the Emperor and his court; so another sect sprang up, having a philosopher named La-outze, who was born 604 b.c., for its founder. He thought that to grow perfect he must seclude himself from other people, and in his retirement was always looking for the Taou-le, the meaning of which you will hardly understand—the cause or the end of all things. His followers are called Taouists. This philosopher says in his book that 'it is by stillness, and contemplation, and union with Taou, that virtue is to be achieved'—Taou here meaning a principle and a way. He said that virtue consisted in losing sight of oneself, and that man should love even his enemies, and go through life as if none of his possessions belonged to himself. The Taouists say that 'Taou is without substance, and eternal, and the universe coming from him exists in the silent presence of Taou everywhere,' and that only those who become very virtuous are happy.