“Our divine religion has no need of such aids as many are willing to give it; by asserting that the wisest men of this world were ignorant of the two great maxims—that we must act in respect of others as we should wish them to act in respect of ourselves—and that, instead of returning evil for evil, we should confer benefits on those who injure us. But the first rule is implied in a speech of Lysias, and expressed in distinct phrases by Thales and Pittacus; and I have even seen it word for word, in the original of Confucius, which I carefully compared with the Latin translation. If the conversion, therefore, of the Pandits and Maulavis, in India, shall ever be attempted by protestant missionaries, they must beware of asserting, while they teach the gospel, what those Pandits and Maulavis would know to be false. The former would cite the beautiful Arya couplet, which was written at least three centuries before our era, and which pronounce the duty of a good man, even in the moment of destruction, to consist, not only in forgiving, but even in a desire of benefiting his destroyer—as the sandal tree, in the instant of its overthrow, sheds perfume on the axe which fells it. And the latter would triumph, in repeating the verse of Sadi, who represents a return of good for good as a slight reciprocity; but says to the virtuous man, ‘Confer benefits on him who has injured thee:’ using an Arabic sentence, and a maxim apparently of the ancient Arabs. Nor would the Mussulmans fail to recite four distichs of Hafiz, who has illustrated that maxim with fanciful but elegant allusions:—
“Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe,
And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe:
Free, like yon rock, from base vindictive pride,
Emblaze with gems the wrist that rends thy side.
Mark where yon tree rewards the stony shower
With fruit nectarious, or the balmy flower:
All nature calls aloud—‘Shall man do less
Than heal the smiter, and the railer bless?’”
As. Res. Vol. IV.