ill become dutiful, your parents from this day will
live happy as the saints. But if you will not repent, but persist in
your evil ways, your parents will suffer the pains of hell. Heaven and
hell are matters of repentance or non-repentance. Repentance is the
finding of the lost heart, and is also the object of learning. I shall
speak to you further upon this point to-morrow evening.

SERMON III

(THE SERMONS OF KIU-O, VOL. 1)

Moshi has said, "There is the third finger. If a man's third or
nameless finger be bent, so that he cannot straighten it, although his
bent finger may cause him no pain, still if he hears of some one who
can cure it, he will think nothing of undertaking a long journey from
_Shin_ to _So_[94] to consult him upon this deformed finger; for he
knows it is to be hateful to have a finger unlike those of other men.
But he cares not a jot if his heart be different to that of other men;
and this is how men disregard the true order of things."

[Footnote 94: Ancient divisions of China.]

Now this is the next chapter to the one about benevolence being the
true heart of man, which I expounded to you the other night. True
learning has no other aim than that of reclaiming lost souls; and, in
connection with this, Moshi has thus again declared in a parable the
all-importance of the human heart.

The nameless finger is that which is next to the little finger. The
thumb is called the parent-finger; the first finger is called the
index; the long is called the middle finger; but the third finger has
no name. It is true that it is sometimes called the finger for
applying rouge; but that is only a name given it by ladies, and is not
in general use. So, having no name, it is called the nameless finger.
And how comes it to have no name? Why, because it is of all the
fingers the least useful. When we clutch at or grasp things, we do so
by the strength of the thumb and little finger. If a man scratches his
head, he does it with the forefinger; if he wishes to test the heat of
the wine[95] in the kettle, he uses the little finger. Thus, although
each finger has its uses and duties, the nameless finger alone is of
no use: it is not in our way if we have it, and we do not miss it if
we lose it. Of the whole body it is the meanest member: if it be
crooked so that we cannot straighten it, it neither hurts nor itches;
as Moshi says in the text, it causes no pain; even if we were without
it, we should be none the