the elements of intellectual
sprightliness and vivacity which lead a Frenchman or an American to
appreciate and enjoy a sally of wit, a bon mot, or a joke. Life indeed
is better, and a man can bear his burdens with more ease if he has a
sense of humour. Some of the great characters in history have often
come out of the depths with triumph by reason of the spirit within
them which could perceive the flash of wit and apply its medicine to
the wounds of the heart. I think it may be said, as a rule, that the
Asiatic has not the power to appreciate wit and humour like the old
Greek or the Teuton or the Celt. He is not wanting in his love of
the beautiful, in his appreciation of poetry, in the vision which
perceives the flowers blooming by the waters in the desert, and in the
hearing which catches the sound of the harmonies of his palm-trees
and lotus flowers, but in the sense or faculty to seize on mirth
and appropriate her to his service in burden-bearing he is sadly
deficient. He is but a child in this respect. While the Chinaman has
inventive faculties and keen intellect and wonderful imitative powers,
yet in other respects he is behind the progressive races of the world.
He has made little advance for thousands of years. His isolation, his
narrow sphere, his simple life, and his religion even, which, while
some of its maxims and tenets are admirable, still is lacking in the
knowledge of the true God and in lofty ideals, have had a marked
effect upon his thoughts and habits and pursuits. His great teacher,
Confucius, who flourished five centuries before the Christian era
and who spoke some sublime truths, was nevertheless ignorant of a
Revelation from heaven and inferior in his grasp of religious truth to
such sages of Greece as Socrates and Plato. In his system also woman
is practically a slave. She is simply the minister of man, and
therefore unable to rear up children, sons who would reflect the
greatness of soul of a noble motherhood. It has often been remarked
that great men have had great mothers. I think experience and
observation will bear out this statement. Glance over the pages of
history, and eminent examples will rise up before the view. Whence
spring the Samuels and the Davids, whence a Leonidas and a Markos
Bozzaris, whence the Scipios and the Gracchi, whence the Augustines
and the Chrysostoms, whence the Alfreds and the Gladstones, whence the
Washingtons and the Lincolns, whence the Seaburys and the Doanes,