ent messengers inviting
Confucius to visit him. Tse Lu protested: had he not always
preached obedience to the Powers that Were, and that the True
Gentleman did not associate with rebels?--"Am I a bitter gourd,"
said Confucius, "to be hung up out of the way of being eaten?"
He was always big enough to be inconsistent. He had come to see
that the Powers that Were were hopeless, and was for catching at
any straw. But something delayed his setting out; and when he
reached the Yellow River, news came of the execution of Tsin of
two men whom he admired. "How beautiful they were!" said he;
"how beautiful they were! This river is not more majestic! And
I was not there to save them!"

The truth seems to be that he would set out for any place where
the smallest opening presented itself; and while that opening
existed, would not be turned aside from his purpose; but if it
vanished, or if something better came in sight, he would turn and
follow that. Thus he did not go on into Tsin when he heard of
these executions; but one, when he was on the road to Wei and a
band of roughs waylaid him and made him promise never to go there
again, he simply gave the promise and went straight on.

At Wei now Duke Ling was really inclined to use him;--but as his
military adviser. It was the last straw; he left, and would not
return in Ling's lifetime. He was in Ch'in for awhile; and then
for three years at Ts'ae, a new state built of the rebellion of
certain subjects or vassals of the great sourthern kingdom of
Ts'u. On hearing of his arrival, the Duke of Ts'ae had the idea
to send for Tse Lu, who had a broad reputation of his own as a
brave and practical man, and to inquire of him what kind of man
the master really was. But Tse Lu, as we have seen, was rigid as
to rebels, and vouchsafed no answer.--"You might have told him,"
said Confucius, "that I am simply one who forgets his food in the
pursuit of wisdom, and his sorrows in the joys of attaining it,
and who does not perceive old age coming on."

Missionary writers have cast it at him, that were of old he had
preached against rebellion, now he was willing enough to "have
rebels for his patrons";--"adversity had not stiffened his back,
but had made him pliable." Which shows how blind such minds are
to real greatness. "They have nothing to draw with, and this
well is deep." He sought no "patrons," now or at another time;
but tools with which to work for the redemption of Chin