A Lesson from Confucius

Confucius once overheard two of his pupils arguing. One of them was gentle by nature and was known among all the students as a peaceful man. The other had a good mind and a kind heart, but he was prone to fierce anger. When he set his mind on something, he did it, and no one could stop him; if anyone tried to hinder him, he would fly into a terrible rage.

One day, after one of these fits of temper, blood came from his mouth. Frightened, he went to Confucius and asked, "What shall I do with my body? I fear I will not live long. Perhaps I should stop studying and working. I am your pupil, and you love me like a father. Tell me what to do for my body."

Confucius replied, "Tsze-Lu, you have a wrong idea about your body. It is not your studies or the work at school that causes the trouble, but your great anger.

"I will help you understand this. You remember when you and Nou-Wui quarreled. He was calm and happy again in a short time, but you took a long while to overcome your anger. You cannot expect to live long if you act that way. Every time one of the pupils says something you do not like, you become very angry. There are a thousand students in this school. If each offends you only once, you will have a fit of temper a thousand times this year. And you will surely die if you do not learn more self-control.

I want to ask you some questions."

"How many teeth do you have?"

"I have thirty-two, teacher."

"How many tongues?"

"Just one."

"How many teeth have you lost?"

"I lost one when I was nine years old, and four when I was about twenty-six years old."

"And your tongue--is it still perfect?"

"Oh, yes."

"You know Mun-Gun, who is quite old?"

"Yes, I know him well."

"How many teeth do you think he had at your age?"

"I do not know."

"How many does he have now?"

"Two, I think. But his tongue is perfect, though he is very old."

"You see, the teeth are lost because they are strong and determined to have everything they desire. They are hard and hurt the tongue many times, but the tongue never hurts the teeth. Yet the tongue endures until the end, while the teeth are the first part of man to decay. The tongue is peaceful and gentle with the teeth. It never grows angry and fights them, even when they are in the wrong. It always helps them do their work in preparing food, although the teeth never help the tongue, and they always resist everything.

"And so it is with man. The strongest to resist is the first to decay; and you, Tsze-Lu, will be even so if you do not learn the great lesson of self-control."

THE WIND, THE CLOUDS, AND THE SNOW

I

Once there was a great quarrel among the winds, the clouds, and the snow.

Suddenly, without any warning, came the angry roar of thunder and the sharp crack of forked lightning as it split the heavens.

Then the north winds, south winds, east winds, and west winds came together, more than a thousand strong.

The sun was no longer seen, for the earth was covered in deep blackness as if it were night. The clouds were moving toward the east, but the wind drove them all back to the west side of the sky, and finally much hail and snow were thrown down to the earth.

The clouds said to the snow, "Why do you go to earth? You are not wanted there. In the warm south land you are never welcomed. Your people would be killed at once if they went there. Even here you are allowed to stay only for a short time."

"We do not come to this earth for our own pleasure," answered the snow. "It was pleasanter where we were. We came to earth to help its people."

At this, the clouds frowned until their faces became black, and they said, "We cannot believe that."

"It is true," answered the snow. "In the summer time you will see how the people cry for pressed snow. They pay three pennies for one little cup of water that we have made cold.

"You say we are not liked in the south land, but we tell you that the south-land people send many oxen, horses, and men to the north to find snow.

"They pack us in storehouses so that we may last until the hot weather, and when the summer fever comes, all people need us."

"You have been studying this one great need of man a long time, we think," and the clouds bowed in scornful mock sympathy.

"We do many good things for man," continued the snow. "Thunder and lightning do him much harm and he fears them greatly; but the Creator sends us to comfort him. The lightning disappears from the earth for a time when the season of our appearance comes."

"You should wear a crown," suggested the clouds sneeringly.

"A king who wore one--the old King Dai-Sung--once said of us, 'Oh, snow, snow, how beautiful you are. It is good for flowers, good for grass, and good for trees that you are here.'

"And he said to the rose bushes, shrubs, and trees who were asleep, 'If you wish beauty in the spring time, you must have our friend the snow in the winter.'

"He laid his hand gently on his horses' necks and said, 'True helpers that are both feet and legs to me, it will soon be time for the green grass to appear. You will have plenty this year, for we had a thick cover of snow this winter.

"'It will soon be hot weather, but I do not fear the heat, for I have plenty of hard snow, pressed and packed for the summer time.'

"So you see the snow is useful to man. We could have stayed where we were in the sky and kept clean, and we need not have worked hard flying all the way down to the ground.

"We never hear that the clouds do any good thing," said the snow.

"The time may come when you will have finished talking," said the clouds. "Then we can tell you some things."

"We saw the big Ti-San Mountain today," continued the snow, "and many of the cloud children were playing around its summit, but what good did they do? None.

"A hunter was looking for wild beasts and your children were naughty and covered his eyes so that he could not see. Do you remember how he scolded your children and said, 'I do not like these cloudy, foggy days'?

"Once the General San Chi led his soldiers to fight against his nation's enemy, and one night he went out to learn how many of the enemy could be seen.

"The moon and stars tried to help him, but you came and covered them and it grew so dark that he lost his way. Then the enemy took his horse and gun and he nearly lost his life.

"He hid in a cave and said, 'Those clouds have caused my death, I fear.' He lay in the dark cave until the morning came and he could see to find his way.

"We do not see why the Creator made clouds to hang around in the sky from north to south, and east to west," said the snow angrily.

II

Just then the clouds' lawyer, the wind, came to defend them. "Whom are you scolding?" he asked.

"You think the Creator should have made the snow king of a world, I suppose, and that there is no place or use for the clouds.

"You talk so much that we cannot find opportunity to tell what we are good for. You are not the only helper of man and of growing things in the hot summer time.

"Do you remember when the great General Dhi-Sing led five thousand soldiers to battle? They traveled over mountains and through wild places until they were worn and weary.

"They found water to drink by the Gold Mine Mountain and stopped there to rest; but there were no trees or growing things on that mountain and they could find no shade.

"The sun sent down great heat and they suffered so that they could not rest. Then they held their faces up to heaven and in anguish they cried, 'Oh, sun, why shine so hot today?'

"Then they looked to the east and saw our brother, the cloud, beginning to appear.

"'Why do you not come to us, and cover the face of the sun that we may have shade and rest?' they pleaded of the cloud; and so our brother came and stood between the earth and the sun.

"'Oh, this is rest, rest,' said the soldiers in great relief. 'How we wish that the cloud might always shield us from the burning fire of the sun.'

"And not only the soldiers, but all the farmers and woodcutters ask us to help them in the time when the sun comes close."

"Can you do only this one thing?" asked the snow coldly.

"Who carries the rain and the snow through the sky?" asked the wind.

"I tell you there would be no rain nor snow but for the help of the wind and the clouds.

"You know well that the rain is made from the ocean water.

"One day the water said to the cloud, 'Friend, I should like to journey around and around the sky, but I have no wings, and cannot fly. My body is so heavy that I cannot move it, and I never expect to take this trip unless you, my friend, help me.'

"And so we lifted the water and helped it step by step until we floated it through the air. Our first cloud faces were very light, but after we had traveled five or six miles through the sky our faces changed to gray, and when we had gone one thousand miles our faces became black and the farmers said, 'We shall soon have rain.'

"Do you know why the faces of clouds grow black?" asked the wind.

"Anger makes things black," said the snow, "but why should we know, for of ourselves we never change color."

"It was because great strength was being put forth to travel through the sky," argued the wind, "for soon the drops of water said, 'We are tired and want to go back to earth again.'

"Then we said to the water, 'The earth people need you and all growing things need you. It is good that you go.'

"And on the place where that water fell there had been no rain for three years.

"The king had bowed his head a thousand times before our father and mother and had cried, 'Oh, rain cloud, why are you so long in coming?'

"We heard the earth king's cry, and that night the mother of clouds said to us, 'My children, you must go down to earth and help its people or they will perish.' So we called all our brothers and sisters to go at the same time, and we went to earth and saved a million and a million lives.

"The greatest wrong you have done is to forget who helped you when you were needy," continued the wind.

"Do you remember that you once lived in the ocean, river, or lake? At that time I do believe that you were not well liked. In the sea you were in the lowest class and worked hard every day and night.

"When the wind came and blew you into waves you would always call out in a big rough voice, 'Muh; Muh; Spsh; Sph -s -s.'

"You were restless and unhappy, and tried and tried to escape from that place, and the cloud mother pitied you.

"She said, 'I am very sorry. We will bring them up here with us,' and she asked the sun's help to do it.

"For a day and a day, a night and a night, you were carried up, up to the first section. But you were not satisfied then, and you were taken to very high seats.

"You wanted the best places and would do no work unless the winds pushed and the clouds carried you. So we took you up high where we lived and had a happy time.

"Now you have forgotten all this. Who helped you up? Who made you pure?" But the snow did not answer.

Finally the snow said, "Yes, our family is from the rivers and seas. We had forgotten. If we had only thought, we should have been more grateful."

The sun was judge, and he said, "We decide this case in favor of the wind and the clouds."