Now for a genuine example.  There is a very wonderful novel in which a very affecting love-story is worked out to a terribly tragic conclusion.  The heroine, a beautiful and fascinating girl, finally dies of consumption, and the hero, a wayward but none the less fascinating youth, enters the Buddhist priesthood.  A lady, the mother of a clever young official, was so distressed by the pathos of the tale that she became quite ill, and doctors prescribed medicines in vain.  At length, when things were becoming serious, the son set to work and composed a sequel to this novel, in which he resuscitated the heroine and made the lovers happy by marriage; and in a short time he had the intense satisfaction of seeing his mother restored to health.

Other forms of filial piety, which bear no relation whatever to the fanciful fables given above, are commonly practised by all classes.  In consequence of the serious or prolonged illness of parents, it is very usual for sons and daughters to repair to the municipal temple and pray that a certain number of years may be cut off their own span of life and added to that of the sick parents in question.

Let us now pause to take stock of some of the results which have accrued from the operation and influence of Confucianism during such a long period, and over such swarming myriads of the human race.  It is a commonplace in the present day to assert that the Chinese are hardworking, thrifty, and sober—­the last-mentioned, by the way, in a land where drunkenness is not regarded as a crime.  Shallow observers of the globe-trotter type, who have had their pockets picked by professional thieves in Hong-Kong, and even resident observers who have not much cultivated their powers of observation and comparison, will assert that honesty is a virtue denied to the Chinese; but those who have lived long in China and have more seriously devoted themselves to discover the truth, may one and all be said to be arrayed upon the other side.  The amount of solid honesty to be met with in every class, except the professionally criminal class, is simply astonishing.  That the word of the Chinese merchant is as good as his bond has long since become a household word, and so it is in other walks of life.  With servants from respectable families, the householder need have no fear for his goods.  “Be loyal,” says the native maxim, “to the master whose rice you eat;” and this maxim is usually fulfilled to the letter.  Hence, it is that many foreigners who have been successful in their business careers, take care to see, on their final departure from the East, that the old and faithful servant, often of twenty to thirty years’ standing, shall have some provision for himself and his family.  In large establishments, especially banks, in which great interests are at stake, it is customary for the Chinese staff to be guaranteed by some wealthy man (or firm), who deposits securities for a considerable amount, thus placing the employer in a very favourable position.