The Tao Teh King: A Short Study in Comparative Religion (Classic Reprint)

"In every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him." The Spirit of God is confined to no sect, religion, race nor creed. Wherever hearts are still and aspirations pure the vision may dawn, the voice of inspiration be heard. God has spoken to man in many languages, and the translator of the present work was supported throughout what was often an arduous task by the belief that the Tao-teh-king is a message from above. Like all ancient writings, it may have suffered at the hands of time, but as I have endeavored to show in my notes and comments on the text, the teaching is one which the inner consciousness of all ages has recognized as The Truth. Though Lao-tzu's accent is his own, it is easily seen to be but a dialect of the universal tongue. "And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." Many are the editions of the Tao-teh-king (vid. the list at the end of this book), but has Lao-tzu ever really been translated? If I have in any measure succeeded where others have failed it is because I have built on their labors. The Chinese is difficult, and mistakes are perhaps inevitable, but I have taken pains to reduce these to a minimum, and with the utmost care have consulted in detail the works of Legge, Balfour, Giles, Carus, Kingsmill, Maclagan, Old and von Strauss during the whole of my preliminary labors. Although unable to agree with any of these gentlemen in their interpretations, to all I am indebted for guidance and suggestions while working my way through the terse obscurity of the Chinese. In the course of my researches I have consulted nearly an equal number of native commentaries, but my chief claim to having come nearer to Lao-tzu's meaning than my predecessors is the fact that it requires a mystic to understand a mystic,