Beautiful Wang Ching-tao was happy and rich. She had married into the well-to-do Wang family, receiving a husband who loved her with all his heart. Happiness shed its dazzling colourful rays on the young couple, and together they rejoiced over the glory of being alive. Thus imperceptibly each delightful year merged into the next.

But one day black clouds darkened the horizon of the happy home. The young wife fell victim to a prostrating disease. Confusion marred the home while the husband sought out the best doctors in the region to find if they could somehow restore her to health. But none could help her; she weakened slowly and inevitably as the days skated by on the endless rink of time.

The Buddhist monk in his customary tour of the district also visited Wang's home. The sickness had set its seal on the place. The young, strong, and dignified farmer had shrunk to a mere fraction of his former self. Sorrow had entered his soul and made him listless. The Buddhist monk posed as though he knew a remedy for the wife's illness. Let her take a vegetarian vow, and thus, banning all meats and adjusting her life according to the precepts of Buddha, she would rapidly regain her health. The sick woman looked up at her husband questioningly after the monk had spoken. Her husband nodded in agreement and she received her first lesson in Buddhism's lulling mysticism. Little by little she penetrated the life philosophy of Buddhism and was swept off her feet by its directives for human happiness. A speedy apprenticeship in the learning of this religion's intricate system of karma and nirvana is rare. Wang Ching-Tao was not ready to cross the threshold into the next chamber until after many years of intense devotional study under the skilful guidance of the monk. To the great sorrow of her husband and her children, she decided to devote herself altogether to Buddha by seperating herself from all that reminded her of her earlier life.

A new building rose at the edge of the Wang's family large estate. It was constructed as a temple to all-conquering Buddha, who occupied the centre of the spacious room of the god. In a circle round Buddha's image, the young woman placed thirty other images. The room adjoining was fixed up as her abode with a large kang and a low, unpainted stool, while a small, oblong table positioned against the north wall completed the Spartan furnishing. On the little table she set up a medium-sized incense bowl.

When the shrine was finished, she moved in, climaxing ten years of vegetarianism. At this time a new phase of her life began, a period when one great spiritual conflict after another beset her. She faced each battle as it came, believing that she would overcome through the help of Buddha's spirit. Her soul travail was excruciating, and threatened many a time to shatter her spirit; but each time she rode the storm and prepared for fresh billows of opposition. Her will was subordinate to a fatalist outlook and performed extraordinary feats.

On her kang she had sat crosslegged year in and year out. To begin with, she had had to get down from the kang to tend the incense that constantly changed itself to grey ashes. But it was not long before hungry, longing souls started to make their way to the small temple at the corner of the huge estate. The woman had now advanced so far into the spiritual aura of Buddhism that she became an acknowledged Chy Si (1-- an exalted Buddhist term for one who has taken the vow of separation and who lives in fasting and prayer, seated with crossed feet and sunk deep in meditation and self-analysis. Disciples come from all around, since a Chy Si is recognized as a leader wielding great influence. ) She received many devoted disciples, and so no longer needed to descend from her kang to lay more incense in the offering bowls; her faithful followers were eager to do this service for her. They obeyed her slightest wish, and sat drinking in her life's philosophy culled from the fundamental Buddhist beliefs.

For twenty years she sat on her kang. She was what the Chinese call a perfect vegetarian, as neither meat nor fat ever slipped between her teeth. She even omitted fish and eggs from her diet, although the last two were allowed. But Chy Si believed that if she didn't eat fish or eggs she would come into a more intimate communion with Buddha. Her self-inflicted tortures were inconceivable. For seventeen years of the twenty that she had been seated crosslegged, she denied herself the comfort of sleeping in an outstretched position. Day and night for seventeen consecutive years she sat in the same posture, hoping in this way to attain to the heights of Buddhist canonization.

From every direction Buddhists came to worship at her little shrine. The fame of this Chy Si spread like lightning from county to county, from province to province. The community was proud at having such a notable saint in their midst, and declared that not only she herself but the temple and even the area surrounding it were holy.

Just at this time the Gospel was on its victorious march westwards and arrived at the village of Kaokiachy, scarcely two and a half miles from Wang Chy's homestead. Several accepted the new faith and burnt their idols, which had occupied the place of honour in their homes from time immemorial.

Amongst the disciples of the Gospel there were from the start some of Wang Chy's grandchildren, and together with others they brought the news of the foreign religion to the great Wang family. The meetings continued, souls were saved, sick were healed, and the newly saved were ably directed in their first steps along the new road of faith.

A year and a half after the meetings had started in Kaokiachy, Wang Chy suddenly became desperately ill. She shut her eyes and fell asleep; that sleep lasted for seven days and seven nights. If it hadn't been for the scarcely perceptible mist which fogged the mirror held in front of her face, she would have been considered dead. She would have been buried too in a site chosen according to the geomantic rules used by the Chinese to determine building locations and burial grounds, and called by them feng shui, or "the Influences of Wind and Water."

The Buddhist priests and all her devotees gathered to her temple, filling her room, the hall of the gods and the courtyard. They brought their cymbals and clashed them as they read their monotonous prayers and burnt paper to requite the debt of the dead demanded by Yen Wang, the emperor of the kingdom of death; he it is who metes out the torments which the dead must endure through their transmigration or transmission. In the course of the period in which karma wanders, the agony is paid and a new incarnation can take place.

On the seventh day, however, she regained consciousness, and an unchecked jubilation swayed the Buddhist throng. The rejoicing rose to an ectasy. What a miracle ! This was indeed plain proof that her debt had been paid. For her own part, she wasn't so positive. The one fact, however, she was certain of was that her right thigh flamed with shooting agony.

"Yen Wang is perhaps holding that in forfeit until you have paid the whole of your debt, O Chy Si," said one of the foremost Buddhists there.

Anew the monotonous machinery started with fresh vigour. The magic paper was laid on the bowls of sacrifice, and the fire arose to the gods with the prayer that her debt might soon be paid. Many Buddhist monks fell into trances, and a lively intercourse with the spirit world was maintained. An unpleasant atmosphere pervaded the whole place. Each of her deities was consulted after she exclaimed that her pains increased hourly. The mediums came to from their trances with new injunctions from the gods. These, though carried out with exactitude, did not help in the least. From various neighbouring temples, and also from some afar off there came medicinal cure-alls. The herbalists of that region were summoned, but had to depart with their mission unfulfilled. Men were despatched for renowned diviners whose incantations and seances proved to be all in vain. Then witches were bidden to come, and they too performed their ritual. During these uncanny adjurations the patient's dozing awareness noted that her pains diminished somewhat, but only for a short while, after which they renewed their onslaught on her body. When all her sources of help had been exhausted and the priests, monks and pilgrims had left her room, her favourite disciple, Righteous Mercy, came to the sick and lonely Buddhist leader. Chy Si gave the young girl a forced smile, and beckoned her to come within hearing distance.

Righteous Mercy carefully approached the kang and bowed herself to the dust before her.

"O beloved Chy Si," said the young Buddhist, "can't you call one of the followers of the Christian God ? They can pray for you, and you will recover. I know many who have become well after the Christians laid their hands on them and prayed for them. You know Kao, the carpenter, don't you ?" The young girl looked up inquiringly at Chy Si, who nodded to signify that she knew him.

"This carpenter was at death's door," continued Righteous Mercy. "Nobody believed he could live through his sickness. Some of his relatives even thought they should wash him, wrap him in the burial clothes already purchased, so that the carpenter would be all prepared when death came to take him to the Western Heaven. The coffin, which had lain concealed in a corner for many years, was brought out and swept clean of dust and cobwebs. All those in the place made ready for the funeral, even though as yet there was none to bury. The son who lived in a different section of the country was summoned, and hastened home, expecting certainly that he would find his father coffined. But when he arrived and saw his father walking about the courtyard, he was struck with amazement, thinking that what he was gazing on was his father's ghost--- but it wasn't ! The carpenter was walking about livelier than ever. What they had done was to request Mother Chen to come, and she laid her hands on the sick one and prayed him well. Now's he's working with his helpers on the construction of a barn for a rich man on the other side of the mountains to the north."

Chy Si looked at the young girl kneeling in front of her and telling her about the God of the Christians. She had known the carpenter, and it had often amazed her that he had really recovered. The story was interesting, and her favourite disciple had the knack of story-telling. The words went right to the heart of the old Buddhist leader and touched strings she never thought existed.

"I know some more accounts fo the sick who have been healed by the God of the Christians. You know their names. Wang Wang-si, who suffered from cancerous feet; Tien Chi-wa from Yaosi was lame for five long years. You remember the blind Hoh Kuei-wa, who couldn't leave the house without somebody leading her. All these and numerous others became well when they bowed themselves to the Christians' God. Can't you, my dear instructess, try this God ?"

Wang Chy nodded in assent; she would try this God. Her husband, on hearing of her decision, despatched one of his grandsons to Yaosi to fetch a Christian woman. Wu-tsung-chen by name. Before her conversion this woman had been a fortune-teller, and legends of her fortune-telling wizardry still circulated in those parts. Promptly she came and knelt down at the side of the Buddhist leader's kang. The prayer she prayed to her God was a revelation of her close contact with the eternal world. An immediate answer was granted. The pains in the right thigh of the sick one vanished entirely.

But then the pipe was played to another tune. When it became known that Wang Chy had scandalized her reputation in this manner, all her former zealous adherents, monks, priests, and pupils, assembled in front of the temple. They claimed she had brought shame, not only upon herself, but also upon the whole Buddhist world. She had dishonoured the high position she had received from Buddha and disgraced the family name. By letting herself be healed by a God unacquainted with Chinese customs and usage, she had shown that she despised the thirty-one gods who stood in her own temple. Her gods were very angry with her, and demanded appeasement through smoke and fire.

The patient agreed. She had indeed received the help she needed from the God of the Christians. The pangs were gone, and that was the most important factor.

The traditional roll of one hundred paper sheets was laid in the bowl of offering and set ablaze. The temple cleansing began, for the gods must be conciliated.That evening each of the those who had taken part in the process of cleansing the shrine went home satisfied with what they had accomplished. Their honour and the honour of the Buddhist world had been retrieved. But the last person had barely disappeared outside the temple door before her pangs attacked Wang Chy Si afresh. It was bitter for her to acknowledge her own foolishness. It was plain logic that the foreign God, after He had healed her, would not endure her action of turning her back on Him to continue once more in the worship of her former gods. Yet once again they sent a message to Wu-tsung-chen. She came and prayed once more for the sick. In His great mercy, God healed her this time also. All the same, her disciples persuaded her to continue offering to the idols.

Wang Chy Si, the famed Buddhist leader, once more came to the realization that she could not hoodwink the God of the Christians. Her pains visited her again with redoubled intensity. Her despair crushed her to the ground in hopeless contrition. She was compelled to send yet a third time for the Christian woman, who, however, did not feel led to hearken to the Chy Si's plea. The husband of the sick woman summoned the evangelist at Yaosi, but he answered that he first had to seek God's will. Through prayer, the evangelist received instructions to take Wu-tsung-chen with him and proceed to the shrine. There they were to inform her that if she forsook her idols, their God would restore here to health and strength. But it was only on this condition.

When they entered the patient's room they explained to her that this was her last chance of being healed. If she agreed to give up her thirty-one gods, they would pray for her, and their God would heal her. The evangelist told her about the care Jesus has for the least of His children. He personally bestowed on each of His followers a surety that nothing of a nature to disappoint them in their new faith would happen to them. He Himself was their guarantor that all would be well. She could pray to Him all day if she wished and she would find that she would receive what she prayed for.

The noted Chy Si, with her own shrine and twenty disciples, besides hundreds of devotees and a long life in Guatama Buddha's service, knew that she was confronting the greatest choice in her life. A flitting evasiveness was of no avail in this case. She had to choose unmistakably, with no reservations. This God saw right through a person and knew her thoughts even before they were crystallized. Inwardly she examined her old gods; she saw all the hundreds of times she had knelt in front of them and worshipped them in a holy conviction that they would answer her; she saw in front of her the many persons she had instructed in the teachings of Buddha, and knew that if she chose the God of the Christians, she would dedicate the rest of her life to winning these back to the One to whom they originally belonged, the one and only true God. She made her choice. She made it known to the two Christians that she would choose the Christ.

The two servants of the Lord knelt down and united in prayer for the salvation and healing of the sick. God hearkened to their petitions and for the third time cured the woman.

The beginning was over; but weighty decisions stood and beckoned to her in the future. She needed nursing both physically and spiritually. Twenty years of self-denial with less than basic feeding had greatly weakened her. She could not walk, and was too old and feeble to learn over again, so her husband made her a sedan chair in which she came to the Christian services. Buddhism had had extremely tenacious roots in this woman's life, but the Spirit of God guided her so that she avoided the pitfalls the heathen prepared for her. She praised her Redeemer and Preserver for snatching her out from the darkness of heathendom. He had proved Himself mightier than her thirty-one idols, by cancelling their power and breaking the fetters with which they had bound her.

The old Buddhist shrine rang no longer with the clash of cymbals and the chanted intonations of the monks. No longer did the idols take up space in the capacious hall of the gods. There was not a single incense bowl where magic paper could be burnt. Instead, this temple had become a real temple. The god-room was changed into a meeting hall for the new church in the community, and in the place which previously had been filled with the deeds of darkness the Father of Light performed His miracles while the children of Light sang hymns to His glory.