And here, in
this year of grace 635, in the city of Chang-an, and in all the
region about the Yellow River, the good priest Thomas the
Nestorian, whom the Chinese called O-lo-pun--the nearest approach
they could give to his strange Syriac name--had his Christian
mission-house, and was zealously bringing to the knowledge of a
great and enlightened people the still greater and more helpful
light of Christianity.
"My daughter," said the Nestorian after his words of thanks were
uttered; "this is a gracious deed done to me, and one that I may
not easily repay. Yet would I gladly do so, if I might. Tell me
what wouldst thou like above all other things?"
The answer of the girl was as ready as it was unexpected.
"To be a boy, O master! she replied. "Let the great Shang-ti,[1]
whose might thou teachest, make me a man that I may have
revenge."
[1] Almighty Being.
The good priest had found strange things in his mission work in
this far Eastern land, but this wrathful demand of an excited
little maid was full as strange as any. For China is and ever has
been a land in which the chief things taught the children are,
"subordination, passive submission to the law, to parents, and to
all superiors, and a peaceful demeanor.
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