LIU AN, HUAI-NAN TZŬ
[Died 122 b.c. Ruler of Huai-nan, and grandson of the founder of the Han dynasty. A student of Taoism under its grosser aspects, he directed his attention to alchemistic research and to the discovery of an elixir of immortality. Becoming mixed up in some treasonable conspiracy, he perished by his own hand.]
DOES GOD INTERVENE?
OF old, Shih K‘uang played before the Court a piece entitled “White Snow,” the action of which was rendered by a cast of supernatural beings.[1] Down came a storm of wind and rain; the Duke was stricken with old age, while afterwards his State became red with drought.
When a woman of the people cried aloud her wrongs to God, thunder and lightning came down and struck the palace of the Duke to ruins, crushing his Highness and breaking his limbs, followed by the sea flooding over the whole.[2]
A blind musician and his wife from the people occupied a very lowly position, below even that of the humblest official. Nevertheless, with great earnestness they put aside their personal occupations and devoted themselves to worshipping the saints, so that their devotion became known and received encouragement in heaven above.
Thus it is clear that no matter whether isolated in the wilds, or in concealment at a distance, or in a double-walled stone house, or separated by intervening obstacles and dangers, there is no place to which a man can escape from God.
When our Martial King (1122 b.c.) attacked the tyrant Shou, while crossing the river at the ford of Mêng, the spirit of the wicked Marquis (who had been drowned there) stirred up the waves to fury against him, with a bitter wind and so black a pall of darkness that men and horses could not see one another. Then the Martial King, grasping in his left hand a golden halberd and in his right hand a white-tasselled staff, shook them at the river, saying, “I am
