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."
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."
"Revenge is not for men to trifle with, nor maids to talk of," he said. "Harbor no such desires, but rather come with me and I will show thee more attractive things. This very day doth the great emperor go forth from the City of Peace,[2] to the
