His message of love to men. Then the meeting went on as before.
A simple enough little incident, surely, but it is an index to the speaker, sincere, sympathetic, fearless, practical. It was Li Liang Chen, that is, Li of Perfect Virtue, as his parents had named him in hope. To attain the Chinese goal of greatness by becoming an official was likewise a longing, and to that end he was sent early to school. There, year by year, through youth and young manhood, he had repeated his history, rhymed his poetry, patiently traced the puzzling characters and later written countless stereotyped essays under a still famous teacher of the district. More than once he had gone up with the picked men of his county to try for the coveted degree, that opening door to official life. Alas! how few could hope for success; oft-times scarce two in a hundred. His heart was, moreover, ever too great for his head, so those with more self-abstraction or secret alliances with the examiners, won the day.
In military matters, literary attainments played a lesser part, the physical was the all-important, so thither his ambitions turned. Here, though some surpassed him in lifting the two and three hundred weight stone, success came surprisingly. He soon bent a strong bow and sent his arrow clean and quivering to the heart of the target. In feats with fists his stature, strength and courage placed him among the envied few, while in swinging great swords he was scarce surpassed.
China, however, cares not for war. In the long life of
