It was a time of darkness and strife in Europe. Already what historians have called the Dark Ages had settled upon the Christian world. And among all the races of men the only nation that was civilized, and learned, and cultivated, and refined in this seventh century of the Christian era, was this far eastern Empire of China, where schools and learning flourished, and arts and manufactures abounded, when America was as yet undiscovered and Europe was sunk in degradation. And here, since the year 505, the Nestorians, a branch of the Christian Church, originating in Asia Minor in the fifth century, and often called “the Protestants of the East,” had been spreading the story of the life and love of Christ. 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.” “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,(1) to the banks of the Yellow River. Come thou with me to witness the splendor of his train, and perchance even to see the great emperor himself and the young Prince Kaou, his son.” (1) The meaning of Chang-an, the ancient capital of China, is “the City of Continuous Peace.” “That I will not then,” cried the girl, more hotly than before. “I hate this great emperor, as men do wrongfully call him, and I hate the young Prince Kaou. May Lung Wang, the god of the dragons, dash them both beneath the Yellow River ere yet they leave its banks this day.” At this terrible wish on the lips of a girl, the good master very nearly forgot even his most valuable precept--never to be surprised. He regarded his defiant young companion in sheer amazement.