SAN and his little sister Kim were two Chinese orphans. When their father and mother died, they went to live with their aunt and grandmother. Here they were taught to worship the big wooden idol in the house. However, at the same time they were allowed to go to school conducted by some Christian missionaries, where they were taught that the Lord was the true and only God and that His dear Son had become a Man and died for sinners.
One day the Christian teacher sought to show the children the folly of praying to a dumb idol. She gave them a beautiful rose to smell and they were delighted with its fragrance. Then she had them smell a plant with a very disagreeable odor, and at the first whiff, San and Kim held their noses and turned away. The teacher then told the children that the idol could not tell the difference between the smell of the rose and that plant.
After this the teacher took a large needle from her pin cushion and asked the children to prick their arms with it.
“Oh no,” said the children. “It’ll hurt and make the blood come.”
Then the teacher said it wouldn’t hurt the idol if they were to stick a needle into it.
On the way home from school, San told his sister he would go and try to see if it were true what the teacher had said. Little Kim was afraid something dreadful would happen to her brother, and tried to persuade him to give up the idea, but Sam said he was bound to try it.
So when they reached home they went into the room where the idol was fastened to a shelf on the wall. Together they pushed a table under it and climbing up on the table, San held a rose up to the idol’s nose; of course, he took no notice of it. Then he held a nasty smelling plant against its nose, but he never moved his head or showed the least sign of displeasure.
“Well, Kim,” said San, “it’s very certain he don’t know anything about smelling. Let’s try and see if he can feel.”
San hunted around until he found a fork with long sharp prongs, and poor Kim was very frightened when she saw her brother go up to the idol with this in his hand. She stood trembling like a leaf. San was a bit frightened too, but he still resolved to try it, So he got up on the table again and stood before the idol holding the fork firmly in his hand.
With a swing of his arm, he stabbed the fork right into the idol’s fat cheek. There was no cry, no motion, no blood. Nothing happened.
“Teacher’s right!” exclaimed San. “He don’t know anything.”
Then it came home to the children how foolish it was to put such a block of wood in the place of God, and they determined not to worship him any more. San became a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Saviour. Time came when he persuaded his aunt and his grandmother to give up the idol too, and they all became Christians, having no other god but the Lord.
ML-04/15/1973