I have heard there was a high-caste Chinese boy, the son of a wealthy
mandarin, governor of one of the Chinese provinces. This father was
very ambitious for his boy, hoping that one day he would succeed him
as chief executive. Therefore to secure for him the most modern and
progressive education, he sent the boy a hundred miles away to a
school on the Great Canal, taught by American missionaries. "To get
the Western learning," he told the boy, but not the foreign devils'
religion.

The teacher in Yuan Ki's room was a six-footer, a college graduate,
and an athlete. Yuan Ki was much impressed. He secretly admired him,
but was ungraciously curt to him. This was Yuan Ki's way of making the
teacher "keep his distance." But the teacher seemed not to notice it.
He was always kind to Yuan Ki, even as he was to the others.

One morning at chapel teacher talked about his God. Yuan Ki sneered at
what he told. Actually, teacher had said that his God had come down to
earth and had given up His life on a cross, as a sin-offering for all
people, even His own enemies. Yuan Ki wrote his father about this
"ridiculous story."

One day Yuan Ki was taken sick with a high fever and placed in the
school hospital. That night as he turned his feverish head from side
to side on the pillow, he felt a cool hand laid on his brow. It was
the teacher. Yuan Ki turned his face away, affecting not to see him.
The second night, he kept the boy's feverish brow cooled with iced
cloths until the fever subsided. Yuan Ki was distressed at the
situation, but all the more determined to ignore the teacher's
kindness.