Lung Fu-Hsing sauntered into his neighbor's house and asked to see his former campaign comrade, Hao Min, whom he had not met for over a year. Hao Min, however, was not at home, but down in Lui Hsaing marketing. He had recently quit soldiering to enter the more peaceable occupation of being a merchant. Lung Fu-Hsing, on the other hand, continued in his profession, which varied between being a soldier or a robber, depending on the caprice of the notorious bandit chieftain, Yuen Pao-te. This robber leader was a slave to his acquisitive nature. He would pass himself off as a Nationalist Army man when it suited him, and as readily shift his allegiance to his business of private banditry.
Lung Hsing, as he was known amongst his friends, had been a bandit for over twenty-five years. His intelligience and arrestingly handsome features had made him popular with his fellow crooks. He and his riotous brother outlaws lived lives in keeping with their exploits. They indulged in every excess imaginable, from the worst drinking carousals, opium-smoking and pillaging to wanton connections with loose women. Cards were one of Lung Hsing's greatest obsessions. He had either to be critically ill or else engaged in a robber raid before resigning his seat at the card table.
On the field of our mission work, this Chinese bandit was particularly well known. He had taken part in many successful raids up and down the region's narrow valleys. Indeed, he numbered amongst his friends many Government officials; naturally, not those keenly discharging their responsible duties, but those who considered personal aggrandisement the first claim. Lung Hsing was a hard-boiled sinner who had transgressed every human law, and, not content with mere transgression, trampled them in the dust with devilish glee. His wild conduct could not continue indefinitely without some sort of retribution. And so it was one day Lung Hsing was afflicted with blindness. That was the worst that could have happened to the robber, because he maintained that he had more use for his eyes than other people. His livelihood had consisted of plundering them, and now this sudden calamity would deprive him of his work and perhaps all the friends he had. Both of these disasters struck him. He had to throw up his old job and his friends deserted him when they observed that the prospects of sharing in his loot had gone.
With his relatives, Lung Hsing had always been a welcome guest, for he never used to come empty-handed. The finest of silks, cottons and other elegant things were down deep in their chest of drawers. They bickered and squabbled amongst themselves for the prize of his friendship, and now that friendship was no longer desirable. Who wanted to befriend a blind man who was incapable of giving them a single gift ? They thereupon experienced a loathing whenever this penniless relative slouched around their doors. He who had once been the object of regard and mingled fear had suddenly become a harmless fellow of whom even the alley cats were not afraid.
But the blind man was stubbornly optimistic. Unafraid to die, he yet persisted in hanging on to life. The rumour that Lung Hsing had nine lives like a cat still went its rounds. This reputation dated from one particular episode. During a raid against a city in Shengsi, the robbers had to scale the city wall before entering the place. The high walls were well defended, but he was the first to prop the ladder against the wall and ascend it. The guards on the wall, not neglecting the excellent target, fired a volley of shots that riddled the bandit. His comrades believed that his last hour had come, but they were mistaken. He survived to exhibit a foolhardiness exceeding all his earlier boldness. A mystical halo was flung around him. A man whom neither steel nor lead could harm had not only a cat's nine lives, he surely had direct intercourse with the spirit world. But now all was different: he had come to the place where he could not even take a step without a guide. Fear of Lung Hsing lifted like the morning mist. He was like Samson in the prison mill-house: nobody was the slightest bit afraid of him.
The blind Lung Hsing made a tour of every idol temple in Kingtzekaun and on the mountains surrounding the district. During his pilgrimage he arrived at a temple where it was said that the gods were past-masters in the art of healing. A blazing summer heat made his efforts to reach the temple most exhausting. His eyes ached like boils, and his craving for opium raged within his breast worse than the furnaces of an inferno. To be unable to secure opium was almost unbearable. All the sources where the drug could be procured were well known to him. But those sources were distant and, besides, opium cost too much for his slender reserves, for no longer could he actively share in the robber raids that used to weigh down his purse which was now alarmingly light. So he pressed on as best he could, and though his progress was tedious, he reached the temple at length. A melodious carillon of relaxation seemed to be ringing in his ears, as he had his hands and feet washed, and as he entered a cool room, where he partook of an excellent meal-- all the answer to money's voice ! Later, after an additional sum, he was conducted to a quiet room in the back. There he received "heavenly happiness" from the hands of a temple retainer. All he had to do was to recline on a prepared bed and breathe opium deeply. The pains disappeared, and he sailed off into a new world.
Guided by a lad, he went to the temple the next morning to make his offering to the famed deity. His prayer for help in the plight which threatened to ruin his life was fervent with all the burning desire of an affllicted man and all the illogical sense of the heathen. The inevitable occurred-- nothing. The famous deity remained silent and passive.
Heart-broken and bowed down with disappointment, the blind man left the temple a couple of days later and started the steep descent. He looked like a man who has gambled his all on a losing horse; the priests had skilfully conjured every cent from his purse, and he still had the blindness which he hoped and trusted the gods would dispel. He was compelled to beg his way home, and this caused him to believe that he had joined the ranks of the hopeless. When the god who was noted for succeeding in all cases could not manage his, then Lung Hsing realized there was no more hope. None could save him from tottering blindly to the grave.
In the country town where the blind Lung Hsing dwelt, there also lived a Christian woman who closely followed her Redeemer. She saw the blind Lung in a vision and understood that God was commanding her to visit him and tell him about the way of life. This was no easy proposition for the woman, since Lung was no apprentice in the devil's workshop. He had assisted in many cruelties; he had stripped people of their belongings; he had beaten those who had refused to disclose the whereabouts of their money; and he had exulted when people had been tortured to death. His soul was hard, and his blindness only aggravated the condition. However, the servant of God was undismayed; she had the gift of prayer and fully realized its power to accomplish the will of God.
The message Lung heard started in motion feelings long dormant within him. The hardened bandit was stirred by the woman's glowing presentation of her Lord and Savior, a message of sin and grace, of promises and of healing for those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He instinctively felt that he should originally have been a disciple of Jesus instead of General Yuen Pao-te's henchman.
Lung Fu-hsing hired a lad to lead him down to the Christians' meeting-place in the town. There he seated himself on one of the front benches, lifting his sightless eyes towards the preacher. He drank in the news about the water of life, with the thrist of a man dying for a drink. The undimmed light of the Gospel unveiled to him his true nature. A tough battle ensued, but he prayed for the good to triumph, and at the conclusion of many hours of intense wrestling in prayer the good did conquer. Friends encircled him with a cordon of prayer, and their intercession aided Lung in his inner conflict.
The grace of God is unlimited for honest seekers. While he lay praying, a veil suddenly fell from his eyes. He could see, and not just with difficulty: he could see well enough to read even the finest print !
The robber now abandoned his former way of life in earnest. He never bestowed a further thought on it; it was the past as far as he was concerned. Now he lived in the present and the future, using his God-given gift of healing as a true disciple of Christ.
Medical science stands baffled and helpless in the face of numerous types of diseases that make havoc on the mission field. But it is a glorious experience for missionaries when God shows His limitless grace towards them by equipping one of the converts with the art of healing. A native can probe where a missionary, being of another race, is powerless. An intuitive sympathy and tact marked Lung Hsing's work. His prayer life constantly brought him new experiences. He healed the sick with a humility which I have seldom seen paralleled. He looked up his former bandit associates and witnessed to them of the new life. A holy, unquenchable fire burned in Deacon Lung's heart. He was one of those who instantly recognized his responsibility and accepted it as a token of honour. Therefore larger responsibility was given him. Constantly he won new souls for the Lord Jesus, and his heartfelt wish when we last conversed together was to remain on duty and carry out his work at elder at the new church in his home district until his Lord and Master took him home with all the faithful.
