MADAME CHIANG’S FABLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1943, Page 4

MADAME CHIANG’S FABLE

WAYS OF ACQUIRING GRACE. Madame Chiang Kai-shek told an anecdote full of rich Oriental flavour the other day in Washington. About 2000 years ago, she said, there was a young Buddhist monk who sat crosslegged outside a temple, his hands clasped, chanting day after - day, “Amita-Buddha, Amita-Buddha,” because he hoped that he would thus acquire grace. At length, the old Father Priox - of the temple came up, seated himself beside the monk, and began rubbing a piece of brick against a stone. This, too, went on day after day. At length, the acolyte could .restrain his curosity no longer .and asked the Prior what he was doing. “I am trying to make a mirror - out of this brick,” the old man replied. “But,” said the monk, “it is impossible to make a mirror out of a brick, Father - Prior.” “Yes,” replied the other, “and it is just as impossible for you to acquire grace by doing nothing except chant ‘AmitaBuddha’ all day long, day in and day out.”

The moral? There are several possibilities. But in the rich American idiom, it might be this: You can’t win a war by siting on your hands—St. Louis "Post Dispatch.”