time. When summer and autumn crops had failed the rains were
still withheld, and despair seized on all as they saw the impossibility
of sowing the wheat for next year's harvest.

The delicate bride, unable to withstand the privations of that time,
soon died, and Wang's sister was married, so that he and his mother
remained alone to care for each other. The poor young sister lived but a
very short while in her new home, and the circumstances of her death
were so tragic that Wang felt unable to forgive the man who had been her
husband. After many years, when circumstances brought this man to his
home, he realised that Christ's command to forgive those who have
offended against you required of him a complete change of feeling
towards this once hated brother-in-law, and he invited him to share his
food as a sign of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Every month the distress became more acute; weeds, leaves, bark of
trees, and even some softer kinds of wood were used as food, but numbers
were dying and of the one hundred and twenty families which inhabited
the village, at last thirty only remained. The dead outnumbered the
living, and compelled by hunger the latter were driven to sustain life
by feeding on the former.

Wang saw his mother's vain endeavour to supply some kind of food on
which they might subsist, and his heart was torn to see her deprive
herself even now that there might be more for him.

When the famine was at its worst, the most tragic blow fell. His mother
one day told him it was her wish that he should accompany several
neighbours to a near village where lived a relation. In those days none
dared to travel alone, lest in their weak, half-starved condition they
should fall a prey to man or beast. The pretext given was the
possibility of obtaining the loan of a little grain from the aunt who
lived there. Beggars were many and givers few, and he wondered at his
mother entertaining any hope of such good fortune.

He went, however, only to return a few hours later, empty-handed. As he
entered the courtyard, heart-sick with disappointment, he called for
his mother and received no answer. Doors and windows were locked on the
inside, and sick with apprehension he called the neighbours to his help.
On bursting open the door, they saw her body swinging from a beam in the
dim recesses of the cave. The errand had been an excuse to get him out
of the way, while she performed this act which was the last expression
of