Virgin Birth

In China, one Han Yu-ming, a stone cutter, found a small sigil in the foothills of the Taihang mountains. It evidently had belonged to a priest long since dead, for lo! as Han stooped to pick it up, a vision came to him. He heard a voice like the Voice of Thunder. The Voice told Han that the sigil would cure diseases, that soon a leader would come.

Shortly after that, Han's unmarried sister gave birth to a son. Han proclaimed him the promised leader. Worshippers came to see the babe, to touch the sigil. Han called the child the Emperor of Heaven and a cult grew about him called the Heavenly Gates. Today the Emperor of Heaven is two years old. As yet he has done nothing remarkable. But in the Honan province he has many worshippers who are allied in a secret society. And recently Han purchased arms to protect the Heavenly Gates.

Thus ran the tale which a Christian minister in Honan told last week in Peiping.

In the U. S. most people have made up their minds one way or another about the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Yet so potent is the subject that shrewd Evangelist William Ashley ("Billy") Sunday has chosen it as the main theme of his latest barnstorming tour. In Elyria, Ohio, he gospel-shouted last week: "God made Adam and Eve without human agencies. So he certainly could create Jesus in a supernatural manner!

He argued that to deny the Virgin Birth was to doubt that Mary was a "good woman."

"What a fearful insult and slander to Mary!" shouted the Rev. Sunday. "I resent this insult!"