The Blind Idol and the Wandering Heart

A Chinese wife entered a temple bearing humble offerings—a twig, rice—to propitiate a deity forty feet high, blackened by centuries of incense smoke. She petitioned the idol to protect her husband, then at sea in a storm. Weeks later, the same woman returned in rage, cursing the idol for its blindness, deafness, and utter helplessness as her husband perished. The missionary observer noted how this grieving widow's complaint echoed millions in Christian lands who build their hopes upon equally baseless, blind, and deaf gods.…