5. The Bandits Couldn't Cross No Name Bridge.

It happened at about the third or fourth year of the Qing Dynasty (about 1877-1979).  There was a powerful gang of bandits in the Yan Jing Prefecture who called themselves "The Bandits."  They thought that there was alot of gold in the church along with other valuable foreign goods so they decided to go and rob them.  At that time, the church there was the main Catholic church in Yunnan Province.  (missing information)  However, the bandits had many more people than did the religious friends and were much more powerful.  So, the religious friends couldn't defend themselves and fled into the main area enclosed by a surrounding wall.  The bandits chased after them, wanting to break into the surrounding wall.  However, there was a deep and wide moat in front of them and to get by, they would have to cross No Name Bridge.  When they got up to the edge of the bridge they couldn't see anything in front of them, but when they looked back they could see very clearly.  In other words, they couldn't see the road in front of them, but could just see what laid behind them.  They had no choice but to withdraw.  The religious friends saw this behaviour and thought that it was so strange.  They couldn't tell what was wrong or if there was something mysterious stopping the bandits from crossing the bridge.  They just saw the bandits come to the edge of the bridge, no one dare go ahead, and then all retreat.  After several months they found out what had happened when one of the bandits told them.  People then finally understood.

(Told by Huang Hong Xun of Shi Gao Chun Village, Cheng Fen Xiang, Xue Fu Prefecture.)

6. Historical Background Information (No Miracle).

Long Bing also called Long Tai Shan belongs to Yan Jing Prefecture, Jin Yuan County.  Long Bing Church.  A local elderly religious friend named Guo Zhong Liang said, "Long Bing Church has a history of 147 years up till now (1987).  It was established in 1840 and the area was about 5,000 kilometers.  It's shape was that of a square and was built on a slope.  The surrounding walls were built from huge square stones and on average the stones were about 3.5 meters tall by 0.8 meters wide.  There were even pillboxes along the surrounding wall.  Inside the wall were many buildings and the main ones were the new and old churches, the priest and ministers' rooms, a school, etc.  Near the back of the surrounding wall, there were tombs of Priest Yuan, Minister Ai Xiao Dai, and Mr. Zhang.  At one time the church was very strong, but after the bandits had tried to attack it, the church became weak.  Every time the bandits came, red flags were raised along the wall to warn others that they were coming.  If the bandits saw the red flags from far away, they wouldn't dare go ahead.  Unfortunately, after the Liberation of China, the local government of Long Bing sold the church's wood to the local people so they could build houses.  The tombs were torn down and only a portion of the school remained.  Over half of the stones were dragged away and now the walls stand at just about one meter tall.  The people went to the local government and made them abandon this, so what's left still stands until now."

7. People Shouldn't Steal.

During China's Land Reform, some property was confiscated by the government and given to nearby people.  Some people were even given holy things.  Most of the religious friends took good care of the holy things and didn't dare to use them, but some religious friends went ahead and used them.  For example, religious friend Den Pei Guo's family received some of the clothes that the priest wore while conducting mass.  Without thinking about it, religious friend Den's wife made a dress for her daughters from these clothes.  She had thought that her daughter would be very happy and charmed after wearing the beautiful dress.  However, her daughter felt pain as soon as she put on the dress and cried unrelentlessly.  The mother thought that the girl was sick and called the doctor over, but he couldn't find anything wrong with her.  Finally, the doctor asked her to take the dress off of the daughter.  Strangely enough, when the dress was taken off, the girl felt comfortable and quit crying.  That wasn't enough to teach Den's family a lesson and didn't discourage them from abusing holy things.  They had also received the church's locker room as their own and had turned one of the items which had used to hold holy things into a commode.  Then their family and even their children died one after another.  The child who lived the longest died before his fifteenth birthday.  Now only the old couple remained in the shabby old locker room and they lived a poor, pitiful life.  People said that they had gotten what they deserved.  Nowadays, the religious friends in Long Bin often tell the youth the two stories to teach them a lesson.

(Told by religious friends.)

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE  That's enough for me.  My Chinese translators mentioned that in the upcoming stories there is some praying to a statue of Mary and to some tombs.  If you want to read stories eight or nine, you can read the Chinese version.  (next page)