A missionary in China met an aged man who was measuring with the length of his body a pilgrimage of one hundred miles. He would kotow; that is, bump his head three times upon the ground, then prostrate himself full length; get up, repeat, and still repeat. When asked why he was doing this he said: “My son was very ill. I prayed and vowed to the god of health that if he would spare my son, I would measure with my body every mile of this pilgrimage to the tombs of my ancestors. He was spared to me. I must keep my vow. No one can help me. I must go alone.”
Was he not presenting his body a living sacrifice, mistaken, of course, in form, but faithful in spirit?
(1292)
Out of gratitude to the girl who saved the lives of his three children when fire occurred at his home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, William Landsberg cheerfully submitted himself to physicians at the Long Island College Hospital and allowed them to take forty square inches of skin from his body in order that it might be grafted upon the burned body of Miss Elsie Wobetta, who had been employed as a domestic at his home.
Landsberg agreed to the operation when he learned that it was necessary in order to save the girl’s life. Earlier in the morning the physicians had already taken twenty square inches of skin from the unburnt portions of Miss Wobetta’s body, but this was not nearly enough to cover her frightful burns, and her condition was too precarious to submit her to another shock.
Landsberg was notified, and he immediately quit work and went to the hospital, where he placed himself at the disposal of the surgeons.
“It is the least I can do for the girl who saved the lives of my little ones,” he said calmly, when the doctors told him that the test would be a severe one.
He was placed on the operating table and the operation of removing the skin was performed. Strips of skin an inch wide and five inches long were taken from Landsberg’s body.