The Moral Vision
Perseverance
~ 117 ~
PERSEVERANCE
The following story; written by Mao Tse Tung,
former Chairman of the Chinese Communist
Party,
is one which should set us all thinking.
In olden times, there was once all old man from the
northern part of China who lived on the side of a
mountain range which always lay in shadow. The
problem was that there were two high mountains in
front of his door which prevented the sun from
entering his house. One day, the old man called to
his young sons and said to them, “Let us go and
remove these mountains by digging, so that the
sun’s rays may fall upon our house unhindered.” A
neighbour of
the old man’s, hearing of this plan,
made fun of it. He said to the old man, “I knew that
you were foolish, but I never realized that there was
just no limit to your foolishness. How on earth is it
possible to remove these high mountains just by
digging them?”
The old man replied in all seriousness, “Yes, you
are right. But when I die, my sons will dig, and after
their death, their sons will dig. The digging-process
