现在中国已经变了，她被拖进了世界的漩涡。就像被西风卷起的一片叶子，或者像飘落在滚滚长江水面上的一个花朵，她不再是她自己，而是在违背自己意志的情况下被卷进了一个未知的命运之中。我知道她会在各种风暴和洪流中幸存下来，并在种种考验和磨难中赢得胜利，但她不会恢复她最初的宁静灵魂和甜美脾性。她的音乐不再像笛子一样，悠扬回荡在清风流水之间；她将变成如同金属般粗糙的东西，像是瓦格纳的（Wagnerian）杰作。对她的儿子们来说，她将不再是从前那位温柔的母亲，而变成一位严厉的父亲，像夏日阳光火辣辣一样严厉的父亲。中国，我的母国已死。中国万岁，我的父国！ 目前，中国的灵魂正经历着她历史上最痛苦的时期。曲调已经结束，而和声还没有到来。她现在正处于令人心碎的纷争之中。就我自己而言，天主已经为我解决了所有纷争，并在我的灵魂中注入了超自然的和声。但是，这种情况何时会出现在吾国和吾民身上呢？只要这种情况没有发生，只要世界上的纷争仍在肆虐，我自己的和声就不可能完整。 无论如何，一想到宁波，我就会产生强烈的惆怅情绪，这种情绪部分是乡愁，部分是对我童年时代的怀念。我最后一次到宁波是公元1949年春天。我特意去找了我出生的那所房子。（因为在我还是个孩子的时候，我们就从那所房子里搬走了，此后我再也没有进入过那所房子）。在我哥哥的陪同下，我敲了敲门，当时的住户很友好地把我们让了进去。我哥哥指着我出生的房间，母亲去世时安放遗体的大厅，我们从前街坊邻居所住的区域，他们都已经走完了自己的俗尘道路，相继过世。这一切恍若梦境一般。 关于我的出生地，有一件事我无法用文字来表达。宁波方言听起来就像演奏得最糟糕的爵士乐一样，上海有句口头禅：“宁和苏州人吵一架，也不和宁波人拉情话。”但奇怪的是，尽管宁波话听起来粗俗刺耳，但口音却伴随宁波人一生，以至于他们一开口讲国语，就会被人发现他们是宁波人。我认为自古以来就是如此。唐朝最有名的诗人之一贺知章（生于公元659年）是宁波人，他在一首不朽的诗中证明了他在离开宁波几十年后如何保留了自己的家乡口音。我为大家选用的是Ruth Chun的英译本： As a young man I left home; As an old man I return. My native accent unchanged, My temples have turned grey. The village boys, seeing me, Know not who I am. Smilingly they ask: “Honorable guest, where are you from?” 回译成中文如下： 年少离家岁老回， 乡音未改鬓灰白， 村童见我不相识， 笑问贵客何处来？
全增嘏在上海创办英文《天下》月刊，专门将中国文史艺术介绍给西方国家。个人认为到目前为止，国内出版的所有英文刊物的水平都无法与之相媲美。 1. THE GIFT OF LIFE I was born under the Lunar Calendar. It was on the seventeenth day of the Second Moon in the year of chi-hai ( 1899) that I first saw the light in the city of Ningpo. The spring was fresh and young, and the day was dawning. It was the "Budding Moon," in which, according to the old lore, "the plants on the mountain are changed into jade." Every little leaf and bud was making ready to greet the sun; willow-tips were turning green; orchids were sending forth their fragrant blooms; and in every orchard fruit-blossoms were eager to burst their sheaths. In short, the year had passed out of the dark tunnel of winter into the brightness of spring. This is precisely the season when the bride in The Canticle of Canticles hears the voice of her beloved: Behold, my beloved speaketh to me: Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. For winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land, the time of songs is come. The voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree hath put forth her green figs. The vines in flower yield their sweet smell. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come. It was God who chose the season and the day of my birth, and called me out of the womb of my mother. And I was so eager to see the light that, as my folks told me later, I arrived before the midwife! The seventeenth of the Second Moon is as good a birthday as any. It finds itself between two popular festivals. In the old folklore, the birthday of Lao Tse, "the Old Boy," the apostle of the Tao fell on the fifteenth; and the birthday of Kuan Yin, the Buddhistic goddess, was celebrated on the nineteenth. Thus, I was comfortably sandwiched between Taoism and Buddhism. Add to this the fact that the Second Moon was specially dedicated to the remembrance of Confucius, and you will note that the three great religions of China seemed to have come together to serve as my spiritual nurses. I have profited by all of them, although the light that I finally saw was the Logos that enlightens every man coming into the world. My present attitude towards these three religions or schools of thought may be described by borrowing the following lines from Walt Whitman: I dared not proceed till I respectfully credit what you left, wafted hither: I have perused it, own it is admirable (moving awhile among it); Think nothing can ever be greater,-nothing can ever deserve more than it deserves; Regarding it all intently a long while,-then dismissing it, I stand in my place, with my own day, here. No, nothing human can be greater than these, but Christianity is divine. It is a mistake to regard Christianity as Western. The West may be Christian ( I wish it were more so), but Christianity is not Western. It is beyond East and West, beyond the old and the new. It is older than the old, newer than the new. It is more native to me than the Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism in whose milieu I was born. I am grateful to them, because they have served as pedagogues to lead me to Christ. Christ constitutes the unity of my life. It is thanks to this unity that I can rejoice in being born yellow and educated white. According to certain superstitions, under which I was brought up, I was born under an extremely happy conjunction of the stars. These superstitions I have, by the grace of God, outgrown, but the fact remains that due partly to their influences I had from my very childhood a deep-rooted faith in my high destiny. As a boy I felt as though some day I should be great in a political way and my country and even the whole world would be the better for my existence. Thus I started with high hopes, but my later life has proved how groundless they were; and whenever I compare my ideals with what has actually happened, I feel quite tickled by the glaring contrast. Perhaps this is why I have become so humorous and so chastened. For, what is humor but a certain spontaneous tendency to laugh at one's own follies and failings, with the humility of a frank recognition of the stark truth? Indeed, God has a knack of drawing good from evil. As it was, the day of my birth corresponded, in the Solar Calendar, to March 28, 1899. It is a great consolation to know that St. Teresa of Avila, for whom I have a special devotion, had seen the light at about the same hour and on the same date in 1515; and that St. John Capistrano, the lawyer who became a holy man, had gone to Heaven on the same date in 1465. All this does not guarantee that I too shall become a saint, but it does serve as a stimulus to my spiritual life. I suppose I would have been even happier if I had been born on Christmas or Easter or on any feast of Our Lady. But who am I to question the wisdom of God? Has He not an infinitely better right than Pontius Pilate to say, "What is written is written"? As for me, I accept most gladly and in the fullest exercise of my free will whatever God has written for me from all eternity. Some of my friends have observed that since I became a Catholic, I have somehow lost my ambitions. The fact is that I am now more ambitious than ever. I have had my share of worldly glory, but I have found it very hollow. To be contented with perishable things is not to be ambitious at all. To me the whole world no longer offers anything worth coveting; my only ambition is to be a docile child of God, and this is open to everybody who sets his heart upon it. If this ambition were not the noblest of all, my heart would not have rested in it; but if it were not open to all men, my mind would not have entertained it for a single moment. Since the supreme privilege of becoming a child of God is open to all, what is the use of enjoying any other privileges short of that? God not only gave me a good birthday, but also a good birthplace. I was born in the city of Ningpo, at a place called "The Twenty-four Mansions." "Ningpo" literally means "peaceful waves." I do not know exactly why it is so called. Probably because it was built on the bank of the river Yung which connects it with the sea, and which ebbs and flows with such regularity that people in my generation used to tell the time of the day by its tides. Now, the Ningponese are not refined people, but they are warmhearted and honest, full of vitality and the spirit of adventure. They take to business and industry more than to arts and letters; but they are brainy and prolific, perhaps because they feed mostly on fish and other kinds of sea food. The best thing about the Ningponese, so far as I can see, is that they enjoy life wholeheartedly. God created the Ningponese, and the Ningponese saw that it is good to live. It is true that they are of the earth, earthy; but they never forget that the earth belongs to God, and they accept whatever grows on it as a gift from Him. In other words, they have a good appetite for the feast of life as it is offered by God for their enjoyment. I think it is not unreasonable to suppose that God likes such people more than those who show a finicky taste, as though they were invited to pass judgment on the dishes God has to offer them. A Ningponese enjoys the gift of life as a hungry school boy in America would enjoy a hot dog. There is something rugged and untamed about a Ningponese. He is not sissy and suspicious. He is full of animal faith, full of horse sense. He is humorous, although his humor takes the form of practical jokes rather than subtle stories. He is attached to the good earth, and smells of the soil. He finds himself at home in the universe. Nay, the sun, the moon, the stars, the winds and rains, the dogs and cats, the birds and flowers, seem to be more human in Ningpo than anywhere else. They seem to constitute familiar members of each household. In my childhood, one often heard such talk as: "Look, the sun has already walked down the third step, it is about time to cook the lunch"; or "The chickens have entered their cage, your Daddy will come home soon"; or "Look at the red clouds, tomorrow will be hotter than today"; or "Hark! the magpie has cried three times just over your head, tomorrow there will be some good news for you." If it happened to be a crow that cried above you, it was a warning that some misfortune was coming, and the most effective way for you to ward it off was to spit on the ground and say, "P'ei!" Why, your very body was one divining rod. If you sneezed, it was a sure sign that some friend in a far distant place was speaking kindly of you. If, on the other hand, your ear was itching, you might be sure that someone was backbiting you. We had invented a system of psychical communications long before radio was heard of in the West. Thus I spent my childhood in fairyland. I remember how amazed I was when for the first time led to see a cotton mill at work. I said like a wise man, "I am sure the witch is in it!" I felt like a very courageous boy indeed to be able to hold my own in such a haunted house. On another occasion, our neighbor invited me to listen to a newly bought gramophone. "What a pity!" I thought, "the soul of the dying man must have been caught and put into a box by a malicious magician, so that the poor man must repeat what he said whenever the magician uses his talismanic spells!" Those were the most thrilling days of my life, days when the unadulterated oriental imagination came into first contact with the Western scientific inventions. Those days will never come back for me or for any boy in Ningpo or any other part of China. Science has discovered many wonders of the universe, but it has killed the sense of wonder. Fourteen years ago I wrote some words which expressed faithfully how I then felt about the material civilization of the West and its contact with China. To some extent they still' represent my present feelings. The sweet soul of old China haunts me like one of those half-forgotten melodies that used to enrapture me in my childhood days. How I wish to live again in the bosom of my old Mother! As I look back to her, my heart leaps, for She was a soft landscape of mild earth, Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet, Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth, Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it Than your mighty passions. Now China has changed. She has been dragged into the swirl and whirl of the world. Like a leaf in the west wind, like a flower fallen upon the ever-flowing Yangtsze, she is no longer herself, but is being swept along against her will to an unknown destiny. I know she will survive all the storms and currents, and emerge victorious over all her trials and tribulations, but she will not recover the original tranquility of her soul and sweetness of her temper. Her music will no longer be flute-like, reverberating with clear wind and running water; it will be turned into something metallic and coarse, like the Wagnerian masterpieces. To her sons, she will no longer be the tender Mother that she was, but will be transformed into a stern Father, a Father who will be as severe as the Summer sun. China my Motherland is dead, long live China my Fatherland! At present, the soul of China is undergoing the most painful period in her history. Melody is over,. and harmony is yet to be. She is now in the midst of heart-rending discords. In my own case, God has resolved all the discords for me and infused a supernatural harmony into my soul. But when will this happen to my country and my people? My own harmony can never be complete so long as this does not happen, so long as discords are still raging in the world. At any rate, I cannot think of Ningpo without intense nostalgia, which consists partly in homesickness and partly in wistful memories of my childhood days. The last time I was in Ningpo was in the spring of 1949. I made it a special point to seek out the house in which I was born. (For we had moved from that house when I was a boy, and I had never entered under its roof since.) Accompanied by my elder brother, I knocked at the door, and the present tenants were kind enough to let us in. My elder brother pointed out the room of my birth, the hall where our mother's body had lain after her death, the sections occupied by our erstwhile neighbors, all of whom had gone the way of the flesh. It was all like a dream. There is one thing about my birthplace that I cannot convey in writing. The Ningponese dialect sounds like jazz music at its worst, so much so that there is a popular saying in Shanghai, "It is better to quarrel with a Soochowite than to make love with a Ningponese." But the strange thing is that, vulgar and jarring as it is, its accent sticks to one for life, so that a Ningponese can never speak the national dialect without his native place being discovered. I think that it has been so since time immemorial. One of the most famous poets of the T'ang Dynasty, Ho Chih-Chang (b. A.D. 659) was a Ningponese; and he testified in an immortal poem how he retained the native accent after several decades of absence from Ningpo. Let me present the poem in Ruth Chun's version: As a young man I left home; As an old man I return. My native accent unchanged, My temples have turned grey. The village boys, seeing me, Know not who I am. Smilingly they ask: "Honorable guest, where are you from?" The Ningponese call father "appa," and this is very near to the Aramaic that Jesus spoke. Great was my delight when for the first time I read in St. Mark's Gospel the prayer of Jesus: "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee .... " ( 14. 36) After all, it is not such a far cry from "appa" to "Abba." The streets of Ningpo are dirty. The river of Ningpo is as muddy as ever. Yet there is something healthy and invigorating in the very air. The sky itself seems to be more lively and cheerful than elsewhere. As I read over my past writings, I often come across passages which, for good or for ill, only a Ningponese could have written. Take this, for instance: Taking a bath in one of the cordial bathing-houses in Shanghai is certainly a great pleasure in life, only a little too aristocratic. One boy rubs your back, another massages your feet with his fingers between your toes, and a third taps and raps lightly all over your body with skillfully trained fists. All you need to do is lie down comfortably in the bath-tub and let the "back-rubber" wash and rub you clean, as a cook would do to a plucked chicken. In order to show his efficiency, he would gather together all the dirt in the form of thin vermicelli in one part of your body. My experience tells me that the size of the heap is in direct proportion to the length of the interval between your last bath and the present one. This law applies in normal cases. I have also discovered another law, which I would like to call Wu's law of marginal dirtiness. When you have not had a bath for a sufficiently long period, say a month, your dirtiness has reached its utmost limit beyond which it refuses to grow. This law is the saving grace of our race. We are not half as dirty as some foreigners seem to imagine. There is such a thing as naturebath, as there is such a thing as nature-cure. I for one prefer healthy dirtiness to finical cleanliness. Many people seem to forget that they are made of dust, and to dust they will return. The great earth doesn't care a damn for your encarmined nails. Whether you like it or not, this is the spirit of Ningpo, and I am an embodiment of it. A Ningponese can be anything, but he cannot be a whited sepulchre. I prefer a healthy dirtiness to a finical cleanliness. If I am clean now, it is Christ who has cleansed me, I have not cleansed myself. Only grace could have cured the dirtiness of my nature. No amount of purism can really purify a man. I have taken to heart these words of our Lord: But when the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he roams through dry places in search of rest, and finds none. Then he says, I will return to my house which I left; and when he has come to it, he finds the place unoccupied, swept and decorated. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first (Matt. 12.43-45). This is not the way of keeping pure. The proper way is, after the unclean spirit has gone, to welcome Christ, with a Ningpoish heartiness, to occupy the centre of your soul and allow Him to purify and transfigure it by His radiant presence. Then only will you rejoice in discovering the full significance and purport of what Our Abba spoke through Isaias: If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow; and if they be as red as crimson, they shall be as white as wool (1.18).
生命的恩赐
作者：吴经熊博士（Dr. John C. H. Wu）
我于己亥年（公元1899年）阴历二月十七出生，那是我人生中第一次看到了宁波府的天光。时值早春，空气清新，天方破晓。根据古老的传说，二月又称“如月”。在这个月中，“漫山草木葳蕤，如如然翡翠一般”。叶子嫩芽正准备着迎接阳光；柳梢吐出新绿；芝兰散发着阵阵芬芳；果园里花朵含苞待放。简言之，这一年已经走出了漫长黯淡的冬天，步入阳光明媚的春季。正是在这样一个季节，《雅歌》中的那位新娘听到了爱人在歌唱：
看哪，至爱谓余曰：
吾之佳偶，吾之白鸽，吾之美人，快与我偕往。
严冬已逝雨水止，
吾乡花开该歌唱，
斑鸠之声闻吾乡，
无花果实方转绿，
葡萄花开吐芬芳。
吾之佳偶，吾之美人，快与我偕往。
正是天主选择了我出生的季节和日子，并把我从母亲的肚子里召唤出来。后来家里人告诉我说，我迫不及待想要看到光明，还没等到接生婆，我就提前出来啦！
作为生日，同其他日子一样，二月十七是个好日子。这天正好介于两个常见的传统节日之间。根据古老的民间传说，道教始祖“老子”（字面意思是“老男孩”）的生日是二月十五，而佛教女神观音菩萨的生日则是在二月十九。这样一来，我正好舒舒服服地夹在释道之间。加之阴历二月专门用来祭孔，你会发现，中国儒释道三大教派似乎走到了一起，成为我的三位精神乳娘。尽管我最终看到的光是启迪每一位世人的圣言，但我从这三大教派中受益匪浅。
我目前对这三大教派或者思想流派的态度，可以借用沃尔特•惠特曼（Walt Whitman）的以下几句话来阐明：
在我恭敬赞扬诸位留在此处的一切之前，
我不敢向前迈步，只在附近徘徊：
我仔细看了又看，承认这一切令人艳羡（我在其中漫步片刻）；
我想不出其他更伟大，更值得称赞的事物；
我全神贯注地注视了很久，然后将其抛开，
正是在此处，我和我自己的时代各就各位。
任何人为的事物都比不上这三大教派更为伟大，但基督教超凡入圣。把基督教看成属于西方的事物，这是个错误。西方也许信奉基督教（我但愿有更多人信奉），但基督教并非只属于西方。基督教超越东西方，超越新与旧，比旧的更古老，又比新的更新颖。对我来说，它比我出生的儒释道环境更令我感到亲切。我很感谢这三大教派，因为它们是引导我走向基督的导师。基督构成了我生命的统一体。正是由于这种统一体，生为一名黄种人而接受白种人的教育，我为此内心感到无比喜悦。
根据我从小接受的某些迷信说法，我的八字命格大富大贵。由于天主的恩典，我已经摆脱了这些迷信。但事实上，由于受到这些迷信的一部分影响，我从小就对自己的富贵命有着一种根深蒂固的信念。作为一个男孩，我觉得将来有一天我应该在政坛上会大有作为，我的国家甚至整个世界都会因为我的存在而变得更加美好。因此，我一开始就抱负远大，但我后来的生活证明了这些远大抱负是多么的不靠谱；每当我把理想和现实进行比较时，我就会对这种显而易见的对比结果哑然失笑。也许这就是我为何变得如此幽默、如此乖巧的原因吧。因为除了某种自发的秉性，以谦逊的态度坦率承认赤裸裸的真理，嘲笑自己的愚蠢和失败之外，幽默又会是什么？天主的确有能耐把美善从邪恶中拽出来。
按照阳历算法，我的生日是公元1899年3月28日。当我得知我特别崇拜的阿维拉的圣特蕾莎（St. Teresa of Avila）在公元1515年的同一时间和同一日期见到了光，以及成为圣人的圣约翰•卡皮斯特拉诺（St. John Capistrano）律师在公元1465年的同一天升入天堂，这对我而言是一个很大的安慰。所有这些并不能保证我也会成为圣人，但确实是对我精神生活的一种刺激。我想，假如我出生在圣诞节或复活节或我们圣母的任何节日，我会更加高兴。但我又有何资格质疑天主的智慧呢？难道祂不比般雀•比辣多（Pontius Pilate）更有权利说：“书者书矣！”吗？至于我，无论天主从太初之时为我书写了什么，我都欣然接受并将我的自由意志发挥到极至。
一些朋友发现，自从我成为一名天主教徒后，我在某种程度上失去了雄心。事实上，我现在比以前更有雄心壮志了。我有过世俗的荣耀，但我发现那些非常空洞。一个人满足于易腐易逝的事物，根本就谈不上有什么雄心壮志。对我来说，整个世界不再提供任何值得我垂涎三尺的东西；我唯一的雄心就是成为天主的一个温顺的孩子，而这对每一个立志于此的人都完全开放。如果这雄心不是最崇高，那么我的心就不会停留在这个志向上；但如果这个志向不向所有人开放，我的内心就不会有片刻的喜悦。既然成为天主的孩子这一最高特权向所有人开放，那么在此之外享受任何其他特权又有何用呢？
天主不仅赐给我一个吉利的出生日期，也赐给我一个良好的出生地点。我出生在宁波一个叫“廿四间”的地方。“宁波”的字面意思是“宁静的波浪”。我不知道它到底为何取名叫“宁波”。可能是因为建在与大海连接的甬江岸边，甬江的潮涨潮落有一定的规律，我们这代人过去常常根据甬江的潮汐来判断一天内的时间。
宁波人并不高雅，但他们热情诚实，充满活力，富于冒险精神。相对于文学艺术，他们更热衷于做生意，办实业；他们脑子好使，孩子生得多，这很可能是因为他们主要吃鱼和其他海产品的原故。
据我所见，宁波人最大的特点是他们全身心地享受着生活。天主造就了宁波人，而宁波人看到了活着真好。诚然，他们属于土地，显得很土气；但他们从未忘记土地属于天主，土地上生长出的一切，他们都当作天主的恩赐来接受。换句话说，他们对天主提供给他们享用的生命盛宴有着良好的胃口。我们假设天主喜欢宁波人，而不喜欢那些对吃的挑三拣四之人，因为对天主所提供的菜肴，这些人像是被邀请来品头论足，我认为这种假设并非没有道理。宁波人享受生命的恩赐，就像一个饥饿的美国小学生享受热狗（面包加香肠）一样。
宁波人有一种粗犷豪放、桀骜不驯的性格。他们并非胆小怕事，猜忌多疑。他们内心充满了动物信仰和生活的基本常识。他们诙谐幽默，尽管他们的幽默方式是以现实笑话而非耐人寻味的故事的形式呈现出来。他们依恋美丽的大地，嗅着泥土的芬芳。他们发现自己在宇宙中生活得舒适自在。不只是这些，太阳、月亮、星辰、风雨、猫狗、花鸟，在宁波似乎比在其他地方更有人情味。这些东西似乎成为了每个家庭中熟识的家庭成员。在我孩提时代，人们经常听到这样的谈话：“看，日头已经下了第三个台阶啦，该准备晌午饭了”；“鸡都进窝啦，爹爹该回来了”；“看那片晚霞，明天天气会更热”；或者“听！喜鹊在你头上叫了三遍，明天你准会有喜事”。如果碰巧是一只老鸹在你头顶上叫，那就是警告你灾难将至，而你消灾解难最有效的办法就是向地上吐口水，说声：“呸！”为何会是这样，因为你的整个身体就是一根占卜杖。如果你打喷嚏，这是个信号，表明在某个遥远的地方，有位朋友肯定正在说你的好话。相反如果你耳朵发痒，你就可以肯定有人在你背后嚼舌根。西方国家尚未听说过无线电之前，我们就早已经发明了一套心灵沟通体系。
因此，我的童年生活如同在仙境中度过一般。我还记得第一次被人带去参观一家正在投入生产的棉纺厂，我内心感到无比惊讶。我像个哲人那样说道：“我肯定巫婆就在这里面！”我当时觉得自己确实非常勇敢，竟能在这样的鬼屋中镇定自若。
还有一次，邻居邀请我去听他们新买的留声机。“太可怜了！”我心里在想，“这个垂死之人的灵魂一定是被心肠恶毒的魔术师抓进盒子里。只要魔术师一念咒，这个可怜人就得重复魔术师所说的话！”那些日子在我生命中最令人感到震颤，那是纯粹的东方想象力与西方科技发明首次接触的日子。对我、对宁波或中国任何其他地方的孩子来说，那些日子都一去不复返了。科学发现了宇宙的许多奇迹，但也扼杀了人们的好奇心。
十四年前，我写过一些东西，忠实地表达了我当时对西方物质文明及其与中国接触的感受。在某种程度上，这些文字仍然代表我目前的感受。
旧中国的甜美灵魂令我魂牵梦绕，就像那些在童年时代曾经让我陶醉却只能记起一半的美好旋律。要是能再次生活在老母亲怀抱中，那该有多好啊！回顾她时，我的心嘭嘭直跳，因为：
她是温厚大地的一道柔和风景，
这里的一切如此和谐安详平静，
郁郁葱葱万物萌生乐而无笑声，
远超过你至高无上的种种激情，
如果说连这些都还算不上幸福，
那就真没啥比这更接近幸福了。
现在中国已经变了，她被拖进了世界的漩涡。就像被西风卷起的一片叶子，或者像飘落在滚滚长江水面上的一个花朵，她不再是她自己，而是在违背自己意志的情况下被卷进了一个未知的命运之中。我知道她会在各种风暴和洪流中幸存下来，并在种种考验和磨难中赢得胜利，但她不会恢复她最初的宁静灵魂和甜美脾性。她的音乐不再像笛子一样，悠扬回荡在清风流水之间；她将变成如同金属般粗糙的东西，像是瓦格纳的（Wagnerian）杰作。对她的儿子们来说，她将不再是从前那位温柔的母亲，而变成一位严厉的父亲，像夏日阳光火辣辣一样严厉的父亲。中国，我的母国已死。中国万岁，我的父国！
目前，中国的灵魂正经历着她历史上最痛苦的时期。曲调已经结束，而和声还没有到来。她现在正处于令人心碎的纷争之中。就我自己而言，天主已经为我解决了所有纷争，并在我的灵魂中注入了超自然的和声。但是，这种情况何时会出现在吾国和吾民身上呢？只要这种情况没有发生，只要世界上的纷争仍在肆虐，我自己的和声就不可能完整。
无论如何，一想到宁波，我就会产生强烈的惆怅情绪，这种情绪部分是乡愁，部分是对我童年时代的怀念。我最后一次到宁波是公元1949年春天。我特意去找了我出生的那所房子。（因为在我还是个孩子的时候，我们就从那所房子里搬走了，此后我再也没有进入过那所房子）。在我哥哥的陪同下，我敲了敲门，当时的住户很友好地把我们让了进去。我哥哥指着我出生的房间，母亲去世时安放遗体的大厅，我们从前街坊邻居所住的区域，他们都已经走完了自己的俗尘道路，相继过世。这一切恍若梦境一般。
关于我的出生地，有一件事我无法用文字来表达。宁波方言听起来就像演奏得最糟糕的爵士乐一样，上海有句口头禅：“宁和苏州人吵一架，也不和宁波人拉情话。”但奇怪的是，尽管宁波话听起来粗俗刺耳，但口音却伴随宁波人一生，以至于他们一开口讲国语，就会被人发现他们是宁波人。我认为自古以来就是如此。唐朝最有名的诗人之一贺知章（生于公元659年）是宁波人，他在一首不朽的诗中证明了他在离开宁波几十年后如何保留了自己的家乡口音。我为大家选用的是Ruth Chun的英译本：
As a young man I left home;
As an old man I return.
My native accent unchanged,
My temples have turned grey.
The village boys, seeing me,
Know not who I am.
Smilingly they ask:
“Honorable guest, where are you from?”
回译成中文如下：
年少离家岁老回，
乡音未改鬓灰白，
村童见我不相识，
笑问贵客何处来？
《回乡偶书》的原文：
少小离家老大回，
乡音无改鬓毛衰。
儿童相见不相识，
笑问客从何处来？
宁波人称父亲为“阿伯”，这与耶稣所说的阿拉姆语非常接近。当我第一次在福音马尔谷传（Mark）中读到耶稣的祷告时，我感到非常高兴：“阿爸！全能者父...”毕竟，从“阿伯”到“阿爸”并非那么遥不可及。
宁波街道并不干净，宁波的河流从来就是浑浊不清。但是宁波的空气中却有一种有益健康、令人振奋的物质。天空本身似乎比其他任何地方显得更加活泼，更加欢快。
当我阅读我过去所写的一些文字时，我经常遇到一些段落，好也罢，孬也罢，只有宁波人才可以写出这样的东西。比如下面这段文字：
上海有家澡堂，服务既热情又周到，在里面洗澡无疑是生活中的一大乐事，虽然这听起来有点过于贵族气。一个小伙子给你搓背，另一个小伙子用手指在你的脚趾间按摩，还有一个小伙子用他训练有素的拳头在你全身各个部位轻轻敲打。你需要做的就是舒舒服服地躺在浴缸里，让“搓澡工”把你搓洗得干干净净，就像厨师对待一只拔光毛的鸡一样。为了表现他的搓澡效率，他会把你身上所有的污垢搓成米线形状聚集到你身体的某个部位。经验表明，这堆污垢的尺寸大小与两次洗澡相隔的时间长短成正比。这一定律适用于正常情况。我还发现了另一条定律，我想把它称之为“吴氏边际肮脏定律”。当你长时间没去洗澡，比如说一个月，你身上的污垢达到了最大限度，超过这个限度污垢就不会再增长。这一定律是我们这个种族的可取之处。我们并不像一些外国人所想象的那样脏，我们连他们想象的一半脏都不到。有一种说法叫自然浴，正如有一种说法叫自然疗法。我更喜欢健康的脏，而不是吹毛求疵的净。许多人似乎忘记了他们来自尘土，终将会归于灰尘。大地才不会他妈地在乎你涂得胭脂红一样漂亮的指甲呢！
无论你喜欢与否，这就是宁波的精神，而我正是它的化身。一个宁波人可以在这个世上充当任何角色，但他绝不会是粉垩之茔（原文whited sepulchre，意思是：伪君子）。我喜欢健康的脏，而非吹毛求疵的净。如果我现在干净，那是基督洗净了我，我并没有把自己洗净。只有恩典才能治愈我天性中的脏。纯洁主义不可能真正净化一个人。我把我们天主的这些话铭记于心：
邪魔离人，徘徊于无水之地，欲觅一安身之所而不可得，则曰：“我将返我故宅。”比至，见其室空空，扫除整洁，粉饰焕然；乃往召较己尤恶七鬼同来居寓；其人之后患，必有甚焉也。（福音马窦传第12章43-45节）。
这并非保持纯洁的方法。正确的方法是，在邪魔消失后，以宁波人的心态欢迎基督，占据你的灵魂中心，并允许祂以祂的光辉来净化并美化你的灵魂。然后你才会心悦诚服地发现，我们的阿爸通过以赛亚所说的全部深义和要旨：
尔罪虽丹如朱，必将洁如皑雪；虽红若绛，必将白若羊毛。（以赛亚书第1章18节）。
初稿：2021年11月8日译于美国加州洛杉矶
全增嘏在上海创办英文《天下》月刊，专门将中国文史艺术介绍给西方国家。个人认为到目前为止，国内出版的所有英文刊物的水平都无法与之相媲美。 1. THE GIFT OF LIFE I was born under the Lunar Calendar. It was on the seventeenth day of the Second Moon in the year of chi-hai ( 1899) that I first saw the light in the city of Ningpo. The spring was fresh and young, and the day was dawning. It was the "Budding Moon," in which, according to the old lore, "the plants on the mountain are changed into jade." Every little leaf and bud was making ready to greet the sun; willow-tips were turning green; orchids were sending forth their fragrant blooms; and in every orchard fruit-blossoms were eager to burst their sheaths. In short, the year had passed out of the dark tunnel of winter into the brightness of spring. This is precisely the season when the bride in The Canticle of Canticles hears the voice of her beloved: Behold, my beloved speaketh to me: Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. For winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land, the time of songs is come. The voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree hath put forth her green figs. The vines in flower yield their sweet smell. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come. It was God who chose the season and the day of my birth, and called me out of the womb of my mother. And I was so eager to see the light that, as my folks told me later, I arrived before the midwife! The seventeenth of the Second Moon is as good a birthday as any. It finds itself between two popular festivals. In the old folklore, the birthday of Lao Tse, "the Old Boy," the apostle of the Tao fell on the fifteenth; and the birthday of Kuan Yin, the Buddhistic goddess, was celebrated on the nineteenth. Thus, I was comfortably sandwiched between Taoism and Buddhism. Add to this the fact that the Second Moon was specially dedicated to the remembrance of Confucius, and you will note that the three great religions of China seemed to have come together to serve as my spiritual nurses. I have profited by all of them, although the light that I finally saw was the Logos that enlightens every man coming into the world. My present attitude towards these three religions or schools of thought may be described by borrowing the following lines from Walt Whitman: I dared not proceed till I respectfully credit what you left, wafted hither: I have perused it, own it is admirable (moving awhile among it); Think nothing can ever be greater,-nothing can ever deserve more than it deserves; Regarding it all intently a long while,-then dismissing it, I stand in my place, with my own day, here. No, nothing human can be greater than these, but Christianity is divine. It is a mistake to regard Christianity as Western. The West may be Christian ( I wish it were more so), but Christianity is not Western. It is beyond East and West, beyond the old and the new. It is older than the old, newer than the new. It is more native to me than the Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism in whose milieu I was born. I am grateful to them, because they have served as pedagogues to lead me to Christ. Christ constitutes the unity of my life. It is thanks to this unity that I can rejoice in being born yellow and educated white. According to certain superstitions, under which I was brought up, I was born under an extremely happy conjunction of the stars. These superstitions I have, by the grace of God, outgrown, but the fact remains that due partly to their influences I had from my very childhood a deep-rooted faith in my high destiny. As a boy I felt as though some day I should be great in a political way and my country and even the whole world would be the better for my existence. Thus I started with high hopes, but my later life has proved how groundless they were; and whenever I compare my ideals with what has actually happened, I feel quite tickled by the glaring contrast. Perhaps this is why I have become so humorous and so chastened. For, what is humor but a certain spontaneous tendency to laugh at one's own follies and failings, with the humility of a frank recognition of the stark truth? Indeed, God has a knack of drawing good from evil. As it was, the day of my birth corresponded, in the Solar Calendar, to March 28, 1899. It is a great consolation to know that St. Teresa of Avila, for whom I have a special devotion, had seen the light at about the same hour and on the same date in 1515; and that St. John Capistrano, the lawyer who became a holy man, had gone to Heaven on the same date in 1465. All this does not guarantee that I too shall become a saint, but it does serve as a stimulus to my spiritual life. I suppose I would have been even happier if I had been born on Christmas or Easter or on any feast of Our Lady. But who am I to question the wisdom of God? Has He not an infinitely better right than Pontius Pilate to say, "What is written is written"? As for me, I accept most gladly and in the fullest exercise of my free will whatever God has written for me from all eternity. Some of my friends have observed that since I became a Catholic, I have somehow lost my ambitions. The fact is that I am now more ambitious than ever. I have had my share of worldly glory, but I have found it very hollow. To be contented with perishable things is not to be ambitious at all. To me the whole world no longer offers anything worth coveting; my only ambition is to be a docile child of God, and this is open to everybody who sets his heart upon it. If this ambition were not the noblest of all, my heart would not have rested in it; but if it were not open to all men, my mind would not have entertained it for a single moment. Since the supreme privilege of becoming a child of God is open to all, what is the use of enjoying any other privileges short of that? God not only gave me a good birthday, but also a good birthplace. I was born in the city of Ningpo, at a place called "The Twenty-four Mansions." "Ningpo" literally means "peaceful waves." I do not know exactly why it is so called. Probably because it was built on the bank of the river Yung which connects it with the sea, and which ebbs and flows with such regularity that people in my generation used to tell the time of the day by its tides. Now, the Ningponese are not refined people, but they are warmhearted and honest, full of vitality and the spirit of adventure. They take to business and industry more than to arts and letters; but they are brainy and prolific, perhaps because they feed mostly on fish and other kinds of sea food. The best thing about the Ningponese, so far as I can see, is that they enjoy life wholeheartedly. God created the Ningponese, and the Ningponese saw that it is good to live. It is true that they are of the earth, earthy; but they never forget that the earth belongs to God, and they accept whatever grows on it as a gift from Him. In other words, they have a good appetite for the feast of life as it is offered by God for their enjoyment. I think it is not unreasonable to suppose that God likes such people more than those who show a finicky taste, as though they were invited to pass judgment on the dishes God has to offer them. A Ningponese enjoys the gift of life as a hungry school boy in America would enjoy a hot dog. There is something rugged and untamed about a Ningponese. He is not sissy and suspicious. He is full of animal faith, full of horse sense. He is humorous, although his humor takes the form of practical jokes rather than subtle stories. He is attached to the good earth, and smells of the soil. He finds himself at home in the universe. Nay, the sun, the moon, the stars, the winds and rains, the dogs and cats, the birds and flowers, seem to be more human in Ningpo than anywhere else. They seem to constitute familiar members of each household. In my childhood, one often heard such talk as: "Look, the sun has already walked down the third step, it is about time to cook the lunch"; or "The chickens have entered their cage, your Daddy will come home soon"; or "Look at the red clouds, tomorrow will be hotter than today"; or "Hark! the magpie has cried three times just over your head, tomorrow there will be some good news for you." If it happened to be a crow that cried above you, it was a warning that some misfortune was coming, and the most effective way for you to ward it off was to spit on the ground and say, "P'ei!" Why, your very body was one divining rod. If you sneezed, it was a sure sign that some friend in a far distant place was speaking kindly of you. If, on the other hand, your ear was itching, you might be sure that someone was backbiting you. We had invented a system of psychical communications long before radio was heard of in the West. Thus I spent my childhood in fairyland. I remember how amazed I was when for the first time led to see a cotton mill at work. I said like a wise man, "I am sure the witch is in it!" I felt like a very courageous boy indeed to be able to hold my own in such a haunted house. On another occasion, our neighbor invited me to listen to a newly bought gramophone. "What a pity!" I thought, "the soul of the dying man must have been caught and put into a box by a malicious magician, so that the poor man must repeat what he said whenever the magician uses his talismanic spells!" Those were the most thrilling days of my life, days when the unadulterated oriental imagination came into first contact with the Western scientific inventions. Those days will never come back for me or for any boy in Ningpo or any other part of China. Science has discovered many wonders of the universe, but it has killed the sense of wonder. Fourteen years ago I wrote some words which expressed faithfully how I then felt about the material civilization of the West and its contact with China. To some extent they still' represent my present feelings. The sweet soul of old China haunts me like one of those half-forgotten melodies that used to enrapture me in my childhood days. How I wish to live again in the bosom of my old Mother! As I look back to her, my heart leaps, for She was a soft landscape of mild earth, Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet, Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth, Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it Than your mighty passions. Now China has changed. She has been dragged into the swirl and whirl of the world. Like a leaf in the west wind, like a flower fallen upon the ever-flowing Yangtsze, she is no longer herself, but is being swept along against her will to an unknown destiny. I know she will survive all the storms and currents, and emerge victorious over all her trials and tribulations, but she will not recover the original tranquility of her soul and sweetness of her temper. Her music will no longer be flute-like, reverberating with clear wind and running water; it will be turned into something metallic and coarse, like the Wagnerian masterpieces. To her sons, she will no longer be the tender Mother that she was, but will be transformed into a stern Father, a Father who will be as severe as the Summer sun. China my Motherland is dead, long live China my Fatherland! At present, the soul of China is undergoing the most painful period in her history. Melody is over,. and harmony is yet to be. She is now in the midst of heart-rending discords. In my own case, God has resolved all the discords for me and infused a supernatural harmony into my soul. But when will this happen to my country and my people? My own harmony can never be complete so long as this does not happen, so long as discords are still raging in the world. At any rate, I cannot think of Ningpo without intense nostalgia, which consists partly in homesickness and partly in wistful memories of my childhood days. The last time I was in Ningpo was in the spring of 1949. I made it a special point to seek out the house in which I was born. (For we had moved from that house when I was a boy, and I had never entered under its roof since.) Accompanied by my elder brother, I knocked at the door, and the present tenants were kind enough to let us in. My elder brother pointed out the room of my birth, the hall where our mother's body had lain after her death, the sections occupied by our erstwhile neighbors, all of whom had gone the way of the flesh. It was all like a dream. There is one thing about my birthplace that I cannot convey in writing. The Ningponese dialect sounds like jazz music at its worst, so much so that there is a popular saying in Shanghai, "It is better to quarrel with a Soochowite than to make love with a Ningponese." But the strange thing is that, vulgar and jarring as it is, its accent sticks to one for life, so that a Ningponese can never speak the national dialect without his native place being discovered. I think that it has been so since time immemorial. One of the most famous poets of the T'ang Dynasty, Ho Chih-Chang (b. A.D. 659) was a Ningponese; and he testified in an immortal poem how he retained the native accent after several decades of absence from Ningpo. Let me present the poem in Ruth Chun's version: As a young man I left home; As an old man I return. My native accent unchanged, My temples have turned grey. The village boys, seeing me, Know not who I am. Smilingly they ask: "Honorable guest, where are you from?" The Ningponese call father "appa," and this is very near to the Aramaic that Jesus spoke. Great was my delight when for the first time I read in St. Mark's Gospel the prayer of Jesus: "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee .... " ( 14. 36) After all, it is not such a far cry from "appa" to "Abba." The streets of Ningpo are dirty. The river of Ningpo is as muddy as ever. Yet there is something healthy and invigorating in the very air. The sky itself seems to be more lively and cheerful than elsewhere. As I read over my past writings, I often come across passages which, for good or for ill, only a Ningponese could have written. Take this, for instance: Taking a bath in one of the cordial bathing-houses in Shanghai is certainly a great pleasure in life, only a little too aristocratic. One boy rubs your back, another massages your feet with his fingers between your toes, and a third taps and raps lightly all over your body with skillfully trained fists. All you need to do is lie down comfortably in the bath-tub and let the "back-rubber" wash and rub you clean, as a cook would do to a plucked chicken. In order to show his efficiency, he would gather together all the dirt in the form of thin vermicelli in one part of your body. My experience tells me that the size of the heap is in direct proportion to the length of the interval between your last bath and the present one. This law applies in normal cases. I have also discovered another law, which I would like to call Wu's law of marginal dirtiness. When you have not had a bath for a sufficiently long period, say a month, your dirtiness has reached its utmost limit beyond which it refuses to grow. This law is the saving grace of our race. We are not half as dirty as some foreigners seem to imagine. There is such a thing as naturebath, as there is such a thing as nature-cure. I for one prefer healthy dirtiness to finical cleanliness. Many people seem to forget that they are made of dust, and to dust they will return. The great earth doesn't care a damn for your encarmined nails. Whether you like it or not, this is the spirit of Ningpo, and I am an embodiment of it. A Ningponese can be anything, but he cannot be a whited sepulchre. I prefer a healthy dirtiness to a finical cleanliness. If I am clean now, it is Christ who has cleansed me, I have not cleansed myself. Only grace could have cured the dirtiness of my nature. No amount of purism can really purify a man. I have taken to heart these words of our Lord: But when the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he roams through dry places in search of rest, and finds none. Then he says, I will return to my house which I left; and when he has come to it, he finds the place unoccupied, swept and decorated. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first (Matt. 12.43-45). This is not the way of keeping pure. The proper way is, after the unclean spirit has gone, to welcome Christ, with a Ningpoish heartiness, to occupy the centre of your soul and allow Him to purify and transfigure it by His radiant presence. Then only will you rejoice in discovering the full significance and purport of what Our Abba spoke through Isaias: If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow; and if they be as red as crimson, they shall be as white as wool (1.18).