Eternal Light

Li Chunsheng was born in Xiamen, Fujian Province on January 12, 1838. His mother was Lin You, and his father Li Desheng was a ferryman by the stream. His family was poor. When he was 13 years old, he and some children sold candies on the street to help the family. At noon, he and his sister delivered meals to his father by the stream. When he was 14 years old, he happened to meet Elles, a British businessman who came to the ferry. He took a fancy to this smart but short young man and initially planned to hire him as a handyman. Perhaps because of this British businessman's relationship, when he was 15 years old, he and his father were baptized as Christians in the Xiamen Presbyterian Church. He is smart, hard-working, honest and responsible. At the age of 20, he became an important employee and shopkeeper (meaning manager) of the British merchant Elles & Co. He soon learned English after spending time with Elles. In 1857, when he was 20 years old, he went to Hong Kong to study English. Because doing business also involves interacting with officials and intellectuals, I studied Chinese by myself, especially classical Chinese. Soon there were many robbers in Xiamen, and foreign commercial ports were often robbed and closed for business. Elles introduced Li Chunsheng to the Scottish businessman John Dodd, and he worked in the Baoshun Foreign Company established by him. It was also he in 1866...