19 A Map of Mankind alone, with the best that his world had to offer, as a gift to the best of the people to whom he was both preacher and servant. What a sight that must have been, in the early weeks of 1601, when Father Ricci, summoned at last by the Emperor Wan-Li himself, walked along the stately courtyards of the imperial grounds! I imagine him escorted by a parade of counselors and scholars and priests, while porters carry upon a litter the most fitting of gifts—maps and clocks and the astrolabe about which Father Ricci’s teacher Clavius had written with so much precision and admiration. There before them rises the many-colored palace itself, its tiers of roofs curled in the style of the East, where dwelt the emperor, the North Star upon earth, whose duty was to rule his people with the same constancy as the North Star above ruled the heavens. The man of God met a man who longed for God. Is that not the profoundest thing we can say about our fellow men, in whatever culture we may find them—that in the recesses of their hearts they long for God? If so, then only someone whose heart and mind are turned to God can ever really understand the hearts and minds of others. I will not enter into the disputes that arose, the most bitter of them long after Father Ricci had died, between the Jesuits on one side and Dominicans and Franciscans on the other, regarding whether
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