Off the coast of South China, on a high hill overlooking the harbor of Macao, is a huge wall. This wall is the only thing that remains from a massive cathedral that Portuguese settlers built on that hill hundreds of years ago.

A typhoon hit that cathedral, literally reducing it to ruins. Everything except this front wall was totally leveled. High on top of that wall stands a huge bronze cross.

In 1825, Sir John Bowring was sailing a ship off this same coast when a terrible storm hit, breaking his ship apart and throwing him into the water. He was holding on to a board for dear life, thinking he was going to pickled in that China sea, believing that all had been lost, including his own life.

When all of a sudden through the storm, he caught sight of this bronze cross atop the cathedral w…