釋氏稽古略 4.152

4.152

勅試經通者度為僧。宋宣獻公綬夏英公。竦在政府。同試童行。有行者誦法華經不通。問其習學幾年。曰十年。二公笑且憫之。各取法華經七軸誦之。宋公十日。夏公七日。不遺一字。人性相遠也如此（歐陽脩歸田錄）。

An imperial decree ordered that those who passed the examination on the scriptures be ordained as monks. Song Shou, Duke Xuanxian, and Xia Song, Duke Ying, were in the government and jointly examined the postulants. There was a postulant whose recitation of the Lotus Sūtra was not fluent. They asked him how many years he had studied it, and he replied, 'Ten years.' The two dukes smiled and pitied him; each took the seven scrolls of the Lotus Sūtra and recited it. Duke Song took ten days, and Duke Xia took seven days, neither missing a single character. Human capacities differ as widely as this (Ouyang Xiu's Guitian lu).