"[118] But cordially as they detest all missionaries, who, backed
by their respective Governments,[119] assume a protectorate over their
converts, their bitterest hate is reserved for the Romanists. These
penetrate into the interior, and aggregate property, own land, and houses,
and pagodas, and are now some of the largest landed proprietors in the
different localities. They have even gained the right, by the French
Treaty, of reclaiming whatever lands and houses belonged to the Christian
communities when the persecution and expulsion of the Jesuits took place
in the seventeenth century. But besides the hostility of the _literati_
and gentry, other causes are at work to render the labours of our
missionaries abortive. Chief among these is one mentioned in a publication
by the Church Missionary Society itself, called the _Story of the Fuh-kien
Mission_. "Christianity," says Mr. Wolfe, a missionary at Foochow, "would
be tolerated too, and the Chinese would be easily induced to accept
Christ among the number of their gods, if it could be content with the
same terms on which all the other systems are willing to be received, viz.
that no one of them claims to be absolute and exclusive truth. Now, as
Christianity does claim this, and openly avows its determination to expel
by moral force every rival system from the altars of this nation, it
naturally at first appears strange and presumptuous to this people."[120]
Very similar in old times was the attitude of the Roman polytheism towards
the various religions with which it was brought into contact. It was
tolerant of all religions and non-religions except (_a_) exclusive and
aggressive ones, like Christianity and Judaism; (_b_) national ones, like
Druidism; and (_c_) extravagant and mystic ones, like the worship of Isis.
So now the Buddhists and Taouists would be ready enough to associate the
religion of Christ with that of Buddha or Laoutze, seeing indeed, as they
say, little difference between the doctrines of Buddha and of Christ.

Buddhism was introduced into China at the very time when in the West the
Fall of Jerusalem had set Christianity free from its dependence on
Judaism, and enabled it to go forth in its own might, conquering and to
conquer, till it became the religion of the whole Roman world. The name of
Christ was not heard in China till 600 years later; and it was not till
1575 A.D. that a permanent Jesuit mission was established in that distant
land. This being th