e case, it is not to be wondered at that the Chinese
are unwilling to renounce a religion in many respects as pure and as moral
a one as the pagan world has ever seen, and one which they have held for
eighteen centuries, in favour of a creed, as it would seem to them, of
yesterday, and one which the hated foreigner seeks to force upon them at
the point of the bayonet; for the war of 1857 _was_ a missionary war,
though not by any means an opium war; and it is only by the Treaty of
Tientsin that missionaries have any right to preach Christianity in China.
Previously to this Christianity had been forbidden by King Yoong-t-ching
in 1723, and that edict had never been repealed.

But though these two causes, the hostility of the people and the assumed
intellectual superiority of the Buddhists and Confucianists, render the
path of our missionaries unusually difficult, and fully account for their
ill success, yet it may be asked why the Roman Catholic missionaries are
more successful than ours. Both the above reasons apply to them as
strongly, or even more strongly, than to Protestant missionaries. They
have even an additional disadvantage in their confessional with women, a
proceeding which is looked upon with the greatest suspicion by the Chinese
who, as far as possible, seclude their women from the sight of all men.
Perhaps, as has been hinted at by a correspondent to the _Times_, the
celibacy of the Roman Catholic priesthood, an institution which they hold
in common with the priests of Buddha, impresses the people with a
favourable view of the religion. But there are other reasons.

As mentioned already, the Jesuits established themselves in China at the
latter part of the sixteenth century. They first landed at Ningpo, and
thence made their way to Pekin,[121] where, "by good policy, scientific
acquirements, and conciliatory demeanour, they won the good-will of the
people and the toleration of the Government." In 1692, Kang Hi published
an edict permitting the propagation of Christianity. From the success of
these Jesuits, sanguine expectations were entertained in Europe of the
speedy evangelization of China--hopes that were not destined to be
realized. Various causes conspired to effect their downfall in China,
principally connected with the political state of Europe at that time. In
1723 Christianity was prohibited, and the Jesuits expelled. "The
extinction of the Order of Jesuits," says Sir George Staunton, in the
prefac