an rites, such as the worship of ancestors, and for
employing for God the name of a pagan deity. The name which they then
objected to was Shang-ti, Supreme Ruler, a venerable designation for the
Supreme Power found in the earliest of the Chinese canonical books, and
at this day accepted by a large proportion of Protestant missionaries.

The question as to its fitness was referred to the Emperor, who decided
in favor of the Jesuits. It was then brought before the Papal See,
condemned as idolatrous, and Tien Chu, the Lord of Heaven, adopted in
its stead. That Shang-ti, however pure in origin, had come to be applied
to a whole class of deities was perfectly true, but the name proposed in
its stead was not free from a taint of idolatry,--Tien Chu, Lord of
Heaven, being one of eight divinities, and worshipped along with Ti Chu,
Lord of Earth, Hai Chu, Lord of the Sea, etc.

The manner in which his opinions had been set aside by the Pope had no
doubt a repelling influence on the mind of the Emperor, so that if he
had ever felt inclined to embrace Christianity, he drew back in his
later years. Not only so, but he left behind him a series of Maxims in
which he censures the foreign creed and warns his people against it.
These Maxims were ordered to be read in public by mandarins, and they
continue to be recited and expounded as a sort of religious ritual. Is
it surprising that this lost opportunity was followed by a century and a
half of open persecution? That most of the churches survived, not only
attests the zeal with which the Faith had been propagated, it throws a
pleasing light on the force of the Chinese character. At the dawn of our
new epoch, there were still some half a million converts,--with here and
there a foreign Father hiding in their midst.

In bringing about this change of policy there was indeed another
influence at work. Had not the Emperor of China heard some rumors of
what was going on in the dominion of his cousin, the Great Mogul--how
the French were dispossessing the Portuguese; and how the English later
on succeeded in expelling the French? How could they doubt that a large
community of native Christians would act as an auxiliary to any foreign
invader? A suspicion of this kind had in fact sprung up under the
preceding dynasty. In consequence of it not a single seaport except
Macao was opened to foreign trade; and when foreigners went to Canton,
they were lodged in a suburb and not allowed to penetrate