The rule of Acquaviva was also memorable for the beginning of the Chinese mission. The repeated failures to gain admission drove the Jesuits to fresh expedients, and a few of their more learned members applied themselves to a thorough study of Chinese culture and religion. The first and most distinguished of these was Father Ricci, whom we find living in Chao Hing, and astonishing the local mandarins with his learning, in 1583. We are not accurately informed how Ricci obtained admission, but we have seen, and shall see, that a Jesuit was prepared to make any profession whatever in order to enter a forbidden land. He seems to have concealed his religion, and posed as a lay scholar, until he was sufficiently advanced in the confidence of a few to entrust his ideas to them. He dressed as a Chinese scholar, and had (after 1587) two disguised lay-brothers in his house, which was transferred to Chao Chu. The mob, discovering his aims, attacked the house; but Ricci's able command of Western learning and appliances had greatly impressed Chinese scholars, and he made steady, if slow, progress. In the year 1600 he was invited to visit the Emperor at Peking, and shrewdly took with him a collection of telescopes, clocks, and other wonders of the West. He was allowed to live at Peking and enjoy the favour of the Emperor, and other priests quietly entered China and helped to found the mission. At one time its promise was nearly destroyed by a quarrel of the rival missionaries,--Jesuit, Franciscan, and secular,--but Ricci tactfully averted the persecution which their mutual charges brought on them. He died in 1610, and was honoured with a magnificent funeral at Peking. Numerically, there were as yet few converts. Ricci was not the kind of man to rush into the street with a crucifix and proclaim that the deities of China were false gods. It is only at a later date that we shall find a large and important mission in China. The rest of the missionary field reported almost uniform progress under the vigorous rule of Acquaviva. Canada was opened by the French troops, and several Jesuits began to work among the Indians. Mexico proved, they reported, an easy ground; they claimed that half the population was Christian by 1608. The Brazilian mission now had a hundred and fifty priests extending its flourishing work, and the first excursions were made into Paraguay (1586) and Chili (1593). In 1604, fifty-six fathers were sent into Peru. In the East, the Hindu mission continued to spread on the lines we have already described, and Abyssinia at last consented to admit the Jesuits. It will be convenient to defer until the next chapter a closer consideration of these missions.