Our missionaries, then, almost unanimously assert that "opium has been the means of closing millions of Chinese hearts to the influence of Christian preaching," partly by setting the Chinese against foreigners in general and Englishmen in particular, but chiefly by supplying them with a ready-made argument against the Christian religion as one that tolerates so iniquitous a traffic to the ruin of a friendly nation. Dr. Medhurst[113] supplies us with a sufficient answer to this. "If we do supply the opium, why do you smoke it? Why do you even grow it?" But, in truth, whatever ingenious arguments the astute Chinaman may use to justify his rejection of the new doctrine, the reason of the ill success of our missionaries is not to be found here. For why, if opium be the only obstacle to conversion, are we not more successful in India? There are in the whole of British India only 900,000 converted Christians, of whom far the largest number are Roman Catholic "hereditary" Christians, about a quarter of a million being Protestants of various denominations. "Of course there are some," says a correspondent to the _Times_, "perhaps even a considerable number, whose views of life are really elevated by their Christianity; but it is a fact worthy of all attention that really devout Indians who have, under the influence of Christian teaching, cast off Hindooism, have preferred to create a new and, as they say, a purer religion for themselves, rather than accept Christianity in the form in which it is presented to them by the missionaries." The "Brama Somaj" is indeed worthy of all consideration, but obviously cannot be discussed here. Missionaries in India impute their failure to the advantages given by Government to secular education. The Japanese again,[114] though their orators confess that they are no bigoted adherents of any creed, that their minds are like blank paper, fitted to receive new characters from the pen of any ready writer, decline to embrace Christianity because they do not consider it a good religion; for they see that it does not prevent the English from being licentious and brutal to their coolies, and from having no reverence for old age. Such excuses, and they are mere excuses, are fatally easy; and while Christian practice differs so much from Christian profession, will always remain a weapon of offence against the followers of Christ in the hands of unbelievers. But so far from opium being a barrier to the acceptance of the Christian religion, it has been the means[115] indirectly of opening the gate of the empire for the admission of Western ideas, and, among them, for the introduction of the Gospel of Christ.