Being a man of great wealth and having a perfect knowledge of the situation, he steered a course that would obviate his striking on either rock. He subscribed to the Boxer organizations where they obeyed him, and punished them where they were refractory, and soon had Shantung, which was in a ferment when he took charge, fairly well in hand. He gave it to be understood that they would, in time, be able to exterminate foreigners; but they must patiently drill and practice gymnastics until such time as he considered that they had reached perfection, and must not on any account injure a foreigner too early, as it would bring down trouble before the government was prepared to meet it. At the same time he allowed them to pillage and murder the native Christians freely, well knowing this would please the Court, and would not be actively taken up by the foreign powers as an infringement of treaty-rights, which it certainly was. Evidently his idea was, too, that Tung Fu Hsiang’s plan to drive out and exterminate all foreigners was an entirely impossible one, and that if he could keep his province from committing any overt act that would lead to a foreign war, for a year’s time, the Chihli authorities, all the Manchus, and Tung Fu Hsiang himself would have brought on the war and ruined themselves, while he, Yuan, would then have a chance to cut loose from the conservatives, and come to the front in the new regime, which must come, as a reformer. That he will do this I fearlessly prophesy. The Boxer organization was not started by Tung Fu Hsiang, but was, by his advice, given imperial sanction and infused with new life and activity. A similar organization, known in olden times in China under the same name, was a volunteer militia for national defense. The recent revival has not only been for defense, but to exterminate the Christian religion and the people who brought it. [Illustration: A MONGOLIAN LLAMA Great learning is possessed, according to the Chinese standard, by these priests. The young student or candidate on the left is receiving instruction.] That the Chinese people have much to complain of from the aggressive attitude of many native Christians, and particularly the Roman Catholic Christians, no sane man will deny. For years it has been the practice of the priests and of many of the Protestant missionaries to assist their converts in lawsuits against the heathens, and to exert an unjust influence in their behalf. To “get even” with an enemy it is only necessary for a convert to tell his priest or pastor that he has been persecuted in some way for his religious belief, to induce the missionary to take up the cudgel in his defense. I have heard heathen Chinese often assert that these men (converts) appear good enough to their priests, who see very little of their ordinary behavior, but behind the father’s back they are overbearing and malicious to all their neighbors, who hate them because they fear them.