The conversion of the most of Eastern Asia was the work of the Northern or more corrupt Buddhism. Southern Buddhism, like the orthodox Eastern Church, which contented itself with its evangelistic achievements among the Goths, and its Nestorian missions, soon exhausted its propagative force. The introduction of the religion into Burma, Siam, and the adjacent kingdoms, may be said to sum up its triumphs. Northern Buddhism, on the other hand, ran from the beginning of our era a course of unchecked triumphs. In the close of the fourth century it spread from China to Corea, and in the sixth it reached Japan. Previous to this it entered the isolated regions of Tibet, more welcomed than resisted by the demonolatrous inhabitants on account of the adulterated form in which it presented itself. There, after a struggle for some two centuries, it succeeded, about the period when Islam was beginning its conquests elsewhere, in securing strong royal support. After experiencing for many generations the vicissitudes of popularity and persecution, the conquests of Genghiz, and the strong favour of Kublai, his greatest successor, established its hierarchy as supreme, and in spite of changes of dynasty, it has there dominated the whole relations of life in a manner like unto, but to an extent far beyond, the wildest dreams of Rome’s most ambitious Pope.[339] It thus appears that Buddhism in the second period of its history, and after it had succeeded in winning the support of powerful kings, reached its furthest extension and achieved its grandest conquests. Christianity, on the other hand, was more rapidly diffused in the primitive than in the subsequent ages. Tested by its intensive hold upon the nations, it had only nominally converted the Roman Empire by the end of the fourth century. Gibbon’s estimate of the number of Christians within it, is acknowledged by friendly authorities,[340] like Bishop Lightfoot, to err if at all on the side of excess. During the reign of Constantine, probably not a twentieth of the whole population of the Empire were Christians, even by profession. After this period, no doubt, the proportion must have greatly increased, for the barbarous hordes that poured downwards in successive deluges over the South were converted so suddenly and so silently that “scarce a legend remains to tell the tale.” In regard, however, to the conversion of heathen Europe, it is a mistake to suppose that the missionaries had only to come, and see, and conquer. The conversion of England by the Roman monks, and of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales by Oriental and, it is said, Arian missionaries, cannot be said to have been accomplished before the close of the seventh century. Afterwards, the conversion of Central and Northern Germany occupied the Celtic and British missionaries for two centuries. The conversion of the Scandinavians, beginning in the ninth, could not be said to have been effected till the middle of the eleventh