In a communication which he published in “The Herald and Presbyter” later in 1900, he gave at considerable length his views as to the causes of that dreadful outbreak. These do not differ essentially from the ideas which have come to be generally accepted in the United Stales. The missionary propaganda he frankly acknowledges to have, by the very nature of its message, aroused the malignity of evil men; and this also to have been much aggravated by the habit of Roman Catholics of standing between their converts and the enforcement of Chinese laws; but he denied that this was the main cause. He holds that the outbreak was chiefly due to the traditional hatred of foreigners; to the territorial aggressions of the western nations in China; to the ill treatment of Chinese abroad and in their own ports by foreigners; and last, but by no means least, to the German operations in Shantung, consisting of their revenge for the murder of some German priests, the occupation of Kiao-chow, and the survey and building of a railroad through the province. The high-handed encroachment of Russia in Manchuria and the construction of a railroad through that province, and the guarding of it by Russian troops, added fuel to the flames. Summing up, he says: “The whole movement is anti-foreign,—against all nationalities and occupations, ministers of governments, consuls, merchants, missionaries, teachers, and engineers, railroads, telegraphs, churches, schools, and Christian converts,—everything in short that is in any way connected with the detested foreigner. It is the conservatism of old China rising up and bracing itself for one last desperate struggle to suppress the new China that is supplanting it.”