"'What is it that you offer me?' he said mildly. 'Blind opinion? Undemonstrated and undemonstrable theory? Why, may I ask, do you come over here to convert us heathen, when your own Christian land is rife with evil, with sedition, with religious hatred of man for man, with bloodshed and greed? If your religious belief is true, then you can demonstrate it--prove it beyond doubt. Do you say that the wonderful material progress which your great country manifests is due to Christianity? I answer you, no. It is due to the unfettering of the human mind, to the laying off of much of the mediaeval superstition which in the past ages has blighted mankind. It is due largely to the abandonment of much of what you are still pleased to call Christianity. The liberated human mind has expanded to a degree never before seen in the world. We Chinese are still mentally fettered by our stubborn resistance to change, to progression. Your great inventors and your great men of finance are but little hampered by religious superstition. Hence the mental flights which they so boldly undertake, and the stupendous achievements they attain. Is it not so?' "What could I say? He had me. But he hadn't finished me quite. "'I once devoted much time to the study of Chemistry,' he went on blandly, 'and when I tell you that there is a law to the effect that the volume of a gas is a function of its pressure I do so with the full knowledge that I can furnish you indisputable proof therefor. But when you come to me with your religious theories, and I mildly request your proofs, you wish to imprison or hang me for doubting the absurdities which you cannot establish!' "He laughed genially, then took me kindly by the arm. 'Proof, my zealous friend, proof,' he said. 'Give me proof this side of the grave for what you believe, and then you will have converted the heathen. And can your Catholic friend--or, shall I say enemy?--prove his laughable doctrine of purgatory? The dead in purgatory dependent upon the living! Why, I tell him, that smacks of Shintoism, wherein the living feed the dead! Then he points in holy indignation to the Bible. Bah! Cannot I prove anything I may wish from your Bible? What will you have? Polygamy? Incest? Murder? Graft? Hand me your Bible, and I will establish its divinity. No, my good friend. When you come to me with proofs that you really do the works of him whom you profess to follow, then will I gladly listen, for I, too, seek truth. But in the present deplorable absence of proofs I take much more comfort in the adoration of my amiable ancestors than I could in your laughable and undemonstrable religious creeds.'