Still justice compels us to remember that they have not been alone in this policy. Missionaries of other faiths and other lands have both relied on the defence of foreign powers and have interfered with the lawsuits of their converts. A Protestant missionary from the Southern States of America frankly defended the system. He boldly asserted that non-interference in a lawsuit would be simply misunderstood by the Chinese. When he was young he had absolutely refused to interfere in a case where a widow was being oppressed, and a non-Christian Chinese gentleman had interviewed him, and after some circumlocution, had remonstrated with him on his hardness of heart, that he, a teacher of the religion of love, should neglect the widow in her necessity. Still, the Roman Church, as in Ireland, as in France, as in Italy, is an institution which is essentially political; and the traditional policy of the Roman Church has been followed in China with the invariable result, first, that when the power of the State is used to promote her tenets she grows strong, and next when that power is withdrawn or becomes hostile she feels the loss of the earthly support on which she has relied and apparently grows weaker. This is, however, only transitory; the Roman Church, for instance, is growing stronger, not weaker, now {193} that she has lost the support of French diplomacy, and the missions have entered upon their third epoch when they are preaching Christianity without any special support of a foreign government and are succeeding. For there are few bodies of people in this world who are more heroic and devoted than the Roman missionaries; they have died by fever, have been massacred, they live on a miserable pittance; I was told that one enlightened missionary, once a Professor in Paris University, lived on £12 a year; and their heroism and self-denial reaps a large reward. Their most beautiful and most successful works are the orphanages which they maintain. They accept any of those children whom the Chinese mothers cast out to die, either because of their poverty or because they are girls. These children are brought up with infinite care and kindness, and are taught embroidery, lace-making, and other trades. No more beautiful sight can be seen than one of these orphanages, with the happy children hard at work and rejoicing as only Chinese rejoice in pleasant labour. When these children grow up they are married to Christians, and from them springs a native Christian population, which has never known any of the horrors of heathenism. As a rule they live in small societies. I believe there is an island on the Yangtsze which is entirely peopled by Christians. The work may be great, but the cost is great too. Many a life has been laid down so that these children might be Christians. {194}