Of course there are many Chinamen--nay, I should think a vast majority--who intend to preserve to China the essential points of the Confucian civilisation; they mean to accept Western ideas only in so far as they are necessary to struggle against the West. Some, no doubt, definitely admire the West, but most are anxious for a compromise; they want to preserve China with its customs, with its essential thought, but to strengthen it by foreign knowledge and a foreign military system. The exact degree of what should be preserved in China and what should be destroyed and replaced by Western innovations, differs according to the age and the temperament of the thinkers, but the principle is most generally accepted--Western thought must be grafted on to Eastern civilisation. When we remember the size of China, we may well ask ourselves what effect this policy will have on the rest of the world. We have at present a period of reflection, for how long we cannot tell. The task of welding East and West into one whole is in practice proving difficult, and at present failure is very often the result; but with Japan as a successful example, and with the threat of national extinction and foreign domination before them, the Chinese can never give up the effort; and whatever the exact result may be, I think one may assert {15} without rashness that not only will it fundamentally alter the whole of China, but through China affect the whole world. While detailing the causes which have created the national movement which is now inducing China to make every effort to perfect her defences against foreign aggressions, we must not forget that the awakening of China has a higher side, and one which we can attribute directly and indirectly to Christianity. The influence of Christianity can be traced back to the seventh century when missions of Nestorian Christians came to Thibet and China; they left behind them, it is true, no converts, but their influence was probably felt through the power that Lamaism had had over a great part of the Eastern world. A learned Japanese, discussing this subject, said that no one could study Lamaism and Buddhism without realising how intimately it had been in touch with some form of Christianity. Later on the great Roman Catholic missions, initiated by St. Francis Xavier in the thirteenth century, began to work in China, and have slowly but surely raised up a large population who have been Christians for many generations. Their missions were interrupted by persecutions, but with varying and lately increasing success they have maintained themselves ever since. In 1807 the pioneer of Protestant missions, Dr. Morrison, began his work and the translation of the Bible into Chinese. The work increased, his mission was followed by other missions, which pursued {16} a policy even more influential in altering the opinion of China; not only did they with great heroism preach the Gospel in every province of China, but they