Despite remonstrances from the great Powers and despite all treaties, I greatly fear that these persecutions will be more bitter and more general in the future than they have been in the past. While the progress of conversion is thus delayed and Christianity by drawing the fire of hate and intolerance absorbs all attention, Mohammedanism is silently making considerable strides, favoured by a period of bright sunshine, and unless storms of persecution soon burst again to roll back the tide, as after the last Mohammedan rising, when, it is said, loads of human ears were forwarded to Peking in token of successful repression, followers of the Prophet bid fair to establish a position in China which cannot be coerced and must be recognised, and which would oppose to Christianity an even stronger and keener influence than is exerted now. I have often heard the question asked--"Would the Chinese be any the better for becoming Christians?" and the reply has usually been that they would not. Personally, I believe that Christianity would supply the Chinaman's character with an element which it now altogether lacks--chivalry, and which, added to his many excellent qualities, would place him in the very forefront of the peoples of this earth. If China accepted Christianity her moral and material regeneration would be assured, stagnation would yield to progress, darkness to light and hostility to friendliness. Instead of the unwieldy mass now lying sulking at the feet of other nations, China would become a strong, self-reliant, prosperous state, fearing none, but held in respect and friendship by all. Heathen China may possibly fall under the yoke of foreign powers, but the spirit of Christianity, bringing with it reformation and progress, having once been breathed into her nostrils, it would be just as possible to chain the waters of the ocean as to hold her in lasting bondage, and Christian China would be free. * * * * * [Sidenote: CHANCES.] Forty odd years ago, at the close of the second great war, China was a veritable Eldorado for Europeans, where all turned to gold beneath the lightest touch of alien hands. Fortunes were made with startling rapidity, and money came in so freely that the standard of living amongst foreign merchants and their _employes_ reached to such preposterous heights of luxuriousness, that when the inevitable reaction set in, want, and even ruin, supervened where plenty should have been found. From that date to this the descent from an inflated prosperity to a mean working level has been gradual and sure. What has been the cause of this descent?