But even without resting upon the probability of the subversion of the existing despotism, the defeat of its jealous precautions may be anticipated as what must at length result from the present course of events. That portion of the Chinese population which may be termed the _extra-mural_, and which, in numbers, exceeds some European nations, may be considered as the depository of the happy destinies of the empire; for these expatriate millions are accessible to instruction; and if once they become, to any considerable extent, alive to religious truth, no prohibitions of paternal despotism will avail to exclude the new principles from the mother country. It is a false feeling that would draw discouragement from the comparative diminutiveness and small actual results of the operations that are carrying on for imparting Christianity to this people. These measures ought, in philosophical justice, to be viewed as the commencements of an accelerative movement, acting incessantly upon an inert mass, which, by the very laws of nature, must at length receive impulse enough to be carried forward in the course of the propelling cause. To be assured of this result, all that we need is to be assured of the continuance of the spring of movement. If the several spheres of missionary labor are reviewed, none, it is presumed, can be deemed to offer more serious obstacles than the one already referred to; or if there be one such, yet have fact and experiment already given a full reply to all objections. May it be permitted to say that a voice from heaven, full of meaning, is heard in the particular character of the successes, how limited soever they may be, which have crowned the incipient attempts to convert the heathen? The veriest reprobates of civilization and social order have been the first to be brought in to grace the triumphs of the Gospel in its recent attempts at foreign conquest; as if at once to solve all doubts, and to refute all cavils, relating to the practicability and promise of the enterprise. If it had been thought or affirmed that the stupefaction and induration of heart produced upon a race by ages of uncorrected ferocity and sensuality must repel forever the attempts of Christian zeal, it is shown, in the instance of the extremest specimens that could have been selected, that a few years only of beneficent skill and patience are enough to transform the fierce and voluptuous savage into a being of pure, and gentle, and noble sentiments; that within a few years all the domestic virtues, and even the public virtues, graced with the decencies of rising industry, may occupy the very spots that were recking with human blood, and with the filthiness of every abomination which the sun blushes to behold.