``Extreme indeed would be the danger if, popular indignation having been once aroused by this opposition to the authorities, the hatred of the whole population of China were excited like that of the people of Tientsin against foreigners, and orders, though issued by the Government, could not be for all that put in force. . . . Although the creeds of the various foreign countries differ in their origin and development from each other, the natives of China are unable to see the distinction between them. In their eyes all (teachers of religion) are `missionaries from the West,' and directly they hear a lying story (about any of these missionaries), without making further and minute inquiry (into its truth), they rise in a body to molest him.'' As for Protestant missionaries, it would be useless to assert that every one of the 2,950 has always been blameless in this matter. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that there is a sense in which the gospel is a revolutionary force. Christ Himself said that He came not to send peace on earth but a sword, and to set a man at variance against his father. There is usually more or less of a protest in a heathen land when a man turns from the old faith to the new one. The refusal to contribute to the temple sacrifices and to worship the ancestral tablets is sure to be followed by a furious outcry. The convert is apt to be assailed as a traitor to the national custom and as having entered into league with the foreigner. To the Chinese, moreover, all white men are ``Christians'' and ``foreign devils,'' and all alike stand for the effort to foreignize and despoil China. Except where personal acquaintance has taught certain communities that there is a difference between white men, the evil acts of one foreigner or of one aggressive foreign Government are charged against all the members of the race, just as in the pioneer days in the American colonies, a settler whose wife had been killed by an Indian took his revenge by indiscriminately shooting all the other Indians he could find. Any hatred that the Chinese may have against Christianity is due, not so much to its religious teachings, as to its identification with the foreign nations whose religion Christianity is supposed to be and whose aggressions the Chinese have so much reason to fear and to hate.