The Jesuits again evidenced their perverse and stubborn nature by impudently appealing from the decree the pope had authorized De Tournon to make in his name, to the pope himself, manifestly hoping either to bring him over to their side, or to procrastinate his final decision indefinitely. They repeated their favorite argument, that Christianity could not be propagated in India and China without making the worship of idols part of its religious ceremonies. They also impeached the character of the evidence upon which De Tournon had relied, by insisting that it was obtained from those who did not understand the people of India or China, or their languages. In all this they persisted in assuming that, in order to convert a heathen people, Christianity must be first converted into heathenism, that it may furnish a starting-point for obtaining ultimate dominion over them. This meant that heathens must be converted to Christianity by the Jesuits alone, inasmuch as none others besides them had endeavored to engraft upon Christian faith and worship any idolatrous ceremonies, or the duty and necessity of falsehood and hypocrisy, as means to an end. But the pope was not misled by this demoralizing subterfuge, and, after hearing them fully and giving all proper consideration to what they said, he brushed it all aside by giving his express and unreserved approval to the decree published by De Tournon as his legate. De Montor admits this; but there is abundant evidence of it apart from this admission. In his life of Clement XI he says: "But Clement, having examined the affair in 1710 and 1712, confirmed all the decrees that had been made against the ceremonies, as well as the edicts of Cardinal De Tournon; and on the 19th of March, 1715, by the constitution _Ex illa die_ (found in Vol. X of the _Bullarium Romanum_), he _more vigorously condemned those rites_; and he established the form of the oath which thenceforth was to be taken by every missionary in the Indies, promising that observance in their own names, and in the names of their order."[121]