About this time the great Adam Schall arrived. He was a worthy successor of Ricci. His reputation had preceded him as a mathematician, and he was immediately employed by the emperor to reform the Chinese calendar. His influence, in consequence of this distinction, was unbounded in extending the field of missionary work. The pagans themselves built a church at his request in Sin-gan-fou, and he obtained an edict from the emperor which empowered the Jesuits to preach throughout the empire. The extraordinary success of Schall was the talk of Europe; and applications poured in on the General from all sides to be sent out to share the labors and the triumphs of the mission. Great numbers of Jesuits were sent there, but many perished on the way out, for shipwrecks were very common in those unknown seas, and the crowded and unhealthy ships as well as the long and difficult journey claimed throngs of victims. The work soon became too great for the laborers and then there came a reinforcement from the Philippines, largely from the other religious orders who had been long waiting to enter China, and who now devoted themselves to the work. Not knowing the country, however, they were horrified to see that many of the practices of Confucianism were still retained by the Chinese Christians, and they denounced as idolatry what the old Jesuits had decided, after years of close scrutiny, to be nothing but a ceremonial which had been thoroughly and scrupulously purified from all taint of superstition. But the newcomers would not look at it in that light. They immediately wrote to the Archbishop of Manila and to the Bishop of Cebú that the Jesuits not only concealed from their converts the mysteries of the Cross, but permitted them to prostrate themselves before the idol of Chin-Hoam, to honor their ancestors with superstitious rites, and to offer sacrifices to Confucius. Rome was then informed of it, but some years later, namely in 1637, both the archbishop and the bishop wrote to Urban VIII that on examining the matter more carefully, they had arrived at the conclusion that the Jesuits were right. It was then too late. A series of bloody persecutions had already begun. The first explosion of wrath occurred when one of the new preachers, speaking through an interpreter, told his congregation that Confucius and all their pagan ancestors were in hell, and that the Jesuits had not taught the Chinese the truth. Public indignation followed on this unwise utterance and expulsions began.