We have already seen that large sections of the Javanese remained heathen for centuries after the establishment of Muhammadan kingdoms in the island; at the present day the whole population of Java, with some trifling exceptions, is Muhammadan, and though many superstitions and customs have survived among them from the days of their pagan ancestors, still the tendency is continually in the direction of the guidance of thought and conduct in accordance with the teaching of Islam. This long work of conversion has proceeded peacefully and gradually, and the growth of Muslim states in this island belongs rather to its political than to its religious history, since the progress of the religion has been achieved by the work rather of missionaries than of princes. While the Musalmans of Java were plotting against the Hindu Government and taking the rule of the country into their own hands by force, a revolution of a wholly peaceful character was being carried on in other parts of the Archipelago through the preaching of the Muslim missionaries who were slowly but surely achieving success in their proselytising efforts. Let us first turn our attention to the history of this propagandist movement in the Molucca islands. The trade in cloves must have brought the Moluccas into contact with the islanders of the western half of the Archipelago from very early times, and the converted Javanese and other Malays who came into these islands to trade, spread their faith among the inhabitants of the coast. [1253] The companions of Magellan brought back a curious story of the way in which these men introduced their religious doctrines among the Muluccans. “The kings of these islands [1254] a few years before the arrival of the Spaniards began to believe in the immortality of the soul, induced by no other argument but that they had seen a very beautiful little bird, that never settled on the earth nor on anything that was of the earth, and the Mahometans, who traded as merchants in those islands, told them that this little bird was born in paradise, and that paradise is the place where rest the souls of those that are dead. And for this reason these seignors joined the sect of Mahomet, because it promises many marvellous things of this place of the souls.” [1255]