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CANTONESE JUNKS.
could only be carried on by stealth—then the profession of Christ by a native was a capital crime. In the Straits of Malacca, there were six missionaries working among the Chinese, and there were there seven converts and one ordained native evangelist, but none were to be found in China itself. Even foreign merchants were confined to Macao, and to the factories at Canton: for exercise they could walk backwards and forwards in front of their prison-like residences, but might go no further. And no foreign woman was allowed to reside even there.
How great the contrast now! There are some twenty free ports open to our residence and commerce, our diplomatic representatives reside at Pekin, and men and women with proper passports may and do travel in every province of China. Protestant missions are carried on by 32 Missionary Societies (English, American, and German), and Li Hung-chang, the most influential Chinese mandarin in the empire, openly patronizes a missionary hospital, to which he is the largest contributor. There are now 1100 native helpers assisting Protestant missionaries, 22,000 communicants, and probably 100,000 Chinese, more or less fully instructed in the truth, and regularly attending Christian services. Some of the aboriginal tribes have been reached; a few of the Miao-tsi have been baptized, and the Thibetans are receiving the Scriptures in their own mother tongue. Shans and Kah-chens have been brought into the fold of the good Shepherd. In China 428 missionaries, connected with the 32 different societies, were at work in March, 1884. Japan is also open, and has
