my head, and then sang a terrifying ballad,
by which I learnt for the first time the awful fate that is to be mine.
It is something too dreadful to contemplate. And the cheerful equanimity
with which they announced it to me! I left the _Yesu-tang_ in a cold
sweat, and never returned there.

Missionary work is being pursued in the province with increasing vigour.
Among its population of from five to seven millions, spread over an area
of 107,969 square miles, there are eighteen Protestant missionaries,
nine men and nine ladies (this is the number at present, but the usual
strength is twenty-three). Stations are open at Chaotong (1887),
Tongchuan (1891), Yunnan City (1882), Tali (1881), and Kuhtsing (1889).
The converts number--the work, however, must not be judged by
statistics--two at Chaotong, one at Tongchuan, three at Yunnan City,
three at Tali, and two at Kuhtsing.

That the Chinese are capable of very rapid conversion can be proved by
numberless instances quoted in missionary reports on China. The Rev. S.
F. Woodin (in the _Records_ of the Missionary Conference, 1877, p. 91)
states that he converted a "grossly immoral Chinaman, who had smoked
opium for more than twenty years," simply by saying to him "in a spirit
of earnest love, elder brother Six, as far as I can see, you must
perish; you are Hell's child."

Mr. Stanley P. Smith, B.A., who was formerly stroke of the Cambridge
eight, had been only seven months in China when he performed that
wonderful conversion, so applauded at the Missionary Conference of 1888,
of "a young Chinaman, a learned man, a B.A. of his University," who
heard Mr. Smith speak in the Chinese that can be acquired in seven
months, and "accepted Him there and then." (_Records_ of the Missionary
Conference, 1888, i., 46). Indeed, the earlier the new missionaries in
China begin to preach the more rapid are the conversions they make.

Now, in this province of Yunnan, conversions will have to be infinitely
more rapid before we can say that there is any reasonable hope of the
proximate conversion of the province. The problem is this: In a
population of from five to seven millions of friendly and peaceable
people, eighteen missionaries in eight years (the average time during
which the mission stations have been opened), have converted eleven
Chinese; how long, then, will it take to convert the remainder?

"I believe," said a late member of the House of Commons, who was once
Lord Mayor of London