SCHALL. JOHANN ADAM VON, a celebrated Jesuit missionary to China, was b. of noble family at Cologne in 1591, and having. male his studies and entered the Jesuit order in Rome in 1611, he was selected, partly in consequence of his great knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, to form one of the mission to China in 1620. Having, with the characteristic skill and ability of his order, turned to good account among the Chinese his mathematical and mechanical science, 110 DOI only suc ceeded in forming a 'flourishing mission, but was ultimately invited to the imperial court at Pekin, where he was entrusted with the compilation of the calendar, and the direction of the pulilic mathematical school, being himself created a mandarin. Such was his favor with the emperor, that, contrary to all tile received etiquette, he had the privilege of free access to the presence of the emperor Chun-Telie, the foundry of the Tartar dynasty (1645), and was honored by visits from the emperor at four stated times in each year. Through this favor with the emperor. Scholl obtained an edict which authorized the building of Catholic churches, and the liberty of preaching throughout the empire; and iu the space of 14 years the Jesuit missionaries in the several provinces are said to have received into the church 100.000 proselytes. On the death of this
emperor, however, a change of policy fatal to the prospects of Christianity took place. The favorable edict above referred to was revoked; Scholl was thrown into prison and sentenced to death. lie was afterward liberated; but he 'was again imprisoned. and, at the end of a long incarceration, died Aug. 15, 1669. He had acquired a perfect mastery of the Chinese finiguage, in which he compiled numerous treatises upon scientific and religious subjects. A large MS. collection of his remains in Chinese, amounting to 14 volumes in 4to, is preserved in the Vatican library. He also translated into Chinese several works, doctrinal and medical, especially some treatises of father Lessias. a Flemish Jesuit, the most important of which was that On the Priaidence God.—See Mailly's Histuim Generale de In Chine and Hue's Le Christianisme en Chine.