Since the beginning of the Christian era, Christian missionaries of every sect have striven to win the many races to a belief in Jesus. There are at present in British India, Burma, Cochin China, and China, missionaries from many of the numerous sects of Christians in Great Britain, . Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, America, and Italy ; but in British India, in 1881, the numbers of Christians were under two millions: Ever sines the Portuguese came to India, missionaries have been labouring in the southern districts of the Peninsula. The earliest were of the Romish persuasion,—St. Francis Xavier (1542), Robert de Nobilibus (1606-1660), John de Britto, who was martyred in Madura by the Senapati in 1693 ; Father Besclii, the eminent Tamil scholar (1746); and the Abbd Dubois of the closing years of the 18th century. Of Protestant missionaries in the south of India there have been Ziegenbalg and Plutshau (1705), followed by Schultze (1725), Schwartz (1750-1798), Kiernander (1758), followed by Fabricius, Klein, Jaenicke, Rottler, Kohloff, Rhenius (1820), Schmid (1820), Sargent and Caldwell still (1884) working. Bombay had John Wilson. Two Christian missionaries named Joseph Taylor, father and son, occupied districts of the Bombay Presidency. • The son founded the Christian village community of Borsad in Gujerat. Bengal has had Carey, Marshman, Ward, and Alexander Duff. In Burma, Judson, Bennet, Wade, Boardman, Mason, Abbot, and Bishop Bigandet have made many converts. These missionaries have offered education and equality, and have established schools open to all.
The number of Christians in China is estimated at 800,000. It seems to have been early preached in China. A rnobius, writing about A.D. 300, makes mention of the Christian deeds done in India, and among the Seres, Persians, and Medes. There were Christian monks in China in the time of the emperor Justinian, and two of them brought the eggs of the silk-worm in a hollow cane to Con stantinople, A.D. 552. Salibaz-acha, a Nestorian patriarch, created the metropolitan sees of Sina and Samarcand, A.D. 714-727. A monument with a Syriac inscription of the Nestorian missionaries was discovered at Singan Fu, in the N.W. of China, in A.D. 1625, and seems to have been erected A.D. 635. Native scholars regard it as a most valuable specimen of the caligraphy and composition of the age of the Tang dynasty. In the days of Marco Polo there were in Yun-nan many Nestorian Christians, none of which sect now remain.
The Romish form of Christianity is called by the Chinese Teen-Choo Keaou. Their mis
. sionaries, one of the most famed of whom was Pi:re Ricci, have made great progress; and 'since the middle of the 19th century the Protestant missionaries of Great Britain and America have extended it. Many of the Chinese have become imbued with a knowledge of the Christian doc trines. Tae-ping-Wang, an unsuccessful leader of a great rebellion in China, with many of his followers, were believers in the Old and New Testaments. It was a great movement of fanatic Christians from near Canton.
In the north of Asia, the Greek Church is making great efforts in Irkutsk, the Trans-Baikal province, and the Altai. In 1879, the great Manchu Lama, Tapchin-Nag-bu-Mangolaicv, at Chita and at Verniudinsk, was present in 1878 at episcopal celebrations, which produced upon him a profound impression, and in the waters of Lake Baikal he received baptism.
Jews seem to have been in China B.C. 258. They call themselves the Tiau-kin-Kiau, the sect which plucks out the sinew,' alluded to in Genesis xxxii. 32, 'the children of Israel ate not of the sinew which shrank.' The Jewish monuments of China arc at Kai-fung-foo. About 200 is the remnant of all the colonies.
The Muhammadan faith was propagated partly by forcible conversion, but largely in Persia, Sind, British India, Ceylon, Sumatra, and the Archipelago, by zealous, devout men. Their numbers in these countries may be about three hundred millions, principally converts from the West Aryans or Iranians in Persia, and from Turanian and Mongolian races in the East Indies. Comparatively few of the East Aryans have accepted Islam. The conversions among the Rajputs of Northern India, among the Jat of Hindustan, Sind, and the Panjab, been in whole tribes ; in Lower Bengal and amongst the Malays of Aeheen, in whole nations. Muhammadans largely use the Arabic Koran, and that language is taught in the schools attached to the mosques. Great conversions have also been effected amongst the races in Northern Africa.
Muhammadans in China are supposed by Mr. Edkins (p. 178) to be of the Persian and Turk races. They entered China between the 11th and 17th centuries, but principally in the time of the Sung and Ming dynasties. They are most numerous in N. China, where in some parts they form a third of the population. Their mosques are called Tsing-chin-szc, pure and true temple. The name of their sect is Hwei Hwei, which is derived from trigur. They call God Choo, Lord, or Chinchoo, true Lord. In some northern cities they place °vet:their doors the words Hwei Hwei, Muhammadan, or Kiau-mun, religious sect.