Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/192

rian propagandism disappeared when brought into permanent contact with Islamism and Buddhism. The law of the survival of the fittest suggests a different result. "There is no reasonable doubt," writes Dr. Wells Williams, "that during the three centuries ending with the accession of Hung-wu (1368), the greater part of Central Asia and northern China was the scene of many flourishing communities." Less than two hundred years afterwards not one of them was to be found.

So far, however, as the immediate purpose of this retrospect is concerned, what has to be observed is that up to the accession of the Ming dynasty, in other words, up to the middle of the fourteenth century, the attitude of the Chinese towards foreign trade and foreign religions was remarkably liberal and even hospitable. There was no closing of ports, no persecution of converts to alien faiths, no law against the preaching or propagandism of strange creeds. Would any Occidental nation have shown similar magnanimity? No one dare answer that question in the affirmative.