Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 3.djvu/62

earnest of the enmity usually displayed by the foreign mercantile class in the Far East towards Christian missionaries. Obstacles were offered to his landing, and he was warned that strangers might not enter the country,—a veto little respected by these traders themselves, though they so strongly urged its inviolability when inclination prompted obedience. Not to be deterred by such difficulties, Xavier landed, under cover of night, on a little island—Sancian, or St. John—some thirty miles from Macao. There he died without reaching the mainland or overcoming the opposition of his own countrymen, more obdurate than even the Chinese.

Another interval of thirty years now elapsed, and finally, in 1580, Michael Ruggiero (Rogier), an Italian Jesuit, arrived in Macao, whither he was shortly followed by Matthew Ricci. The two men applied themselves to acquire the Chinese language, and brought such zeal to the work that after less than two years' study—a period brief indeed in the eyes of all that have attempted the task—they were able to act as negotiators in a dispute between their countrymen and the Chinese authorities. That was their opportunity, and they did not fail to seize it. By a mixture of cajolery and deception they persuaded the Governor of Kwantung to grant them a little land with permission to "construct a house and a church where they might pass their time in prayer and study, in solitude and meditation,