Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume II.djvu/251

 APOLOGIES OF MICHEL AND LEON. 237 aries, and advised with them concerning the best means of averting the storm now threatening them and their religion. He also wrote to several influential manda- rins, and to the assessor himself, to contradict certain allegations that had been brought against the Chris- tians and their doctrine, though without intimating that he had any knowledge of the memorial presented to the emperor ; and in his anxious solicitude for the missionaries, he invited them all to retire in case of danger to his house at Han-Tcheou-Fou, and wait there under his protection till the tempest should have subsided. Doctor Leon, who had been at two days* journey from Nankin when he heard the report, hastened thither, and got an apology for the Christian religion and its ministers printed and circulated in the town ; whilst at the same time he addressed the most fervent exhortations to the Christians to keep up their courage in times of persecution. The news of the danger menacing the missionaries excited the most lively emotion among the neophytes. They ran about communicating to one another their hopes and fears ; redoubled their prayers and religious exercises, and by the reception of the sacraments pre- pared themselves for the probably sanguinary struggle that was about to take place. One of them, who possessed more than an ordinary amount of courage and energy, had four flags prepared, and inscribed with his Chinese and christian name in large characters, and planted them before his house, in order to encourage his brethren not to shrink from the avowal of their faith, as well as to guard against any feeling of pusillanimity in himself. Three months passed away, and there was still no