Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume II.djvu/322

308 ing the inhabitants how to make use of their artillery, and afterwards secured it from future attempts by new fortifications. When he had made his way into the Celestial Empire, he learned in a short time to write and speak the Chinese with as much facility as an educated native could have done; and two years after the discovery of the famous inscription in Si-ngan-Fou he went to that city to found a mission.

Father Adam Schall, a native of Cologne, came to China in 1622, and was also sent to the mission of Si-ngan-Fou where he occupied himself with the apostolic ministry, and the study of the sciences most nearly connected with astronomy. He acquired such great popularity in a very short time, that for the church whose erection he superintended he received as many subscriptions from infidels, who admired his mathematical abilities, as from the converts to Christianity. It was indeed on account of their scientific reputation that these two missionaries were summoned to Pekin.

Immediately on their arrival at the capital they were placed at the head of the "Board of Celestial Literature," and Dr. Paul hastened to present to the Emperor all the works on astronomy and physical science published up to that time by the missionaries of China. From the moment of their entering on their functions, the Fathers Rho and Schall had to maintain a constant struggle with the government astronomers, who could not see without jealousy strangers placed thus at the head of their academy; and they wrote pamphlets and circulated libels to depreciate the astronomical methods of Europeans. The literary class, who knew nothing whatever of the subject of astronomy, were precisely those who were loudest in their clamours. The Em-