91) states that he converted a "grossly immoral Chinaman, who had smoked opium for more than twenty years," simply by saying to him "in a spirit of earnest love, elder brother Six, as far as I can see, you must perish; you are Hell's child." Mr.Stanley P.Smith, B.A., who was formerly stroke of the Cambridge eight, had been only seven months in China when he performed that wonderful conversion, so applauded at the Missionary Conference of 1888, of "a young Chinaman, a learned man, a B.A.of his University," who heard Mr.Smith speak in the Chinese that can be acquired in seven months, and "accepted Him there and then." (_Records_ of the Missionary Conference, 1888, i., 46).

Indeed, the earlier the new missionaries in China begin to preach the more rapid are the conversions they make.
Now, in this province of Yunnan, conversions will have to be infinitely more rapid before we can say that there is any reasonable hope of the proximate conversion of the province.

The problem is this: In a population of from five to seven millions of friendly and peaceable people, eighteen missionaries in eight years (the average time during which the mission stations have been opened), have converted eleven Chinese; how long, then, will it take to convert the remainder?
"I believe," said a late member of the House of Commons, who was once Lord Mayor of London, speaking at the anniversary meeting of the China Inland Mission in 1884, "I believe God intends to accomplish great things in China," and, undoubtedly, the opinion of an ex-Lord Mayor on such a subject is entitled to great weight.
"The Gospel," he said, "is making rapid progress in China....

We are amazed at the great things God hath wrought" (in the conversion of the Chinese).
Let us examine for a moment an instance of the rapid progress which excited the amazement of this good man.

No missionary body in China is working with greater energy than the China Inland Mission.