Chinese Christians might be allowed to conform themselves to the decrees of the pope, on the subject of ceremonies. The emperor replied, that the papal decrees being contrary to the usages of the empire, the Christian religion could not subsist there; and that the legate, and all the missionaries, must immediately return to Canton. Mezzabarba now made some concessions, intimating that those ceremonies which were of a merely civil nature, would be allowed to the native converts. In conformity with which he proclaimed "eight permissions," as the length to which the Chinese Christians might go; but these were far from satisfying the emperor, and were afterwards abrogated and condemned at Rome. No prospect of reconciliation appearing, the legate requested permission to return to the pope for further powers, hoping that things would remain as they were till his return.
In the mean time, Kang-hi died, A. D. 1722, and Yung-ching, his successor, was no sooner seated on the throne, than he was pestered with petitions from the literati, containing bitter invectives against the missionaries, as perverting the fundamental laws, and disturbing the peace of the empire.
About the same time a literary graduate of Fŭh-këen, who had apostatized from Christianity, sent in a memorial, complaining that the missionaries immured young girls in nunneries, paid no honours to the dead, confounded the distinctions of families, and sought to turn the Chinese into Europeans. The matter having been brought before the tribunal of rites, representing the danger of allowing Europeans to remain in the provinces, the board decided, that the Europeans who were useful for reforming the calendar, might be re-
