His  own  failure,  in  spite  of  his  talents  and  genial  character,
appears  to  have  been  as  manifest  to  his  intimate  associates  as  to
himself;  for  Mr.  Davidson  says  of  him,  just  before  he  made  his
final  move  to  Shang-hae,  in  the  hope  of  redeeming  the  years
which  he  had  already  wasted,  "  Mr.  Medhurst  has  been  a  per-
sonal friend  of  mine  for  these  twenty  years,  and  he  will  believe
me  when  I  say,  that  I  heartily  wish  him  all  success ;  but  of  his
success  I  have  my  doubts  !"J

Mr.  Medhurst,  who  was  too  honest  to  conceal  or  pervert  the
facts  which  were  continually  under  his  observation,  appears  to
sum  up  his  conviction  of  the  impotence  of  all  Protestant  efforts
to  convert  the  heathen,  especially  in  China,  in  these  words  :
"  The  Christian  public  having  got  the  idea  that  China  is  shut,
must  retain  their  opinion  until  we  can  get.men  of  God  to  open
it."  Yet  at  the  very  moment  when  Mr.  Medhurst  pronounced
this  sentence  upon  Protestant  missionaries,  the  eighteen  prov-
inces of  China  had  been  constituted  into  as  many  apostolic
vicariates,  in  each  of  which  there  was  a  Catholic  bishop,  in
many  of  them  two,  besides  other  prelates  in  Corea  and  the
kingdom  of  Annam,  not  one  of  whom  was  tempted  to  doubt  that
China  had  been  "  open  to  men  of  God"  for  many  centuries.
