Opening paragraphs..............Part the Second

In the beginning they were a tiny vanguard, clinging precariously to the rim of the great Chinese landmass - a few earnest, lonely, often frightened men and women engaged in an almost entirely futile enterprise.  They lived among Western merchants but shared little with them.  For their task was not to build trade.  It was to save souls.
-Alan Brinnkley,  The Publisher:  Henry Luce and His American Century