extremely vigorous. But they have never set off a chain-reaction. They have tended to require continual reinforcement, guidance and creative stimulation. The lack of self-sustaining growth in Latin America was not fatal to the Church there since its only local opponents were primitive forms of paganism. But when Christianity had to compete with well-established and sophisticated religious cults in Asia it was a very different matter, especially when it lacked the political and military support of a colonial government. The western mercantile penetration of the Asiatic seaboard in the sixteenth century was extremely rapid, and was closely followed by the erection of an ecclesiastical structure. The Portuguese set up a bishopric in Madeira in 1514, Cap Verde in 1532, Goa 1533, Malacca 1557, and Macao in 1576. By this time the Spanish were in Manila, which got its first bishop three years later. Yet Christianization was slow and remained unspectacular. Only the Philippines, which the Spaniards conquered in the 1 560-70s, and where they imposed their religion virtually by force, became a predominantly Christian country. And there the missionaries had to deal only with primitive pagan cults, or a debased form of Mohammedanism. This was the pattern for the next three hundred years. Where Islam was firmly and fully established, as in west Asia, northern India, Malaya and Java, the Christians made little progress, even when they disposed of overwhelming political, economic and military power. Where Islam merged into animism, as in some of the Indonesian islands, Dutch Protestant missions enjoyed some success. It was, broadly speaking, the same with the other great eastern religions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Wherever they were wellestablished and mature, and associated with the cultural, social and racial consciousness of the locality, Christianity could not penetrate in depth. In short, it could not succeed, or at least did not succeed, against other imperial religions. But in the economically backward regions, in tribal areas of low cultural achievement, and indeed almost anywhere where primitive paganism was the predominant cult, Christianity quickly became established, especially where it had the backing of a colonial power. Was the failure of Christianity to supplant other imperial religions intrinsic? Might the story have been different? The question is historically very important. If Asia had been Christianized in the period 15501900, during the European military and economic paramount, the twentieth century would have to be entirely rewritten; and indeed Christianity itself must have been radically changed. But therein perhaps lies the key: it was the inability of Christianity to change, and above all to de-Europeanize itself, which caused it to miss its opportunities. Far too often the Christian Churches presented themselves as the extensions of European social and intellectual concepts, rather than embodiments of universal truths; and, equally important, the Churches as institutions, and their clergy as individuals and as a collectivity, appeared merely as one facet of European rule. Though Christianity was born in Asia, when it was re-exported there from the sixteenth century onwards, it failed to acquire an Asian face. The mistakes that were made varied from country to country. Sometimes the dilemma was complex, and it is not clear how error could have been avoided. There was never a uniform policy on any great, central issue of missionary endeavor. Indeed, how could there have been? There was no one centre of authority even in the Catholic Church. Throughout the sixteenth century, and for much of the seventeenth, the papacy had virtually no control over the missions, which were entirely in the hands of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns, and of the bishops they appointed. Or, rather, ‘entirely’ should be qualified, since the actual missionary work was chiefly in the hands of the friars and (from the 1540s) the Jesuits, who were often semiautonomous and acted independently of both crown and pope. But these, in turn, all hated each other, and often deliberately and systematically attempted to frustrate each other's efforts. Unable to control the local bishops, the papacy used the device of appointing Vicars-Apostolic; but this, as often as not, was a further cause of friction and divided authority. And, finally, from the seventeenth century there was conflict with the rival efforts of the Protestant sects, usually envenomed by a background of European war and commercial competition. Wo