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316 CHINA MISSION YEAR BOOK.addition to the "Scripture portions,"sold chiefly to non-Christians, and they were bought by Christians on a halfprice proposition, provided they would pledge themselvesto read in the book daily, unless prevented by necessity.Such avidity for the Word would have been whollyimpossible but for the revivals of the spring of 1909and 1910.Probably the deepest and most essential result ofthese seasons of spiritual awakeningis an abiding senseof the exceeding sinfulness of sin. All missionaries inChina have had perhaps their keenest disappointmentsright here. Even well behaved and well instructedChristians seemed to have little sense of the sinfulness ofsin. The pagan ancestry and atmosphere accounted forit, but did not excuse it. Until this root difficulty isovercome there can be little progress in establishingChristian ideals of life and conduct. The emotion of therevival days may, indeed must, pass away. The newvision of Gethsemane and of Calvary, burned into theheart by pentecostal fires of penitence, abides in manylives, and the whole moral standard of the Christiancommunity is elevated, never to go back, even thoughindividuals may lapse.The revivals of the past three years have developedin three distinct stages, though the lines cannot besharply drawn between them :i. At first it was largely an awakening among theChristians themselves. Strange as it may seem, thereports indicate that the best instructed and most earnestmembers were first seized with deepest conviction for sin,and in these the results seem most abiding. This doesnot mean that these good people were hypocrites before ;it simply shows that the great law of evolution appliesto things spiritual as well as to things material: Tohim that hath shall be given and he shall have moreabundantly." The intense new spiritual light revealedthe blackness of sins hitherto unrealized and hence con-