The Korean Martyrs were known for the staunchness, sincerity, and number of their converts. An English lawyer and sinologist Edward Harper Parker observed that: Coreans [sic], unlike Chinese and Japanese, make the most staunch and devoted converts… The Annamese [Vietnamese] make better converts than either Chinese or Japanese, whose tricky character, however, they share; but they are gentler and more sympathetic; they do not possess the staunch masculinity of the Coreans. According to Ernst Oppert, An observation, founded upon many years' experience, may not be out of place here, and that is, that among all Asiatic nationalities there is probably none more inclined to be converted to Christianity than the Corean [sic]… He becomes a Christian from conviction, not from any mercenary motives. Bishop and martyr Simeon François Berneux wrote, The Corean [sic] possesses the most perfect dispositions for receiving the faith. Once convinced, he accepts and attaches himself to it, in spite of all sacrifices it may cost him. The priest Francis Goldie stated, Certainly few countries, if any, have to tell of such a painful apostolate, or of one which has had such success. Japan alone in later days can boast a martyrology at all to compare with that of Corea [sic] in the number of the slain, or in the heroism of those who died for Christ. Individual martyrs Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang and 101 Companions The Christian community first began to take shape when Yi Seung-hun started to study Christian doctrine by himself and was eventually baptized and given the name Peter in 1784. Because of their belief in the Christian God, the first Korean Christians were persecuted repeatedly, rejected by their families, and suffered a loss of their social rank. Despite persecutions, the faith continued to spread. The Christian community in Korea was given the assistance of two Chinese priests, but their ministry was short-lived, and another forty years passed before the Paris Foreign Missions Society began its work in Korea with the arrival of Father Mauban in 1836. A delegation was selected and sent to Beijing on foot, 750 miles, in order to ask the Bishop of Beijing to send them bishops and priests. The same appeal was made to the Pope in Rome. Serious dangers awaited the missionaries who dared to enter Korea. The bishops and priests who confronted this danger, as well as the lay Christians who aided and sheltered