 Also among the book 's detractors were missionaries , whom Townsend had criticized . They reviewed the book negatively in a variety of periodicals , including The Chinese Recorder , which accused Townsend of having " gathered a lot of stories and put them together in a clever , cynical and unusually warped way " . Other negative reviews appeared in The Missionary Review of the World , The China Christian Year Book , and The Missionary Herald at Home and Abroad . 
