The rise of Handsome Lake's Way of Life was more successful than most religions during that time because his code combined traditional Iroquois way of life with Quaker values. Despite the clear presence of Christian values in his teachings, it is unclear how much contact with Christianity Handsome Lake had previous to his visions. His way of life stressed survival without the sacrifice of the Iroquois identity, and recognized the need to make adjustments in order to survive in their changing world. Handsome Lake's ideals were eye opening and majority of people agreed with him. Those who opposed the code had reasons to believe that Handsome Lake was giving up on their old ways by altering the character of their way of life. They saw Handsome Lake's new ideals as abandoning their history and forfeiting to Quaker ideals because Handsome Lake did not believe that they could survive with the world evolving around them.