extend their researches far enough; they allowed themselves to be seduced by the doctors of Hindustan, and the introduction of Buddhism dates from that epoch. Yet in those remote times the preaching of the Gospel resounded to most remote countries, and, probably, to the very depths of that old Chinese Empire, which was at that time more extensive, and possibly more civilised, than the Roman Empire. It has been generally supposed that the Gospel was only preached there in latter ages. It is not so; the doctrine of Jesus Christ was taught there almost from the beginning.

Abdias relates the legend of Saint Thomas, that, being at Jerusalem, our Saviour appeared to him, and ordered him to accompany one Abban, an emissary from the Indian king Gondaphorus, in search of an architect, to India, to preach the Gospel and receive the crown of martyrdom. The book of the Syrian Jacobites has a reference to a similar legend in its prayers for the feast of Saint Thomas on the 3rd of July. The mission and the martyrdom of Saint Thomas in India are, indeed, alluded to in all the ancient liturgies and martyrologies. The Khaldis, or Nestorians, chant his conversion of the Indians at vespers. Gregorius Bar Hebræus, Jerome, Theodoret, Baronius, Nicephorus, the Roman Breviary, and the Paschal Chronicle, all bear testimony to the same fact, and that the same apostle preached to the Parthians, the Medes, the Persians, and the Bactrians.

In later times, we have Gregory of Tours speaking of a credible person, Theodorus by name, who had visited the tomb of Saint Thomas in India. In the year 883, Sighelm, Bishop of Shireburn, was sent by Alfred, in consequence of a vow made to that effect, to carry relief to the Christians of Saint Thomas in India. Two Mussulmans, who visited India in the ninth century, speak of the church of Saint Thomas as being on the coast of Coromandel. Marco Polo described the tomb of Saint Thomas as being near a small and poor town on the coast of Malabar, whither many Christians went in pilgrimage; and the Saracens also held the place in great veneration.

Nearly at the same epoch a Dominican missionary, who had reached Tartary by the way of India, wrote to his order that Saint Thomas the Apostle had converted many people and princes, but that there was no longer but one little town in which the Christian faith was upheld. (L'Hystoire Merveilleuse du Grant Caan, feuillet iii.) This little town, according to Ricold, was, no doubt, Calamine, where the apostle suffered martyrdom, and where his body lay. At a later period, the same town was known under the name of Meliapour, or Peacock-town. It has also been called San Thome; and the medieval Arabs called it Betama, or Beit Thoma-the house of Thomas.

The Portuguese laid claim to having discovered the relics of Saint Thomas at the period of their first conquests on the coasts of India, and of having removed them to Goa. But implicit credit cannot be given to the details as recorded by the historians Maffei and Du Jarric, who relate that bones were found of a remarkable whiteness, with the legendary lance by their side! According to Rufin, some of the relics of the apostle were transported from India to Edessa, now Urfah, in Mesopotamia. Still, although denied by some, an almost irrefragable mass of evidence exists to prove that Saint Thomas was really the first apostle of

India. "Even the Protestants believe in it," says M. Huc, quoting Hohlenberg and Buchanan; as if it was part of Protestantism to reject all traditional or historical evidence. The Protestants have in reality done more towards elucidating biblical and apostolical history and archæology, than has been effected by our learned and devoted brethren of the Roman Catholic Church during all their long ages of toil and labour.

Humanity, we have seen, was prepared to receive the fundamental truths of Christianity. Independently of the relations established without the Celestial Empire between the Chinese and the Israelites, whom God dispersed among the nations to make known his name and to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah, Jews existed in China as early as the seventh century before Christ. Several of those Jews, according to the missionary Gaubil (Chronologie Chinoise, p. 267), enjoyed high civil and military positions; some were even governors of provinces and ministers of state.

In olden times the Chinese were less exclusive than they are in our days they allowed strangers to penetrate freely into their vast empire, and they themselves trafficked with their neighbours. Their junks navigated both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. The Greeks and Latins knew them by the name of Seres, the chief article of their commerce; and the Parthians acted as intermediaries in the trade with the empires of the West. Hence every facility presented itself from the earliest times for Christianity to reach these distant realms, and hence it was in reality Buddhism that borrowed from Christianity, not, as has been supposed by some, Christianity from Buddhism.

Apostles and missionaries, braving the dangers and the fatigues of the most distant journeys, went also from the earliest times to bear the happy tidings of salvation to the people of India. Saint Pantenes was one of the first apostles in the central East. He was a Sicilian by birth, and lived in the second century, when, having acquired great repute in the schools of Alexandria, he was induced to extend his teachings to India, but little is known as to what progress he made. He was followed by Frumentius, who met with such signal success, that he became a minister of state, founded several churches, and created a primate of all India. The first of that rank was one John, who had a seat at the Council of Nice in 325. At a subsequent period, Museus, Bishop of Aduli, in Abyssinia, evangelised the northern parts of India, in company with the famous Palladius, a Goth of Galatia. Museus is said to have even extended his missions as far as China. The primate of India was at that time Theophilus, who subsequently attained great notoriety by his adhesion to the heresy of Arius. He was called the "Black Monk," on account of his dark colour. He founded three churches: one at Dafar, in Arabia, another at Aden, and a third at the entrance of the Persian Gulf. Marutha, another Hindoo, became primate in the fourth century. The seat of the episcopacy under Theophilus was Diu; under Marutha, it was Sufferdam. The latter was present at the Councils of Constantinople and of Seleucia in 381, and in 383 at the Synod of Sides, in Pamphylia. The religious communications with the remote East were, it is evident, far greater in the times of early Christianity than is generally supposed. The celebrated Egyptian traveller, Cosmos Indicopleustes,

who visited India in the time of Justinian (A.D. 535), asserts that there were in his time churches in Ceylon, on the coast of Malabar, and in the north-west of India.

There is no doubt, however, that, in as far as regards China, Christianity was first diffused in that country by the Chaldæans or Nestorians, and that the first bishopric was founded by the same people. The only point open to discussion is, whether the Chaldæan Church was founded by orthodox Chaldæans or by Nestorians. Ebedjêsus, a Syrian author, well versed in the Christian antiquities of the East, having said, "The Catholicos (the title assumed by the Nestorian Patriarchs) Saliba-Zacha created the metropolitans of Heria (in Khorasan), of Samar Kand, and of China; others, on the contrary, pretend that they were instituted by Achæus and Silas." The Abbé Huc is in favour of the assumption of the anonymous "others," because Achæus, Archbishop of Seleucia, was primate of the orthodox Chaldæans from 411 to 415, Šilas was patriarch of the Nestorians from 503 to 520, and Saliba-Zacha from 714 to 728. Granting, then, the view taken by the anonymous "others," the honour of founding the first Christian episcopacy would be divided between the orthodox Chaldæans and the Nestorian Chaldæans. The question is, however, totally deprived of that importance which M. Huc would attach to it; for the orthodox Chaldæans knew no more of a Bishop of Rome, or of a Roman Catholic ritual, than did the Catholicos of the Chaldæan Nestorians. Admit, however, the authenticity of the celebrated monument of Si-ngan-Fou, and the honour of having first preached the Gospel in China will remain with the Nestorians.

In 1625, some Chinese workmen were digging the foundations of a house without the walls of Si-ngan-Fou, one of the ancient capitals of China, under the name of Tchang-ngan, and known as Komdan by the Arab and Syrian writers of the middle ages, when they discovered a monumental stone, upon which was sculptured a cross and an inscription in old Chinese characters. The stone was examined by the Jesuits Alvares Sémédo, Martin Martini, author of the Chinese Atlas, and the Pole Michel Boym. Copies of the inscription were sent to Rome and to Paris. M. Huc adds one more to the numerous attempts that have been made at the decipherment of this remarkable inscription. It relates that one Olopen came, in 635, from Ta Thsin, or the Roman Empire, to the capital of China. The emperor, who belonged to the Thang dynasty, the most illustrious that ever ruled the Celestial Empire, received him with all honours, as he did also the doctrine which he brought with him. That doctrine proclaims that Aloho, or Oloho (Eloha, or God, in the Syriac), created heaven and earth, and that Sa-Tan having seduced the first man, God sent the Messiah to deliver him from his original sin, so that the law and the prophecy should be accomplished. The names of the Syrian priests who accompanied Olopen are given in the estranghelo characters. Previous to the discovery of this monument, it had been generally supposed that China had always been denied all contact with the people of the West, and that when Father Ricci carried there the good tidings of the Gospel in 1583, it was the first time that the name of Jesus had been uttered in that land sequestrated from other human beings. The abstract of the Christian doctrine given in the inscription attests that the disseminators of Christianity in Central Asia in the

seventh century were Nestorians. "The Holy Trinity communicated its substance to Mi-chi-ho (the Messiah), much to be venerated, and who, veiling his real majesty, appeared to the world in the likeness of man.' Issuing forth from the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates, these ardent and intrepid propagators of the Gospel dispersed themselves all over the countries of the far East. In the present day, the most learned Orientalists, as Quatremère, Abel Remusat, Klaproth, Reinaud, and Ernest Renan, all agree in deriving the Ouigour alphabet, from whence the Mongol, Kalmuk, and Mantchu Tartar alphabets descended, from the Syrian stranghelo, introduced into Central and Eastern Asia by the Nestorians.

The

Voltaire insisted that the inscription of Si-ngan-Fou was a pious deception of the Jesuits to facilitate their progress with the Chinese, and make them believe that Christianity had been adopted by their ancestors. The sceptic of Ferney, who did not trouble himself with questions of evidence, sneered at the idea of Olopen having reached China, "conducted thither by blue clouds, and by observing the rule of the winds"expressions which the learned Orientalist, Abel Remusat, said might appear very amusing in the language of the West, but which are quite simple and usual in the Chinese. Mr. Milne, a missionary at Malacca, has also thrown doubts upon the authenticity of the monument. grounds of his scepticism are mainly based on the silence of the Chinese historians; but since that time M. Stanislas Julien has found several notices of it in Chinese works, more especially in the Kin-che-sui-Pien, or "Collection of Inscriptions," which may be looked upon as a treasure of Chinese archæology. It is impossible not to feel a strong sense of disappointment on finding that all M. Huc has to say that is new upon this long-vexed question is, that during his residence at Peking several Chinese friends gave him the assurance that they had seen the monument, with the inscription, in the pagoda near Si-ngan-Fou.

The details of the progress of Christianity in Higher Asia are few in number, but it is known that subsequently to the epoch of the monument of Si-ngan-Fou, Timothy, who occupied the patriarchal seat of the Nestorians from 777 to 820, deputed several missionaries to preach the Gospel in the far east. Arabian literature also furnishes a few interesting notices. In the relation of a voyage to India and China in the ninth century, translated by Reinaud, mention is made of one Ibn Vahab, a Mussulman merchant of Bussorah, who was shown by the Emperor of China portraits of all the prophets, including Christ and Muhammad. It was at the same epoch that the great revolution occurred by which the Sing dynasty was brought to the throne in the place of the Thangs. There was upon this occasion a great massacre of Christians at Khan Fou, or Han-Tcheon Fou, which was the capital of the Sing dynasty, and is described as a wonderfully populous and beautiful city by Marco Polo. M. Huc describes it as being still one of the most considerable and beautiful towns of the middle empire. Renaudot and Reinaud have also recovered another passage attributed to one Abulfaraj by Golius, and who was a librarian of Baghdad, which says that in the last half of the tenth century a monk of Nadjran was deputed by the Catholicos of Seleucia to aid his Christian brethren in China.

At the beginning of the eleventh century all Europe resounded with

the reports of the power, the wealth, and the sanctity of the great monarch who, in his letters to emperors, kings, and pontiffs, styled himself simply Prêtre Jean, hence commonly called Prester John. M. Huc brings a vast amount of testimony to show that he was not only a real personage, but that the name represented a powerful dynasty in High Asia, who, with their people, had been converted to Nestorianism. The first king of this name lived with his Tartar subjects, the Keraites, beyond the great desert of Gobi, and having lost himself one day when hunting, he was saved by a mysterious personage upon the condition of adopting the Christian faith, which he did, he and all his people. In 1046, forty-five years after the conversion of the King of the Keraites, one of his successors subjugated several neighbouring tribes, and extended his power as far as to Khanhgar. This was only the prelude to the vast conquests of the Keraite Tartars. The Christian element appears to have imparted to that energetic race a principle of expansion which rivalled the enthusiastic ardour of Islamism. One of these Keraite sovereigns, bearing the national title of Prêtre Jean, carried his arms to the banks of the Tigris, and took Ecbatana by assault. It is to this king that are attributed the pompous letters addressed to Pope Alexander III., to the King of France, and to the emperors of the East and the West. The last of these Keraite sovereigns was Ung Khan. His army was defeated, and he himself was slain by a rival Tartar chief called Temoutchin, and with him ended, in 1203, the Christian kingdom of Prester John and the power of the Keraites. The word Jean, or John, appears to have been a corruption of Khakan, or Khan, which is often found in medieval chronicles written Chan, Ghan, and Gehan. The title of priest was derived, probably, from the union of the spiritual with the temporal sovereignty abrogated by eastern monarchs. The title of these Keraite kings was then priest-khan, as others adopted that of gur-khan, or headkhan, and Temoutchin that of Tchin-guiz-khan, or the "Khan of Forts," better known as Genghiz or Chingis Khan. This was the man who, with his Mongol hordes, subjected all the Tartar tribes, and, in the figurative language of the Chinese, annihilated empires as if tearing up so much grass. The religion of this great conqueror, if he had any at all, was a Deism; he tolerated alike Christianity, Muhammadanism, and idolatry.

The capital of the successors of Tchinguiz Khan was Kara Korum, the ancient city of the Keraites; and Saint Hyacinth, a Russian missionary, is supposed to have visited the seat of their power during the height of their successes, and a Syrian-Simeon by name-so won upon Ogotai that he was deputed by him, in 1241, to put an end to the persecution of the Christians in Armenia, and he is said to have converted and baptised many of the Mongol chiefs.

The successes of the Tartars were the cause of the first missions from Western Europe. Innocent IV. convoked a council at Lyons in 1245, to consider how Europe was to be preserved from the invasion of these hordes of Higher Asia. Fasts and prayer were enjoined, together with the fortification of cities and the obstruction of roads, and it was resolved to depute missionaries to the chief of the barbarians, with letters inviting him to abstain from shedding the blood of Christians, and to enter into the bosom of the Church. The Prior of the Dominicans of Paris was