bishops subject to them, were established at that period in the provinces of Cashgar, Nuacheta, Turkistan, Genda, Tangut, and others. Whence it will be manifest that there were a vast multitude of Christians in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in these countries, which are now devoted to Mohammedanism or the worship of imaginary gods. That all these Christians followed the Nestorian creed, and were subject to the superior pontiff of the Nestorians residing in Chaldea, is so certain as to be beyond controversy."* Thirteenth century. “Although that powerful emperor of the Tartars, or, rather, of the Moguls, Genghis Khan, and his successors, who had carried their victorious arms through a great part of Asia, and had conquered China, India, Persia, and many other countries, greatly disturbed and distressed the Christians resident in those countries, yet it appears from the most unquestionable testimony that numerous bodies of the Nestorian Christians were still scattered over all Northern Asia and China." + The molestation of the Christians here adverted to by Mosheim appears to have been mostly incidental to the violence of war, rather than to any persecuting disposition in Genghis or his immediate successors, who are said to have favoured the Christians. Two of his sons, under the influence of their zealous mother (a daughter of Prester John), made a profession of the Christian faith. One of the more remote descendants, who became a Mussulman, and assumed the name of Ahmed Khan, commenced a violent persecution of his Christian subjects in Persia in the latter half of this century. Kublai, a grandson, and the most distinguished successor of Genghis Khan, completed the conquest of China, A.D. 1279,|| and removed his court to Chambalu or Peking. He encouraged Christianity, and favoured its professors. About this time, a Nestorian by the * Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., v. ii., p. 161. ↑ Ib., p. 319. Gibbon's Rom. Emp., v. iv., p. 249. Hist. Aart. Eccl., p. 40. Malcolm's Hist. of Persia, v. i., p. 423-441. Du Halde's Hist. of China, v. ii., p. 250. name of Simeon was sent as metropolitan to China, and he was succeeded by Jaballaha.* The papal missions to the Moguls and Chinese commenced in this century; and Corvino, who was sent out by the pope in 1289, describes the Nestorians as having departed greatly from their religion, and so very powerful in China that they would not allow Christians of any other denomination to erect churches, nor to publish their own peculiar doctrines.† Marco Polo, who travelled through Tartary into China in the reign of Cublai, says he then found Nestorian churches in Cashgar, Carkam, Tangut, Ergimul, Kerguth, and Tenduk.‡ Kublai died in the year 1302. Fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Early in the fourteenth century Mohammedanism had gained the ascendancy in Hyrcania, Khorassan, and Transoxiana; and the Nestorians, Jacobites, and Latins were obliged to retire before it. Already had it been extended beyond its former limits in the East by the zealous Mabmoud of Gizni, who ascended the throne of Persia A.D. 997, and is supposed to have converted millions by his sword. He made several expeditions into India, and also repeatedly contended in battle with the principal ruler of the Tartar tribes on the north of his kingdom. The sword of Tamerlane only was wanting to complete the destruction of the Western Tartar churches. This was drawn upon them about the year 1380. Tamerlane extended his conquests into Mongolia, India, Persia, Asia Minor, and Russia. He died A.D. 1405, after commencing his march for the remote regions of China. From this time we hear no more of the churches of Transoxiana, Turkistan, Hyrcania, and Khorassan, and multitudes of the Nestorians of Persia did this fierce disciple of Mohammed persecute unto death. But their missions still existed. In China the witnesses continued to "prophesy," though in Assemani, Bib. Orient., v. iv., p. 107. ↑ Ibid., p. 528. || Ibid., p. 459. deep sackcloth. The Romish missionaries were banished from that empire about the year 1369; but the Nestorians, though persecuted by the Chinese, and suffering under inauspicious influences which gradually diminished their number, were permitted to remain. The patriarch Simeon sent a metropolitan into Southern China in 1490. About this time India and China were united in one metropolitan see.* In 1502, the patriarch Elias sent four bishops-Thomas, Jaballaha, Denha, and James -into India and China. James was living in 1510. In 1540 a persecution was raised in China against the Nestorians. "It thus appears," says the writer from whose valuable pages we have drawn so freely, "that the Nestorian missions in Central and Eastern Asia continued from about the third to the sixteenth century. The more active periods of their missions were from the seventh to the middle of the thirteenth century: a long period of time, evincing great perseverance, and showing, one would think, that the true spirit of Christ must have been, at least, one of the grand actuating motives, though the Gospel which they preached was not in all respects the pure Gospel." The patriarch and his people, during my late visit to the mountains, often spoke of the early labours and success of their forefathers, and eagerly drank in the encouragement I presented to put forth untiring efforts and prayers for a return of those golden days, when, as they themselves say, their missionaries, churches, and schools were spread throughout the East, even in India and China; remnants of which they confidently believe may yet be found in those remote lands. In the bold, independent bearing of the Nestorians of the mountains, I saw abundant evidence that they were the true sons of "the missionaries of Balkh and Samarcand," who, according to the testimony of Gibbon, "pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the Selinga." If, in the early age of the Church, according to the same writer, "In their progress by sea and land, the Nestorians entered Bib. Orient., v. iv., p. 523. China by the port of Canton and the northern residence of Singan," and were found in great numbers on "the pepper coast of Malabar and the isles of the ocean, Socatora and Ceylon,” what may we not hope from their dauntless courage and untiring zeal, when the power of the press and all the increasing means of modern times are brought to their aid? My soul is fired in view of the prospect. But then there is a great preparatory work to be done, and there is no time for delay. We must not shrink back in view of difficulties and dangers. If the Nestorian missionaries “pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar,” we must without fear enter their mountain fastnesses, pour the light of life around their pathway, arouse and direct their dormant or perverted energies, and, under the Captain of our Salvation, lead them forth to conquest and to victory. No effort must be spared, no time should be lost. Men of giantlike faith and energy must gird themselves to the work. Everything combines to render this field one of the most important and interesting of which we can possibly conceive. The early history of the people, their relative geographical position, their present character and eagerness for instruction, their adherence to the word of God as the rule of their faith and practice, and the portentous signs of the times in these lands, indicating some momentous crisis, in which a host of faithful soldiers of the cross should bind on their armour and prepare for the approaching conflict. Motives the most weighty, and encouragements the most cheering, urge us onward. [C.] JEWS OF, MEDIA AND ASSYRIA. We have incidentally spoken of an unconverted remnant of the Ten Tribes dispersed through the Nestorian country, and it may be well to give a more particular account of them. They are said to excel their neighbours of the two tribes in general morals, and particularly in the virtue of chastity, which is held On in high estimation by them, while the Jewesses in other parts of Persia (as we are told by Mr. Wolff, who draws the comparison) are a very dissolute class. In their toleration of Christianity they excel any other Jews that I have seen; and, on the principles already advanced, we might reasonably look for this in the posterity of the ten tribes. They not only gladly receive the Scriptures of the Old Testament at our hands, and enter with a degree of seriousness into discussions of the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to the Messiahship, but some of them have come to us with no other errand than to obtain the New Testament in Hebrew, that they might examine for themselves this all-important subject. And when we have been obliged to defer their request till we could obtain copies from Constantinople or Smyrna, they have gone away expressing deep sorrow. one occasion I lent two of them a copy of the Hebrew New Testament, telling them they might return it within a certain time. They accordingly brought it back, but with the petition that they might retain it still longer, as they wished to read it more thoroughly. Like the Jews in other parts of the world, they have been looking for the Messiah to make his appearance the present year (1840), and this may have led them to more serious reflection on the subject. Some of them have avowed their belief that the Messiah had already come, but with this singular explanation: that he had come and remained eight days, when he was circumcised, and received back again into heaven, whence he would soon come to reign on the earth, and gather together the remnant of Israel and the dispersed of Judah to reign with him at Jerusalem. Others have said that the Messiah had come, and afterward, as if afraid they had said too much, have explained it away by saying that our Messiah had come, but not theirs. It would seem, from these incidents, that they are beginning to question the principles of their unbelief, and to entertain fears lest they are rejecting the only Saviour. In this state of mind, they meet with a great stumbling-block in the conduct and principles of professing Christians about them. They have repeatedly asked how it is that these Chris |