Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/247

Rh writers, Thaddeus, one of the seventy, was sent into Mesopotamia, and preached in the land of Shinar; where he established three hundred and sixty churches, and died in a city called Badaraja. Thomas, the apostle, however, is celebrated by the eastern Christians, as having been the first to preach the Gospel in India: all the Syrian churches in Malabar claim him as their founder, and his sepulchre is shewn on the Coromandel coast to this day.

Considering the extent, population, and civilization of China, it can hardly be supposed that so important a region was entirely neglected by the first propagators of the Gospel; and Assemannus assures us, that Thomas, the apostle, having done much for the establishment of the Christian faith in India, passed over to a country on the east, called China; where he preached the Gospel and founded a church, in the city of Cambalu (Peking): after which he returned to Malabar. In the Chaldee ritual, there is an office for the celebration of St. Thomas, which says, that "by him the Persians, Hindoos, and Chinese were converted to the Christian faith."

In confirmation of this tradition, it may be observed, that according to Chinese history, a very early intercourse subsisted between China and the west. Arabia and Judea are called in the native books, Ta-tsin; and Pan-chaou, a Chinese general, who flourished before the close of the first century, is said to have extended his conquests as far as Ta-tsin. It is also related, that in that early age, a veneration for the cross existed in China; while the famous Kwan Yun-chang, has left in writing an account of the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of a Saviour, which must