Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/164

152 152 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. our days, is enough to break our bones, to dry up our marrow, to wither our flesh, destroy our strength, and fill us with such lively grief and anguish, that we are, so to speak, beside ourselves, and know not whither to turn." * For three years, Hungary remained one vast theatre of carnage and destruction. King Bela continued to implore the help of the sovereigns of Europe, but still in vain, though the Papacy used all its influence to ob- tain help for this unfortunate kingdom. Gregory IX. granted to those who should take arms in its defence, the same indulgence as if they had gone to the Holy Land. He wrote to Christian kings, princes, counts, magis- trates, archbishops, and bishops, ordering the latter to preach the crusade, to grant indulgences, to relieve from ecclesiastical censures, in a word, to employ all the means in their power to encourage the people to take up arms against the Tartars. In a letter addressed to Bela, he exhorts him to put his trust in the mercy of God, who, having hurled against his people this scourge of his wrath, provoked by the intolerable atrocity of their crimes, will not fail afterwards to let mercy and gentleness succeed to severity, and after having wielded the rod of chastisement, to hold out the hand of conso- lation. He urges the king to courage and fortitude, and promises to come to his assistance as soon as ever it shall be in his power. " If Frederick, who calls him- self Emperor," he continues, " would return with a humble and contrite heart to the obedience of the Church, she would be ready to make peace with him, which would tend to the glory of God, and the good of
 * Dlugoss, " Hist. Polon," lib. vii. p. 682.