Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/169

157 RELIGION OF THE MONGOLS. 157 fundamental belief they did not add any very precise accessory or many superstitious practices. In their mode of life and faith, says Frere Ricold in his naive Peregrination, " they differ from all the nations in the world ; for they do not boast of having any law warranted by God, as many other nations falsely do, but simply by some instinct or movement of nature, say that there is something sovereign above all the things of this world, and that that is God.* Rubruk, Piano Carpini, Marco Polo, and all other tra- vellers, speak of the Tartars in this respect in the same manner. Abul Ghazy reports that the pure adoration of one God prevailed in Tartary for the first generations after Japhet ; that it ceased with the birth of Oghuz, who, however, re-established it in his dominion ; that Tchinguiz-Khan was atheist, and that in a conversation with some Mahommedan doctors, he agreed that their arguments in favour of the existence and attributes of the Divinity could not be refuted, but that he contested the truth of their prophet's mission. In giving laws to the Mongols, he had purposely contented himself with establishing in their minds the basis of all legislation, leaving to time and locality to add what circumstances might render necessary. He appears to have feared that any decided creed might offer an obstacle to his conquests ; and the Mongols being, in fact, indifferent to all religions, were as ready to adopt one as another, and might be inclined to give themselves an additional claim to the submission of the nations they conquered, by an ostensible conversion.
 * " Histoire Genealogique des Tartares," vol. i. p. 51.