Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/208

196 196 CHKISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. at present reigning, lias been dead these five years. But the lords and barons of Tartary are scattered so widely apart, that during these five years they have not been able to assemble to crown their emperor ; for some were in the Indies, some in China and other countries. " We found a great number of Christians scattered about the East, and many ancient churches, lofty and well built, which the Tartars had destroyed, though the Christians went to the Khan, who received them with great honour, set them at liberty, and forbid, under the severest penalties, that any one should offend them by word or deed. And since for our sins it happened that there was no one who could preach the faith of Jesus Christ, he has been pleased to make himself manifest here by many miracles, so that now all these people believe in him. " But in the country of the Indies, where the blessed apostle St. Thomas preached, and made converts, there is still a Christian king, who was much oppressed by the Saracen kings, his neighbours, who were continually making war upon him, until when the Tartars came into these countries and he put himself under their command, and joining his arms to theirs, did attack, and so entirely defeat the Saracens his enemies, that he conquered a great part of India ; and at the present day this country is full of Mahometan slaves, for I have myself seen more than five thousand of them whom this king had taken and sold by public auction. " You must know also that his Holiness has sent ambassadors to the Grand Khan, to know whether he was a Christian or not, and why he sent out his armies for the ruin and destruction of the world; but the Khan made answer, that God had commanded his ancestors and him to do so, — to send out his men of war to exterminate all wicked and perverse nations ; and as to the question wdiether he was a Christian or not, he answered that God knew, and that if the Pope wished to know, he must come and see." Such is the narrative of the Constable of Armenia, and it agrees very well with the letter of Iitchikadai as to what concerns the good disposition of the Grand Khan towards the Christians. Between the Emperor of the Tartars and the French king there was certainly in so far a community of interest, that they were both