Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/214

202 202 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. dour of his robes ; and having seated at his right hand a queen of the same indescribable loveliness and glory. The celestial king exhorted the Tartar to embrace the Christian faith ; and accordingly, as soon as he had made his way back to his people, and related what he had seen, he did so. Both Raynald* and Joinville repeat this story, and it certainly agrees very well with the statement made by the Constable of Armenia to Henry de Lusignan, King of Cyprus — that Jesus Christ mani- fested himself in Tartary by many miracles. Mosheim j* appends to it the following remark : — " Every reasonable person must see that this ridiculous adventure was invented by the monks, King Louis's ambassadors. This is evident from their representing the Virgin Mar}' as the Queen of Heaven, — which certainly Jesus Christ never declared her to be. They would have been wiser to place her simply among the saints, if they wished to gain credit for their story." Mosheim is a Protestant writer, but that is no reason for agreeing in his absolute rejection of this miracle, merely on the ground that Jesus Christ did not declare the Holy Virgin Queen of Heaven. The worthy monks related in all simplicity what they heard ; and they could not well foresee, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, that three hundred years afterwards Luther would aim to reform the Church, and protest against the Catholic faith. The simple narrative of the ambas- sadors of St. Louis may appear, to some, less ridiculous than the refutation of Mosheim, — an erudite historian, however, though over-sharp in his strictures upon Catholics.
 * Odor Raynald, " Annates," vol. 13. No, 39. p. 588.
 * JMosheim, p. 53.