Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/239

227 rubruk's description of the nestortans. 227 mingled together confusedly among these populous hordes, that of Buddhism was in the ascendant. Chris- tianity, being represented only by the ignorant and immoral Nestorians, could hardly make any great im- pression; and their bishops visited the different dis- tricts only at very long intervals, and when they came were, as we have said, so liberal in their bestowal of the dignity of the priesthood as to confer it even on children in their cradles, so that all the men laid claim to the sacerdotal character. The Mongol nobles con- fided the education of their children to these men, and they certainly taught their pupils the principal articles of the Christian creed, and thus it was not difficult to make it appear that they were converting the whole nation ; but their bad conduct and their insatiable avarice counteracted any good effect that might have resulted from their teaching. " The Nestorians," says Rubruk, " do possess the Holy Scriptures in the Syriac tongue, but they scarcely understand anything of them. They chant like our ignorant monks who do not know Latin, and thence it comes that they are mostly corrupt and wicked, and especially great usurers and drunkards." * On the day when the Franciscan missionaries arrived at the residence of Mangou-Khan, Rubruk remarked, not far from the imperial palace, a building surmounted by a cross. " Then," he says, " I was overwhelmed with joy, thinking that I had got to a Christian place, and I entered the building with confidence and found a magnificent altar. The figures of the Saviour, the Holy Virgin, St. John the Baptist, were embroidered in gold, and the two angels had their garments adorned with J o Q 2
 * Bergeron, p. 117.