Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/270

258 258 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. it was because that help was no longer necessary, since the Tartars had then evacuated your territories. You add that not having it in your power to resist such powerful enemies, you would be compelled, should you not receive any assistance from the Holy See (though groaning over the necessity), to enter into a treaty of alliance with them, and that they had even pressed you to do so, offering a daughter of a Tartar prince in marriage to your son — or a son of theirs to your daughter, according to your choice." Then passing in review the other conditions offered to Bela by the Mongols, Alexander goes on to declare that a king of Hungary, or any Christian king, should be ashamed to hold on conditions so humiliating, not only all the kingdoms of the world, but even his life, or that of his family. " Turn with horror, my son," cries the pontiff, "from the thought of clouding the splend our of your titles with shame, and staining with perpetual ignominy the beauty of your reign. To what infamy would not a prince expose himself who should break with the whole body of the faithful to connect himself with pagan nations, and march with them against Christian sove- reigns and their subjects? What trust also could he place in the duration of an alliance which would, instead of securing his safety, at the utmost only retard his ruin ? Is it not well known that the Tartars have seduced many nations by insidious treaties, and that as they hold not the true faith, no account is to be made of their oaths. The union of a Hungarian princess with the son of Bereka, or the daughter of the latter with a Hungarian prince, would not be a marriage, but