Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/271

259 THE FORTY-NINE MARTYRS OF SANDOMIR. 259 an infamous adultery, since Christian persons cannot unite themselves in the Lord with pagans." Such were the expostulations by which the Pope deavoured to deter Bela from the proposed alliance. In conclusion he excuses himself for not being able to send, according to the king's request, a body of a thousand armed men, but promises a liberal concession of indulgences for a crusade against the Tartars. Alexander IV. could not, in fact, offer Bela anything more than the expression of his sincere sympathy, which was not very efficacious against an invasion of Mongol hordes. Fortunately for Hungary, Bela found better help in an alliance with Bohemia, who also had at this time to look about for the means of defence, and more fortunately still, Bereka, after having ravaged Poland, thought proper to turn his arms in the direction of Persia. The cruelties perpetrated by the Tartars in Poland should not be entirely passed over, since they served to give martyrs to the Church, and to the faithful, beautiful examples of Christian fortitude. At the time of the second irruption of the Tartars in 1260, Sadoc, whom St. Dominic had sent into Hungary to preach Jesus Christ, was governing a pious colony of brethren at Sandomir, and Fontana relates* that the glorious trial reserved for these Dominicans was thus revealed to them. On the evening before the day of their martyrdom, the novice who was reading to the monks in the refectory from the martyrolog} 7, suddenly saw in the book, written in letters of gold, these words, " At Sandomir the deaths of forty-nine martyrs." At first he felt uncertain whether he ought to read the Monumenta Dominicana, ann. 1260. s 2