Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/305

293 DEATH OF ABAGA. 293 Oigour monk, named Barsuma, the companion of Jaballaha, was made a bishop in his own country. All these facts are related to show that if the Nesto- rian Christians did succeed in rendering themselves po- pular among the Tartars, it was much at the expense of their dignity and independence. They did not so much convert these barbarous hordes, as submit to their yoke, and the servile condition into which the Nestorian bishops had fallen is obvious from their having been willing, at a word from a Tartar prince, to place an Oigour monk at the head of their church. If the Franciscans had fewer proselytes, it may be because they were more tenacious of the purity of their doctrines and the integrity of their characters. Abaga was just preparing to undertake a new war against the Mussulmans, when he perished by poison, in the year 1282. The poison was said to have been ad- mistered to him by a Mussulman at a banquet, of which he partook, after having celebrated Easter with the Christians. Tagoudar, his brother and successor, was at first the friend, but afterwards the bitter enemy, of Christianity. This prince had been baptized in his youth, under the name of Nicholas, and on his first accession to the throne he showed such favour to the Christians and their reli- gion as to build a great number of churches in Assyria and Mesopotamia ; and he published throughout his empire an edict, by which he exempted from taxes and tributes all monasteries, monks and bishops. But this gracious disposition was of brief duration. He became a Mussulman, took the name of Ahmed and the title of Sultan, and then persecuted the Christians and destroyed their churches. v 3