Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/364

352 352 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC but for the calumnies of which I have spoken, the fruit of my labours would have been very abundant, and if I could have been assisted by two or three companions, the emperor himself might perhaps have been baptized. " I have not for twelve }^ears received any intelligence either from the court of Rome, or from our own order, and I am entirely ignorant of the state of affairs in the West. I entreat the minister-general of our order, to send me a Antiphonary, a list of the saints, a Gradual and a written Psalter, for a model, as at present I am only provided with a portable breviary containing the short lessons, and a small missal. If I had but one copy, the boys could transcribe it. I am building a second church, in order to divide these boys. I have learnt to read and write in the Tartar language, and have translated into that tongue the whole of the New Testament and the Psalter, which I have had written in very beautiful Tartar characters ; and finally I read, write, and preach publicly the law of Jesus Christ. I had arranged with the King George to have translated, if he had lived, the whole of the Latin ritual, in order that the praises of the Lord might have been chanted everywhere in his dominions. During his lifetime, I was in the habit of celebrating the holy sacrifice of the mass, in his church, according to the Latin ritual. The son of the King George has been named John, in consequence of it being my name, and I sincerely hope that with the help of God he will follow in the footsteps of his father." What zeal for the glory of God, and for the salvation of souls, and, at the same time, what energy is exhibited in the conduct of these wonderful men, to induce them to live thus at the extremity of the world, in the midst