Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/396

384 384 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. sound had an ill omen, and provoked calamities of every kind ; and the Christians were therefore strictly forbid- den to ring them. These and similar vexations were intended to effect the destruction of Christianity in that country ; and William Adam, a Dominican monk who had been residing as a missionary in Persia, came to Avignon, where he related to the Pope, John XXII. , the tribulations of the Christians living under the govern- ment of the Eastern Tartars. He added that Usbeck was not personally hostile to Christianity, though he had yielded to the influence of the Mussulmans, but that hopes might be even entertained of seeing him embrace the gospel. The sovereign pontiff, desirous of favouring these good inclinations, wrote to him in 1318, ex- horting him to become a Christian, and to suppress the edicts against the liberty of worship; above all, he besought him, with the most earnest entreaties, to per- mit the Christians to assemble in their churches at the sound of the bell. In the same year John XXII. erected the city of Soul- taniye, in Persia, into an archiepiscopal see. Kharbende- Khan had founded this city in 1305, in the midst of the smiling meadows of Councour ; his father, Argoun, had conceived the project, but death had prevented its execution, and it was now accomplished by Kharbende. In a short time there was seen arising, as if by en- chantment, a magnificent city, which received the name of Soultaniye. It had several mosques, the principal of which was built at the expense of the Sultan, and richly adorned with marble and painted porcelain. The nobles vied with each other in building fine mansions; a whole quarter, containing a thousand houses, was con-