Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/41

 in fact the following words in a lesson of the nocturnal service:—

In the same Chaldean service for St. Thomas's day, is found the following anthem:—

"The Indians, the Chinese, the Persians, and the other insular people (cæteri insulani ), offer their adorations to your holy name in commemoration of St. Thomas."

The Chaldee breviary of the church of Malabar does not certainly afford any proof that St. Thomas was ever in China; but it confirms, at least, the opinion that the most distant Oriental churches regard him as their founder. The Christians of India, Persia, and Bactriana could then freely enter the Celestial Empire, and carry thither the evangelical light that had come to them from the West; and whilst St. Thomas was preaching in the India of the Ganges, and St. Bartholomew in Ethiopia and Arabia Felix, the shock of the Christian revolution