Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/45

Rh the religions of Asia, were in continual juxtaposition, it is surely not difficult to imagine that the latter may have borrowed much from the Jews and Christians. In observing the various phases of the propagation of the faith in the East, it will be easy for us to show that they actually did so, and that the real fact is that Buddhism, by adorning itself with some Christian truths, has been able for many centuries to delude a countless multitude of people. Men do not seek error instinctively; on the contrary, they have a horror of it, — and when it succeeds easily in deluding them, it is because it presents itself to them under the guise of truth.

From the various evidence we have collected, it may be considered certain, that in the time of the preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles, evangelical truth was announced by St. Thomas to the nations of India. It is equally beyond a doubt that the propagation of the faith went on rapidly among all the nations of the East, if not by the preaching of the apostle himself, at least by that of his disciples,—for there were at that time such relations between the Chinese, the Indians, and the people of the West, that the former could hardly have remained ignorant of the wonderful events which had occurred at Bethlehem and Calvary, or of the miraculous resurrection of the Lord.

Be the apostleship of St. Thomas in India admitted or not, it is certain that the good tidings of the coming of the Messiah and the redemption of men, were, from the very commencement of Christianity, made known in Upper Asia. AVe shall see apostles and missionaries from age to age braving the perils and fatigues of the longest and most dangerous journeys, to carry over land and sea the words of eternal life. Opportunities VOL. I.