Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/52

 40 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. and the surrounding countries a great tree, and nu- merous populations had found shelter under its branches, which may very probably have extended even to China, since, according to the testimony of St. Ambrose, Bishop Musaeus had traversed almost all the country of the Seres." The Chinese of that time were less indifferent to matters of religion than they have been since, and it is scarcely probable that they should have remained quite uninterested in the great Christian movement then going on in the world, since they were in frequent com- munication with the neophytes of India, Persia, and Arabia; and that, moreover, the propagators of the faith had no difficulty in obtaining entrance into their empire, as it was then open to all foreigners. This assertion does not appear to us a mere hypothe- sis; for Arnobius, who lived in the third century, reckons the Chinese among the nations who had already received the Gospel. At a somewhat later period, namely in 585, under Justinian, the celebrated Egyptian traveller, Cosmas Indico'pleustes (that is to say, traveller in India), made many journeys in those countries ; and he reports, in his work, entitled " Christian Topography," that there were churches and priests, with a complete liturgy, in the island of Ceylon, on the coast of Malabar, and in the north-west of the peninsula of Hindostan.* This is that remote period, form certainly a very striking fact. At the present day it is there that the pomp of the hierarchy and liturgy of Buddhism is chiefly displayed ; but at that time it did not exist. If, therefore, there has been any imitation in the case, it is certainly not Christianity that has been the imitator.
 * These churches, priests, and liturgies in the north of India at