Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/74

62 62 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. Eloha, the Syriac name for God, identical in fact with the Hebrew words Elohah, Elohim ; in the succeeding columns an account of the creation of the world, the fall of man, through the seductions of Satan, and the subsequent general corruption of the human race ; the coming of Jesus Christ, expressed in terms which in- dicate the Nestorian opinions on the mystery of the Incarnation. After having given this dogmatic exposition, too, the inscription speaks of the arrival of the missionaries, their protection by the emperor, the progress of the Gospel, and the persecutions which the neophytes had to suffer. Such, then, is the early history of the propagation of the faith in China, and the brief outline of Christian doctrine contained in the inscription of Si-ngan-Fou. It must have been a striking circumstance certainly, to see a stone thus issuing unexpectedly from the bowels of the earth, in the midst of this ancient empire, to bear witness to the articles of the ancient Catholic faith — the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Redemption, Grace, ori- ginal Sin, Baptism, the sacrifice of the Mass, and even down to the tonsure of the priests. But who then were these devout men — these mis- sionaries scattered over the face of the vast empire of China ? AVhat is the distant country named in the in- scription as Ta~Thsin, whence Olopen and his successors set out to evangelise the innumerable disciples of Lao-tse, Buddlui, and Confucius ? These questions do not seem now quite as difficult to solve as they were at the time of the discovery of the monument. Many have supposed Ta-Thsin to be the Roman empire in general ; others, that it specially designated Judea ; and