Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/84

72 72 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC " Even that would not be all, for the borders of the inscription are covered with Syrian names in fine estranghelo characters. The forgers must then have been not only acquainted with these characters, but have been able to get engraved with perfect exactness ninety lines of them, and in the ancient writing, known at present to very few." " This argument of Remusat's," says another learned Orientalist, M. Felix: Neve*, " is of irresistible force, and we have formerly heard a similar one maintained with the greatest confidence by M. Quatremere, of the Aca- demy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, and we allow ourselves to quote the opinion of so highly qualified a judge upon this point. Before the last century it would have been absolutely impossible to forge in Europe a series of names and titles belonging to a Christian nation of Western Asia ; it is only since the fruits of Assemani's labours have been made public by his family at Rome, that there has existed a sufficient knowledge of the Syriac for such a purpose ; and it is only by the publication of the manuscripts of the Vatican, that the extent to which Nestorianism spread in the centre of Asia, and the influence of its hierarchy in the Persian provinces, could have been estimated. There is no reason to suppose that missionaries who left Europe in the very beginning of the seventeenth century could have acquired a knowledge which could only be obtained from reading the originals, and not vague accounts of them." The sagacity of M. Saint Martin, who was for a long time the colleague of M. Quatremere, has pointed out,
 * "Revuo Catholique de Louvain," Nov. 1846.