Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/89

77 QUOTATIONS FKOM CHINESE WRITERS. 77 in the Central Empire.' During the years Thien-Tchun (1457 — 14G4), the strangers from Thsin repaired it." These last words, from the Imperial Geography, are worthy of remark, for they prove that in the fifteenth century, there were still Christians in China, enjoying freedom enough to be able to repair the monument that had been raised by the faith of their fathers in the seventh. We might, if we pleased, indeed, contest the au- thority of the authors just quoted, and insinuate that the new edition of the Imperial Geography was revised and corrected under the influence of the Jesuits, who were powerful enough, and skilful enough, to deceive the learned, lull to sleep their jealousy, and induce them to print, in an important and official work, details of their own invention. All the passages favourable to the inscription which are to be found in the modern works of Chinese authors, may be put down at once to the account of the Jesuits, and so go for nothing. But here again we have a very well known Chinese author, Min-Khieou, who wrote under the dynasty of Song, in 1060, and who, according to all probability, had not at that period experienced the influence of the Jesuits. He expresses himself thus in his work entitled " Description of Si-ngan-Fou " : — "In the street of Justice (T-Ning) may be seen the temple of Po-Sse-Sse. It was built in the twelfth year of the period of Tching-Kouan (638) by order of the Emperor Tai-Tsoung, in favour of O-lo-Sse (Olopen) a religious stranger from the kingdom of Ta-Thsin." The same work says again: — "There was formerly at Si-ngan-Fou, eastward of the street of the Sweet Spring (Li-Kuen), a temple of Po-Sse (of Persia). In the