290 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. missionaries of the languages and customs of the nations they were commissioned to evangelise, must have opposed very formidable obstacles to their success. It may be conjectured, nevertheless, that their exer- tions were not altogether fruitless, for we hear that the provincial of the Franciscans established in Hungary wrote to the sovereign pontiff to beg him to send a bishop to Tartary, since " several of our brethren who reside amongst the Tartars, and preach the faith of Jesus Christ to them with zeal, have by divine grace, converted great numbers of them." * Pope Nicholas III., in consequence of this applica- tion desired Philip, Bishop of Firman, and Legate Apostolic, to consecrate a bishop to whom he should assign whatever revenues might be raised from those countries, and which would otherwise acrue to the Holy See. History has not recorded the name of the bishop sent, nor the results of his ministry ; but the necessity for creating episcopal sees, affords in itself a proof that Christianity must have made considerable progress in Upper Asia.
- " Quam plures fratres ejusdern ordinis inter Tartaros comrao-
rantur, qui fidera Christi gratiosis studiis annunciantes eisdem, multos ex eis ad fidem ipsam, divina co-operante gratia converterunt." — "Wadding, vol. v. p. 42.
