Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/147

TARTAR INVASION OF GEORGIA. 135 and the help of his prayers, " in order to be able to fight the battles of the Lord." The Pope replied to Rhouzoudan and the Constable to animate their courage, and give them information of the plans of the Emperor Frederick for the approaching crusade.- He recommended that his letter should be publicly read, in order to excite the enthusiasm of the people, and induce them to enlist in the holy war. What a grand and beautiful mission was that of the Papacy in the Middle Ages, in the midst of the general confusion, in which so many young Christian nations were seeking to free themselves from their pagan insti- tutions ! To enlighten them with the torch of faith, to soften the asperity of their manners, to draw gently the worst vices from their hearts, and the most fatal errors from their intellects ; then to defend the weak against the strong, to struggle against tyrants and oppressors, to preach crusades, to call kings and nations to arms, to repulse the invasions of infidels and barbarians, such was the magnificent nart assigned to this marvellous in- stitution, which, even in a purely human point of view, has never had anything comparable to it in the world. The sovereign pontiff* was, at the same time, the teacher, protector, civiliser, in a word, the Father of the great Christian family, and from the most distant regions, nations had recourse to him for consolation, for en- couragement, for counsel. We shall shortly see him, with his anxious glances directed towards Central Asia, enrolling by turns soldiers and missionaries, to overcome the fierce Tartars, and then to convert them, and make them children of the Church and of God. The apparition of the Tartars in Georgia had been K 4