Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/323

LETTER OE NICHOLAS IV. TO ARGOUN. 311 tainly reached Europe at the time when Zagan arrived there, was, no doubt, an obstacle to the realisation of the projects he came to forward. The loss of this im- portant place prevented the princes of the West from thinking further of these distant wars. The Popes alone still endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to renew them, and (singularly enough) they found, in the Tartar princes, auxiliaries as active, and more per- severing, than themselves. The Franks abandoned, perhaps culpably, an alliance which might have ruined the future prospects of Islamism, changed the destinies of Asia, and brought innumerable populations into the great Christian family. The Tartars, for some time, seemed earnestly bent on the very course that would have been so beneficial to Christianity and civilisation, and they showed incredible perseverance in renewing negotiations, and in forming a coalition against the Mussulmans ; but, unfortunately, they were only suffi- ciently seconded by the intelligent zeal of the papacy. In the answer of Nicholas IV, to the last letter of Argoun, the pontiff appears to reckon but little on the assistance of the King of England, while he brings for- ward the strongest motives to attract the Mongol prince towards Christianity. This important conquest, if it could have been effected, would have been quite equal in value to that of Palestine and the conversion of the Mongols following the crusades, and would have been the most important and happiest result of these expeditions, and of the connexions to which they had given birth. The Mongols, it is true, were not a people easy to convert ; always wavering between Christianity and Mahommedanism, they sought to conciliate the par- x 4