Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/359

JEAN DE MONTE CORVINO. 317 by a bishop at Pekin, and that they exercised consider- able influence over the numerous population. Unfor- tunately, however, this influence was often abused, and their conduct was little in harmony with that modera- tion and charity prescribed by the Gospel. They in- variably tormented and oppressed all Christians who did not agree with the errors of their own sect, and viewed with jealousy the success of the Catholic mis- sionaries ; it having even been said that they would have preferred seeing the souls they pretended to save lost altogether, than let them owe their salvation to the assistance of others: to so great an extent may the most ardent zeal be perverted by pride and fanaticism. It was in the midst of these unworthy brethren that Jean de Monte Corvino was compelled to reside for several years. Sent on a mission to Tartary in 1289, he crossed the Indies, and after great fatigue arrived at the court of the great Khan, then fixed at Pekin, or, as it was then called, Khanbalik (royal residence). He set to work with indefatigable ardour at the task of converting both grandees and people, and, after the example of the great apostle, he was all things to all men that he might gain all men to Jesus Christ. The Nestorians, however, could not see without jealous}' so persevering a zeal. They endeavoured to calumniate him and to turn his friends from him, to rob him of all protection, and to compel him, by persecutions and by throwing obstacles in his way, to renounce his apostle- ship. They accused him now of being a spy, then a robber and an assassin ; but though they carried their hostility to the utmost pitch, it was easy for this vir- tuous missionary to prove his innocence, and his calum- niators did not go unpunished ; for the emperor, be-