tains in fact the following words in a lesson of the nocturnal service:—
"By St. Thomas idolatrous delusion was dissipated in India.
"By St. Thomas the Chinese and Ethiopians were converted to the truth.
"By St. Thomas they received baptism, and believed and confessed the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
"By St. Thomas they have preserved the faith in one only God.
"By St. Thomas the splendours of a vivifying law have arisen over all India.
"By St. Thomas the kingdom of heaven has been extended even to China."
In the same Chaldean service for St. Thomas's day, is found the following anthem:—
"The Indians, the Chinese, the Persians, and the other insular people (cæteri insulani[1]), offer their adorations to your holy name in commemoration of St. Thomas."
The Chaldee breviary of the church of Malabar does not certainly afford any proof that St. Thomas was ever in China; but it confirms, at least, the opinion that the most distant Oriental churches regard him as their founder. The Christians of India, Persia, and Bactriana could then freely enter the Celestial Empire, and carry thither the evangelical light that had come to them from the West; and whilst St. Thomas was preaching in the India of the Ganges, and St. Bartholomew in Ethiopia and Arabia Felix, the shock of the Christian revolution
- ↑ This is quite an Oriental expression. The Bible speaks (Gen. x. 5.) of the "isles of the Gentiles," and we know that in the religious books of India, various parts of the world are regarded as so many islands, newly risen from the waters which separate them from each other, and on which they float like a ship or an aquatic plant.
