suspicious; and I might as well have endeavored to "lift" the Rosetta Stone out of the British Museum, or take the Moabite Stone from the Louvre, as to carry away the Chingchiaopei from Sian.
I shall not dwell here on the almost insurmountable difficulties the officials and even some of the foreign missionaries laid in my way when I decided to confine my efforts to obtain and carry home to Europe or America a replica of the venerable tablet. Suffice it to say that both the local, the transport and eventually the customs difficulties were all overcome in due course, and after eleven months on Chinese soil I was able to leave Shanghai on the last day of February, 1908, bound for New York.
The original Nestorian tablet of A. D. 781, as well as my replica, made in 1907, are both carved from the stone quarries of
THE CROSS ON THE NESTORIAN STONE.
It is believed to be a copy from memory of the Roman papal cross of the sixth century.
Fu Ping Hsien; the material is a black, sub-granular limestone with small oolites scattered through it, probably dating from the Carboniferous formation of some 15 or 20 millions of years ago.
This replica is one of the most beautiful pieces of Chinese workmanship I have ever seen. In the first place there is not a measure, not a character, not a detail that differs from the original tablet— even the weight is the same. In the second place this piece of art was executed by four native stone-cutters in eleven days, including polishing, after the huge slab had been brought from the Fuping quarries to Sian. In the third place the Chinese artisans have been able to accomplish the miracle of carving the cross and chiseling the Syriac characters, which they did of course not know, to absolute perfection.
