John; though when I went through his pasture lands no one knew anything of him save a few Nestorians."[1]
Friar William's unkind remarks about the Nestorians are not quite fair. It was not they who invented the legend. The true origin of it is to be found in the West, where it grew up out of vague reports of distant Oriental travel, and whence it was transported to the region inhabited by the Nestorians, who no doubt were glad to welcome so flattering a story and not reluctant to make the most of it.
Roman Catholicism was introduced into Tartary and China in the thirteenth century, when Pope Nicholas iv. sent John de Monte Corvino to the court of Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuen or Mongol dynasty in China. Cut off from communication with Europe, this missionary laboured till his death at the age of seventy-eight (a.d. 1307), and left behind him a translation of the whole New Testament and the Psalter in the language of the Tartars. There are existmg letters in which—if they are genuine—Kublai Khan requests the pope to send one hundred missionaries to his country. Troubles in the papacy at home put a stop to the promising missionary enterprise. In the sixteenth century the Jesuit mission to China projected by Xavier was carried out by Father Ricci, who established himself at Shacking and cleverly worked his way on to Pekin, founding missions by the way at Nauchang Fu, Suchow Fu, and Nanking Fu. He died in 1610. In 1631 Dominican and Franciscan missionaries arrived in China, and a bitter controversy with the Jesuits was the consequence. Trouble also came from the break-up of the Ming dynasty and the rise of the present Manchu power.
By the year 1637, the Jesuits had published 340 treatises on religion, philosophy, and mathematics in the Chinese language. These energetic servants of the Church and the papacy have been accused of being remarkably accommodating in adapting the beliefs and requirements of Christianity to Chinese ideas and customs. They even succeeded in winning over Chung-chi, who became the
- ↑ Hakinyt Soc, Second Series, iv., 1900.
