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The Nestorian probably said an idol-house; meaning one of the high towers usually erected near Chinese temples: and even this must have stood upon a very elevated situation, in an extensive plain, to be seen from so great a distance, perhaps of sixty miles. Of their Temples and Idols, and the Worship of their Gods.
Thomas the Nestorian had learned two valuable lessons in his much wandering about the earth, never to appear surprised, and always to be ready to act quickly. So, knowing nothing of the possible results of his action, but feeling that it could scarcely be worse than death from Tartar spears, he leaped back, as bidden.
The following more complete account of this superstition, has been deemed worthy of insertion. "These supposed Nestorian Christians were undoubtedly professors of the religion of the Dalai-Lama, who had several usages and ceremonies resembling corrupt Christianity. Like the Roman catholics, they had rosaries, containing 108 beads, and their prayer is, Hom-Mani-Pema- Hum.
A Mussulman once fell in with a pupil thus engaged, and having never before seen a Nestorian praying in secret, he stopped in silent wonder. The young man, on being asked what he was doing, commenced teaching the Mussulman how to pray, and so deeply interested him, that they kneeled down together, and the prayer was renewed in the Turkish language, that it might be intelligible to the stranger.
When, hundreds of years after, the Jesuit missionaries penetrated into this most exclusive of all the nations of the earth, they found near the palace at Chang-an the ruins of the Nestorian mission church, with the cross still standing, and, preserved through all the changes of dynasties, an abstract in Syriac characters of the Christian law, and with it the names of seventy-two attendant priests who had served the church established by O-lo-pun.
Every mosque in his dominions had a school attached to it by his order; and, as if his love of learning were superior even to his hereditary faith, he readily tolerated men of science who refused to yield to the bold pretensions of the Prophet. A Nestorian Christian presided over his schools, and directed the academical studies of his subjects.
And he acts in a similar manner on the great festivals of the Mahometans, Jews , and heathens; that Segomamber-khan, the great god of the idol, Mahomet, Moses, and Jesus, or whosoever is greatest in heaven, may be favourable to him; yet he made the best shew of liking to the Christian faith, but alleged that the ignorance of the Nestorian priests, and the great interest of the sorcerers among the people, hindered him from making a profession of Christianity.
Redmayne's silkworms were descended, through countless generations, from those historic eggs stolen by Nestorian pilgrims from China, and carried thence secretly in hollow canes to Constantinople some thirteen hundred years before.
The Pope sent a mission in search of him, as did also Louis IX. of France, some years later, but both missions were unsuccessful, though the small communities of Nestorian Christians, which they did find, served to keep up the belief in Europe that such a personage did exist somewhere in the East. He accordingly went thither, and penetrated to the court of the king, whom he calls Negus.
Each one had a place to fill among the instrumentalities employed by the Master to promote his kingdom in Persia. There was no waste in the breaking of those alabaster boxes of precious ointment. Nestorian parents looked on, to learn how to lay their children into the arms of Jesus, and become more Christ-like themselves.
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