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and was received on the western border of China by the Emperor's prime minister, sent specially for the purpose, from which fact it may be inferred that the sovereign had already been influenced in favour of the Occidental faith. Thereafter the Bible was translated by the imperial librarians, and the Emperor having read it, issued an edict—the original of which was found by Mr. Alexander Wylie in 1855—extolling the principles of the new religion as "purely excellent and natural," directing that it be proclaimed throughout the Empire, and ordering that a Syrian church be built in the capital (Chang-an), where twenty-one priests were to officiate, a portrait of the Emperor himself being placed in the church. Still greater favour was shown to the Nestorians by the succeeding sovereign. It is recorded that he "caused illustrious churches to be erected in every province" and that the Christian doctrine "pervaded every channel." But towards the close of the seventh century, under the rule of the celebrated Empress Wu, Buddhism and Nestorian Christianity came into collision, as was not unnatural, and Buddhism triumphed. This episode is dismissed with a very brief reference in the inscription on the tablet, and history is altogether silent about it. Yet there can be no doubt that the Nestorian Church was partially destroyed in Loh-yang—whither the capital had been removed from Chang-an—and that for a time Christianity