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Christians' career history ceases to furnish even the meagre indications hitherto available. With a substantial measure of imperial aid and without any specially powerful rivals, the Nestorians had a fair opportunity of winning a large congregation in China. But they made no permanent mark. Like the Jews they gradually lost their religious vitality and finally perished by absorption into their surroundings. It has been suggested that the spread of Islamism in Asia severed them from intercourse with the mother church and deprived them of its aid so that inanition overtook them. The explanation seems totally inadequate. Christianity cannot be supposed to draw its life blood entirely or even mainly from human sources. Under the Tang dynasty the Nestorians attained a degree of prosperity evidently independent of any assistance or encouragement given by the home church, and moreover it does not appear from history that they lacked either protection or favour under the Khans of Asia. For in 1253, when Friar Rubruk, despatched by Louis XI. of France, reached the camp of Sartaeh, he found there high in authority a Nestorian monk, Cojat; and when the same envoy subsequently made his way to the court of the Grand Khan, Mangu, he had to undergo examination by Nestorian priests before being admitted to audience. Is it necessary to conclude that the Nestorians gradually fell away from their faith, and like their fellow-residents, the Jews,