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the conversion of the Khan, adding to his prayer a warning of the terrible consequences of unbelief. It need scarcely be said that Rubruk and his companions made no converts.

It will be observed that neither Giovanni Carpini nor William Rubruk reached China. They made no effort to do so; though, had they won favour with the Tartars, who then governed the Middle Kingdom as well as the greater part of Asia, they would probably have opened a route for propagandism in the Far East. The first of the friars that found his way to China (1292 A.D.) was John of Montecorvino, sent by Nicholas IV. In spite of Nestorian opposition Corvino, kindly received by the great and magnanimous Kublai Khan, obtained permission to build in Peking (Cambaluc) a church which "had a steeple and a belfry with three bells that were rung every hour to summon the new converts to prayer." But the "new converts" were not at the outset very numerous. For fifteen years the friar worked alone and at first with little success, after which the Pope (Clement V.) appointed him archbishop and sent him seven suffragan bishops to aid him. Before these assistants joined him he had baptised six thousand persons. He had done something else, too: he had "bought one hundred and fifty children whom he instructed in Greek and Latin and composed for them several devotional books." Thus, at the very outset of Roman Catholic propagandism in China there was inaugurated a