The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. 25: From January to October, 1900 (Classic Reprint) - Paperback

Excerpt from The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. 25: From January to October, 1900
The second letter, dated from St. Peter's, but on April 12, bears the inscription: To our very dear son in Jesus Christ, Kublai, Great Khan, Emperor and Moderator of all the Tartars, health and the apostolic benediction. Supposing the ambassador's story to be true and that he was a Christian, the Holy Father instructs him in the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption, and upon the mission and divine authority of St. Peter and his successors to govern the universal Church and to lead into it all the peoples of the earth. He praises him - if the account of his conversion be true for his excellence and wisdom as a leader of his people, and urges him to cherish and cause to fructify in himself the wonderful grace thus received from on high. In conclusion, he recommends to him the five missionaries whom he sends in compliance with his request to instruct him more deeply in the Christian religion.
All these remarkable facts of history would seem to place beyond question the kindly feelings of Kublai towards the Christians; but it is not so clearly established that he was himself baptized. And even in his letter to Kublai, Nicholas III. Is careful to preface his eulogiums with the words if it be true, or if this be so, seeming to imply that he is not certain of the truth of the report, but rather hopes that it may indeed be true.
But this favorable disposition upon the part of the great Khan and his subordinates towards the Holy See afforded an excellent opportunity for zealous missionaries to penetrate into the immense camps of the warlike Tartars, and their labors bore abundant fruits in conversions to the faith. Other Franciscan missionaries con verted so large a number of the Tartars upon the frontiers of Hun gary that Nicholas III. Ordered Philip, Bishop of Fermo, his Apos tolic Legate in that portion of the North, to establish a bishop upon those frontiers in order to care properly for these newly converted people.
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