ages occur on the famous Nestorian tablet,
dated A.D. 781, which eulogizes the propagation of the "Illustrious
[Christian] Religion" in China. This tablet was discovered by the Jesuit
fathers in 1625 and, after its authenticity had been violently assailed,
Wylie's painstaking researches have now vindicated its genuineness.(87)
The following extracts are from the preface engraved upon it and composed
by King-tsing, a priest of the Syrian Church: "... Our eternal, true lord
God.... He appointed the cross as the means of determining the four
cardinal points, he moved the original spirit and produced the two
principles of nature; the sombre void was changed and heaven and earth
were opened out; the sun and moon revolved and day and night commenced;
having perfected all inferior objects, he then made the first man ... the
illustrious and honorable Messiah, veiling his true dignity, appeared in
the world as a man ... a bright star announced the felicitous event [of
his birth] ... he fixed the extent of the eight boundaries.... As a seal
[his disciples] hold the cross, whose influence is reflected in every
direction uniting all without distinction. As they strike the wood the
fame of their benevolence is diffused abroad; worshipping towards the east
they hasten on the way to life and glory ... they do not keep slaves, but
put noble and mean all on an equality; they do not amass wealth but cast
all their property into the common stock."

Referring the matter to oriental scholars for further discussion I merely
note here the astonishing fact that in China, in the seventh century of
our era, the supreme God of the Hebrews and Christians was spoken of as
the God of Heaven, or Heaven, that He is credited with having created the
two principles of nature besides heaven and earth and instituted the cross
as "a means of determining the cardinal points."

It is likewise strange to find the "Heen or Toen foreigners" credited in a
sixteenth-century native cyclopaedia, with having introduced into China a
system of astronomy denominated the "Four Heavens," and obviously based on
a quadruplicate division of the Heaven similar to the division of the
empire instituted by Yaou (Wylie, Israelites in China, _op. cit._ p. 19).

The current Chinese name for Christians has been "Cross-worshippers," and
it is odd to note that the ancient Chinese seem to have regarded the
symbolism of the Christian cross as closely identical with that of their
swasti