n allowed the pope to introduce Christianity to the Tartar
territories bordering on the Black Sea. Tchanibek, the oldest son of
Usbeck, upon the death of his father, assassinated his brothers, and
thus attained the supreme authority. He was a zealous Mohammedan, and
commenced his reign by commanding all the princes of the
principalities of Russia to hasten to the horde and prostrate
themselves, in token of homage, before his throne. The least delay
would subject the offender to confiscation and death. Simeon was one
of the first to do homage to the new khan. He was received with great
favor, and dismissed confirmed in all his privileges.

In the year 1346, one of the most desolating plagues recorded in
history, commenced its ravages in China, and swept over all Asia and
nearly all Europe. The disease is recorded in the ancient annals under
the name of Black Death. Thirteen millions of the population were, in
the course of a few months, swept into the grave. Entire cities were
depopulated, and the dead by thousands lay unburied. The pestilence
swept with terrible fury the encampments of the Tartars, and weakened
that despotic power beyond all recovery. But one third of the
population of the principalities of Pskof and of Novgorod were left
living. At London fifty thousand were interred in a single cemetery.
The disease commenced with swellings on the fleshy parts of the body,
a violent spitting of blood ensued, which was followed by death the
second or third day.

It is impossible, according to the ancient annalists, to imagine a
spectacle so terrible. Young and old, fathers and children, were buried
in the same grave. Entire families disappeared in a day. Each curate
found, every morning, thirty dead bodies, often more, in his church.
Greedy men at first offered their services to the dying, hoping to
obtain their estates, but when it was found that the disease was
communicated by touch, even the most wealthy could obtain no aid. The
son fled from the father. The brother avoided the brother. Still there
were not a few examples of the most generous and self-sacrificing
devotion. Medical skill was of no avail whatever, and the churches were
thronged with the multitudes who, in the midst of the dying and the
dead, were crying to God for aid. Multitudes in their terror bequeathed
all their property to the church, and sought refuge in the monasteries.
It truth, it appeared as if Heaven had pronounced the sentence of
immedia