His splendid palace stood in the midst of lovely gardens in
the great city of Chang-an,--that old, old city that for over two
thousand years was the capital of China, and which you can now
find in your geographies under its modern name of Singan-foo. And
in the year 635, when our story opens, the name of Tai-tsung was
great and powerful throughout the length and breadth of Chung
Kwoh--the "Middle Kingdom," as the Chinese for nearly thirty
centuries have called their vast country--while the stories of
his fame and power had reached to the western courts of India and
of Persia, of Constantinople, and even of distant Rome.
It was a time of darkness and strife in Europe. Already what
historians have called the Dark Ages had settled upon the
Christian world. And among all the races of men the only nation
that was civilized, and learned, and cultivated, and refined in
this seventh century of the Christian era, was this far eastern
Empire of China, where schools and learning flourished, and arts
and manufactures abounded, when America was as yet undiscovered
and Europe was sunk in degradation.
And here, since the year 505, the Nestorians, a branch of the
Christian Church, originating in Asia Minor in the fifth century,
and often called "the Protestants of the East," had been
spreading the story of the life and love of Christ.
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