year 498, the sect had so multiplied,
as to have the appointment of the Archbishop of Seleucia and
Ctesiphon, who then declared himself Patriarch of the East.

"This sect continued to flourish, though occasionally persecuted,
under the Persians, the Saracens, and the Tartars. They had
celebrated schools for theology and general education. For centuries
they maintained missions in Tartary, China, and other eastern
regions. Their churches were scattered from Syria and Cyprus to
Pekin, and from the coast of Malabar and Ceylon to the borders of
Siberia. Early in the eleventh century, Unkh Khan, a Tartar prince
on the northern borders of China, invited Nestorian missionaries
among his people, and himself became the famous Prester John. Gengis
Khan and several of his sons and grandsons, who conquered China and
almost all Asia and a part of Europe, were connected with Prester
John by marriage. Several of them had Christian wives, and one of
them at least professed himself a Christian. Under some of this
dynasty, Central Asia was comparatively a civilized country; and
Christian travellers passed with safety from the banks of the
Euphrates to Samarcand and Pekin. Some of the Chinese emperors
favored Christianity, and ordered the erection of numerous churches.
Meanwhile the sword of Moslem fanaticism was advancing eastward.
Bagdad fell before it, and all the country on the Euphrates; then
Persia, then Cabul, and the regions of the north. The Nestorian
Church being thus crushed at home, its missions languished. And
finally, about the year 1400, Tamerlane, who has been called 'the
greatest of conquerors,' swept like a whirlwind over the remains of
Nestorian Christianity, prostrating everything in his course."1

1 Tracey's _History_, p. 312. See also _Missionary Herald_ for 1838,
pp. 289-298. Narses on being expelled from Edessa, opened a school
at Nisibis, A. D. 490, which became celebrated. About the same time,
Acacius, also from Edessa, established a school at Seleucia. It was
revived in 530, and was in existence as late as 605. A school was
established at Dorkena, A. D. 585. At Bagdad were two schools in
832, and two others were in its neighborhood. Schools existed at
Terhana, Mahuza, Maraga, and Adiabene, in Assyria, and at Maraga, in
Aderbijan. There were also schools in Elam, Persia, Korassan, and
Arabia. The school at Nisibis had a three years' course of study.
The studies to a great extent were theological; but to the st