Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-09-22
THE WORLD IN THE DAYS OF
MARCO POLO.

What was the state of the world Will,
the Polos were travelling? First let u,
glance at home. It is the long reign O
Henry III; Saint Louis is away on hi
first crusade, and the p~GstOureuE (somt
strange, perhaps misrepresented here
tics, possibly connected with pateTini
whom Marco so dislikesl were sweeping
across France, till the Regent Blanche
stamps them out much as NJ. Thier,
stamped out the Commune. That i,
from 1860 to 1859, while the brothers Nj.
colo and MaffeO were making their first
visit. Then, when along with Marco,
/ they again start from Acre, in 1877,
King LOuis-sO upright that he gave
nearly a quarter of France back to Hen
ry III, because he thought his father
had won it unfairly-had been dead
nearly a year, dead Of plague, on the
coast of Tunis; and our Prince Edward
had looked at his grave, and was push
ing on nndismayed to the Holy Land,
where the emissary of that old man
of the mountain, about whom
Pololbecomes liveier than usual, so near
ly succeeded in killing him. When the
three, after four years of travelling, at
last reach the Khan's court, Edward
has Just settled in Westminster, and
Philip the Hardy is putting to death his
able minister, Pierre d. la Brosso. And
when in 1895 sthe Venetian arrived
home, after an absence of nearly a quar-
ter of a century, war is Just beginning
between Philip the Fair and Edward l
about the same Guienne which gave so
much trouble a generation later.
In the far East the facilities for travel
Just then were exceptionally great. The
Eastern world was united under one
rule. ChinghiZ, early in the thirteenth
century, then his son kkonai, and now
his son Kublai, had so consolidated their
eOnquests that, as Colonel Yule express
es it, "nOt a dog might bark without
MOngol leave from the borders of Po-
land and the coast Of Cilicia to the Amur
and the Yellow Sea-" Hence, as long
before under the Roman empire, travel
ing was safe. Friars went abOut-tWo
Franciscans, John Of Plano Carpinia,
in Umbria (12t5), and The Frenchman,
William de Rubruquis Q249), had even
reached Cathay and the Khan's court
before the POIOs. The Mongol sOver-
eigns were intelligent, and not at all
prosecuting. The far East that at the
time was full of HISTORIAN Christians
that had bishops in several Chinese
towns: bat the Tartars would not re-
ceive Christianity from them any more
than the Saxons Wouldfrom the Britons:
a new mission, well followed up, might
have awaited; and this was what Kublai
wanted, but what the POIOs could not
obtain. Never has there been a more
lamentable failure than this in all Chris
tan history. The two brothers, with
whom Kublai was much pIeased-for
they were gentlemen as well as mer-
chants, and the first European gentle
not in orders, whom be had seem
sent back with a letter to the Pope,
praying for a staff of clergy to teach Ku-
blai's subjects. There Yves no Pope to
they could give the letter; the
cardinals were fighting about the cleo
ton; there disputes WaXed so warm
that one Of them, John de Toleto, Bish-
DID of Portus, proposes to have the roof
off, because" he said, "the in
iuences of the Spirit can not come freely
Dn us.D AT last they chose the Arch
Of Acre, a friend of the Poles,
who, however, could give them only
TWO Dominicans; and both these turned
back faint-hearted before they had pass
ed beyond Armenia. AS we have shown, |
their fear was groundless. The great
peace with the MOngOl successes had
iorced on nearly halfthe worlds popula-
ion wrought like that which the estab-
ishment Of the Roman empire had
brought about at the coming of our
Lord. Merchants could go everywhere;
could go everywhere. No wonder
he friendly or neutral MongOl idola-
.ers were highly praised, in comparison
With the actively hostile MohOmetans.
Jhurchmen looked on them as Gods
agents for the overthrow of Mahome-
never ~suspeetiDg that the Ma
lOmetans Of the future would be re-
from these same tolerant Mon
,ols.-AdroO R0lO's Travels IN the
Quarterly.