CHAPTER V
THE PRESENT NESTORIAN CHURCH
We come at last to what is left of this ancient Church. The Nestorians now left are but a small sect of little importance in the great Christian family; yet behind them one sees their glorious past, the martyrs under Shapur II, the missionaries who brought the Gospel to China. If only for the sake of these one would speak of their descendants with all respect. In seeing them as they now are, we think first of the awful calamity of their schism. True, they have kept the Christian faith nobly during all those dark centuries of degradation. The faith of Christ—and, alas! of Nestorius—is still alive where once the school of Nisibis argued against Cyril and Ephesus. Yet—if only they had kept it without the isolation of schism! How honoured a province of the great Church of Christ might they now be, how strong in their union with the mighty Church of the West! One would like to go back to the days of Bar Ṣaumâ and Aḳaḳ, and to say to them: "Never mind about Ḳnumâ and Kyânâ: who can understand these things? Worship Christ as does the rest of Christendom, and wait till you see him to understand his nature. And, if the great Church has cast out Nestorius, you must let him go too. At any rate, at any price do not make a schism. Trust Christ that he will not let his Church become really impossible, and stay in her whatever happens." Too late now! we must comfort ourselves with the Chaldæan Uniates.
This chapter will describe the hierarchy, faith, rites and number of Nestorians as they are now. But first we may clear the ground by describing what is practically their rediscovery in
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