CHAPTER IV.
PLAN OF THE FOLLOWING INQUIRY INTO THE TENETS OF THE NESTORIANS.
When it was affirmed, in the opening of this volume, that in order to arrive at a correct knowledge and estimate of Nestorianism, it was but just that its followers should be allowed to speak in self-defence, the idea that such a result was attainable through the testimony of the Nestorians of the present day, never presented itself to my mind. Enough has already been said to convince the reader, that such an attempt would be preposterous and vain; inasmuch as among the Nestorians now existing few know the particular points on which they differ from other Christians, and fewer still are to be found, who can give a reason for the faith which they profess. The prey of adverse circumstances, and subjected to wicked and unchristian rulers, they owe their existence as a community professing Christianity through centuries of ever-increasing ignorance, not to the force of conviction arising out of a well-grounded knowledge of the faith as handed down to them by tradition; but, under God, to the power of human prejudice, and to the influence of those ceremonial and ritual observances, whereby they continued to celebrate the most glorious mysteries, and to practise the outward show, at least, of the most exalted virtues of the Christian religion. That these externals, as they are often disparagingly called, when viewed in the abstract, or observed apart from the truths which they represent, are nothing more than "the form of godliness," and if relied upon for justi-
