[494] The viscount of Santarem, to whose most extensive learning in history and geography, I fortunately had an opportunity in Paris of applying for information upon the above mentioned fact, gave me the following notice: “In no town of Portugal do I find any indication of the existence of these relics. I think that there is, in the statement of the Dabistán, an error and a confusion with the fact related by Brandâo, in 1643, viz.: the famous Portuguese prince don Pietro, son of John I., having, on his return from Jerusalem to Spain, in 1428, married in the town of Alcoba in Catalonia, the countess Isabella, daughter of D. Jayme, count of Urgel, gave to the bishop of Valenza an image of our Saviour, taken by St. Veronica. These relics were still preserved in the cathedral of Valenza in Spain, called by distinction ‘the royal town,’ in the year 1643.” It was a few years after this (see p. 305), that the author of the Dabistán might have received from father Francia, the Portuguese missionary, the account above stated. * * * * * SECTION THE SECOND: OF THE CREED OF THE AI SU YAH (CHRISTIANS). They say that, in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, every one ought to bear in his heart and to keep perpetually on his tongue the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, and never to deny him, if even it were at the peril of his head.[495] The holy cross is the sign of the Christians. They reckon fourteen parts of their creed: seven of which relate to God the Almighty, and seven to the human nature of the Lord Jesus. The first seven are as follow: 1. to confess that God is omnipotent and supreme; 2. to believe that he is the Father; 3. to believe that he is the Son; 4. that he is a pure spirit; 5. that he is the Creator; 6. that he bestows heaven; 7. that he grants salvation.[496] The seven other articles, which relate to the human nature of Jesus are the following: 1. to believe that he is the Son of God, by the power of the Holy Ghost, born in the body of Maria; 2. that he was born of Maria, the virgin, and without detriment to her virginity; 3. that for our sake he was crucified, died, and was buried; 4. that he shall descend from heaven, and raise up the former generations, who there anxiously expected his blessed arrival; 5. that he resuscitated on the third day; 6. that he ascended to heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, the omnipotent and supreme God; 7. that he shall come at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead, and to reveal their good and bad actions. They call God a father, because he is bountiful to his servants as a father to his children. They maintain that, although God has three different persons, yet, in truth, he is but one being; in such a manner that the persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, without the unity