conquerors to the acceptance of the faith. This was a task for the missionary energies of Islam that was rendered more difficult from the fact that there were two powerful competitors in the field. The spectacle of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam emulously striving to win the allegiance of the fierce conquerors that had set their feet on the necks of adherents of these great missionary religions, is one that is without parallel in the history of the world. Before entering on a recital of this struggle, it will be well in order to the comprehension of what is to follow briefly to glance at the partition of the Mongol empire after the death of Chingīz Khān, when it was split up into four sections and divided among his sons. His third son, Ogotāy, succeeded his father as Khāqān and received as his share the eastern portion of the empire, in which Qūbīlāy afterwards included the whole of China. Chaghatāy the second son took the middle kingdom. Bātū, the son of his first-born Jūjī, ruled the western portion as Khān of the Golden Horde; Tulūy the fourth son took Persia, to which Hūlāgū, who founded the dynasty of the Īlkhāns, added a great part of Asia Minor. The primitive religion of the Mongols was Shamanism, which while recognising a supreme God, offered no prayers to Him, but worshipped a number of inferior divinities, especially the evil spirits whose powers for harm had to be deprecated by means of sacrifices, and the souls of ancestors who were considered to exercise an influence on the lives of their descendants. To propitiate these powers of the heaven and of the lower world, recourse was had to the Shamans, wizards or medicine-men, who were credited with possessing mysterious influence over the elements and the spirits of the departed. Their religion was not one that was calculated to withstand long the efforts of a proselytising faith, possessed of a systematic theology capable of satisfying the demands of the reason and an organised body of religious teachers, when once the Mongols had been brought into contact with civilised races, had responded to their civilising influences and begun to pass out of their nomadic barbarism. It so happened that the civilised races with which the conquest of the Mongols brought them in contact comprised large numbers of Buddhists, Christians and Muhammadans, and the adherents of these three great missionary faiths entered into rivalry with one another for the conversion of their conquerors. When not carried away by the furious madness for destruction and insult that usually characterised their campaigns, the Shamanist Mongols showed themselves remarkably tolerant of other religions, whose priests were exempted from taxation and allowed perfect freedom of worship. Buddhist priests held controversies with the Shamans in the presence of Chingīz Khān; and at the courts of Mangū Khān and Qūbīlāy the Buddhist and Christian priests and the Muslim Imāms alike enjoyed the patronage of the Mongol prince.