That these were no empty words and that the toleration here promised became a reality, may be judged from a letter sent to the Khān by Pope John XXII in 1318, in which he thanks the Muslim prince for the favour he showed to his Christian subjects and the kind treatment they received at his hands. [788] The successors of Ūzbek Khān do not appear to have been animated by the same zeal for the spread of Islam as he had shown, and could not be expected to succeed where he failed. So long as the Russians paid their taxes, they were left free to worship according to their own desires, and the Christian religion had become too closely intertwined with the life of the people to be disturbed, even had efforts been made to turn them from the faith of their fathers; for Christianity had been the national religion of the Russian people for well-nigh three centuries before the Mongols established themselves in Russian territory. Another race many years before had tried to win the Russians to Islam but had likewise failed, viz. the Muslim Bulgarians who were found in the tenth century on the banks of the Volga, and who probably owed their conversion to the Muslim merchants, trading in furs and other commodities of the North; their conversion must have taken place some time before A.D. 921, when the caliph al-Muqtadir sent an envoy to confirm them in the faith and instruct them in the tenets and ordinances of Islam. [789] These Bulgarians attempted the conversion of Vladimir, the then sovereign of Russia, who (the Russian chronicler tells us) had found it necessary to choose some religion better than his pagan creed, but they failed to overcome his objections to the rite of circumcision and to the prohibition of wine, the use of which, he declared, the Russians could never give up, as it was the very joy of their life. Equally unsuccessful were the Jews who came from the country of the Khazars on the Caspian Sea and had won over the king of that people to the Mosaic faith. [790] After listening to their arguments, Vladimir asked them where their country was. “Jerusalem,” they replied, “but God in His anger has scattered us over the whole world.” “Then you are cursed of God,” cried the king, “and yet want to teach others: begone! we have no wish, like you, to be without a country.” The most favourable impression was made by a Greek priest who, after a brief criticism of the other religions, set forth the whole scheme of Christian teaching beginning with the creation of the world and the story of the fall of man and ending with the seven œcumenical councils accepted by the Greek Church; then he showed the prince a picture of the Last Judgment with the righteous entering paradise and the wicked being thrust down into hell, and promised him the heritage of heaven, if he would be baptised. But Vladimir was unwilling to make a rash choice of a substitute for his pagan religion, so he called his boyards together and having told