“To those who believe that there is an intelligent Deity above who takes a certain concern in the welfare of our miserable little world, this contretemps must in itself seem a pretty good proof that Buddhism should have the best of Christianity. Perhaps, who knows, Pope Clement fell sick, so as to save the Buddhists from sinking into the idolatry of Roman Catholicism? From pure Buddhism, the religion of these districts has degenerated into Lamaism; but the latter, with all its blemishes, purely formalistic and impairing but little the doctrine itself, is yet far above Catholicism.
The poor Abbe Huc very soon found it out for himself. As he moved on with his caravan, he writes, “every one repeated to us that, as we advanced toward the west, we should find the doctrines growing more luminous and sublime. Lha-Ssa was the great focus of light, the rays from which became weakened as they were diffused.” One day he gave to a Tibetan lama “a brief summary of Christian doctrine, which appeared by no means unfamiliar to him [we do not wonder at that], and he even maintained that it [Catholicism] did not differ much from the faith of the grand lamas of Tibet. …These words of the Tibetan lama astonished us not a little”, writes the missionary; “the unity of God, the mystery of the Incarnation, the dogma of the real presence, appeared to us in his belief. …The new light thrown on the religion of Buddha induced us really to believe that we should find among the lamas of Tibet a more purified system.” It is these words of praise to Lamaism, with which Huc’s book abounds, that caused his work to be placed on the Index at Rome, and himself to be unfrocked.”
When questioned why, since he held the Christian faith to be the best of the religions protected by him, he did not attach himself to it, the answer given by Kublai-Kahn is as suggestive as it is curious: “How would you have me to become a Christian? There are four prophets worshipped and revered by all the world. The Christians say their God is Jesus Christ; the Saracens, Mahomet; the Jews, Moses; the idolaters, Sogomon Borkan (Sakya-Muni Burkham, or Buddha), who was the first god among the idols; and I worship and pay respect to all four and pray that he among them who is greatest in heaven in very truth may aid me.”
We may ridicule the Khan’s prudence; we cannot blame him for trustingly leaving the decision of the puzzling dilemma to Providence itself. One of his most unsurmountable objections to embrace Christianity he thus specifies to Marco:
“You see that the Christians of these parts are so ignorant that they achieve nothing, and can achieve nothing, whilst you see the idolaters can do anything they please, insomuch that when I sit at table, the cups from the middle of the hall come to me full of wine or other liquor, without being touched by anybody, and I drink from them. They control storms, causing them to pass in whatever direction they please, and do many other marvels; whilst, as you know, their idols speak, and give them predictions on whatever subjects they choose. But if I were to turn to the faith of Christ and become a Christian, then my barons and others who are not converted, would say: ‘What has moved you to be baptized? … What powers or miracles have you witnessed on the part of Christ? You know the idolaters here say that all their wonders are performed by the sanctity and power of their idols.’ Well, I should not know what answer to make, so they would only be confirmed in their errors, and the idolaters, who are adepts in such surprising arts, would easily compass my death. But now you shall go to your Pope, and pray him on my part to send hither and hundred men skilled in your law; and if they are capable of rebuking the practices of idolaters to their faces, and of proving to them that they too know how to do such things, but will not, because they are done by the help of the devil and other evil spirits; and if they so control the idolaters that these shall have no power to perform such things in their presence, and when we shall witness this, we will denounce the idolaters and their religion, and then I will receive baptism, and then all my barons and chiefs shall be baptized also, and thus, in the end, there will be more Christians here than exist in your part of the world.”
The proposition was fair. Why did not the Christians avail themselves of it? Moses is said to have faced such an ordeal before Pharaoh and come off triumphant. To our mind, the logic of this uneducated Mongol was unanswerable, his intuition faultless. He saw good results in all religions, and felt that, whether a man be Buddhist, Christian, Mahometan, or Jew, his spiritual powers might equally be developed, his faith equally lead him to the highest truth. All he asked before making choice of a creed for his people, was the evidence upon which to base faith.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 