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hast clad the earth with grass,

      Who hast given leaves to the tree,

      Who hast provided the calves with flesh,

      Who didst bring forth hair on the head,

      Who didst create all the creatures,

      Who prepares every thing present!

      Thou hast created the stars, O God!

      O, Alton Pi, who hast exalted the father,

      O, Ulgen Pi, who hast exalted the mother,

      Thou creator of all created things,

      Thou preparer of all that is prepared,

      O God, thou creator of the stars,

      O give us cattle, O God!

      Give food, O God!

      Give us a chief, O God!

      Thou preparer of all things prepared,

      Thou creator of all things created!

      I prayed to my Father

      To bestow on me his blessing,

      To give me help,

      To me, in my house,

      And to my cattle, in the herd!

      Before thee I bow down.

      Give thy blessing, O Kudai,

      Thou Creator of all things created,

      Thou preparer of all things prepared!”

      The sacrifices consisted in the offering up of cattle and particularly, on solemn occasions, of white horses. Their priests, called Táltos, occupied a pre-eminent place, not only in the political but also in the social life of the Magyars. They were a kind of augurs and soothsayers, whose prophecies were based either upon certain natural phenomena, or upon the inspection of certain portions of slaughtered animals, such as the intestines, the heart, and shoulder-blade, which latter was put into the fire, good and bad auspices being prognosticated from the different positions of the cracks produced.

      Religious faith being always open to outside or foreign influence, it was but natural that the Hungarians, in that long march from the interior of Asia into Europe, should have borrowed many novel features from the religious life of the countries through which they passed. Thus, in the earlier faith of the Magyars, we meet with many distinctive traits of the Parsee religion, of that of the Khazars, and of the religions of many Ugrian races, for, like other families of the Uralo-Altaic race, the Magyars were conspicuous for their spirit of toleration towards other believers.

      The numerous Christian prisoners they had brought with them from various parts of Europe were not only left in the undisturbed practice of their creeds, but were even permitted to influence to a very considerable degree the faith of their conquerors and masters. Under these circumstances it was by no means a hazardous undertaking, on the part of Duke Geyza, to give permission to missionaries and priests to come into the country and preach the gospel. A Suabian monk named Wolfgang was the first who tried to spread Christianity in Hungary in 917. A greater success was achieved by Pilgrin, the bishop of Passau, who, taking the matter of conversion into his hands, was able to report to the Pope in 974 that nearly five thousand Hungarians had been baptized, and that “under the benign influence of the miraculous grace of God those heathens even who have remained in their erring ways forbid no one the baptism, nor do they interfere with the priests, allowing them to go where they please. Christians and heathens dwell together in such harmony that here the prophecy of Isaiah seems to be fulfilled: ‘The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.’ ”

      Considering the difficulty of turning inveterate Asiatics to western views of life, and, particularly to the totally different doctrines of the Christian religion, we may easily realize that the total conversion of the Magyars was a work attended with many struggles and difficulties. After Pilgrin we find Bruno engaged in the pious undertaking; but by far the most successful of all of the missionaries was St. Adalbert, the bishop of Prague, who came to the country in 993, and, remaining there for a considerable period of time, had the good fortune to baptize several members of the reigning family, amongst whom was the son of Duke Geyza, called Vayik, to whom was given the Christian name of Stephen. This conversion being regarded as one of the most momentous events in the history of the Hungarians, it will be worth while explaining the accompanying illustration, representing this act. In the baptistry, we perceive, as the principal personage, Stephen, in his baptismal robes. Next to him is seen St. Adalbert, robed and adorned in keeping with his episcopal dignity and the apostolic office of conversion. To the left in the foreground, as witnesses to the baptism, are standing the Emperor of Germany, Otto III., who was brought there by his friendship for Geyza and his interest in the baptism of Stephen, and Count Teodato, of San Severino, a knight who had emigrated from Apulia, and to whom Geyza had entrusted the education of his son. Behind the latter stands Duke Henry of Bavaria, who, attending the emperor, is present as a guest. Farther in the background we perceive Duke Geyza and his consort, sunk in pious revery. We see Stephen after the act of confessing his faith and knowledge of Christianity. Already he had turned his face toward the west, had renounced Satan and devoted himself to the eternal war of the children of God, and then, turning to the east, had vowed, with exalted enthusiasm, obedience and devotion to the Law of God as revealed through Christ. Now we see him, according to the custom of the Church at that time, in the act of descending into the baptismal font in order to receive from the hands of the holy bishop the sign of the Cross, the sacrament of spiritual regeneration.

       BAPTISM OF ST. STEPHEN. (From a painting by P. N. Geiger).

      Pious emotion is reflected in the countenances of the attendant Magyars, although there may be discernible here and there the expression of a hidden spirit of antagonism. And the supposition of such an expression can, in no way, be called a groundless one. The worship of God on the banks of rivers, in woods and groves, the offering of sacrifices, and sundry superstitions connected with the soothsaying of the Shaman priests, certainly impressed more forcibly the minds of the free and independent dwellers of the steppes than the mass pronounced in Latin, and the rites of the Catholic Church, introduced by the monks and priests of the West. Conversion to Christianity had to be unconditionally followed up not only by the relinquishment of the old national religion, but also by the renunciation of the ancient habits and manners, to which the Hungarians clung in spite of the generations that had passed since their coming to the banks of the Danube and Theiss. The reluctance, shown here and there, must be also ascribed to the overbearing attitude assumed by the foreign missionaries towards the ruling race of the Magyars, upon whom these Bavarians, Suabians, Czechs, Italians, etc., looked down as contemptible barbarians, a title they by no means deserved, for it was only the difference in culture and not the want of culture which separated the two elements. Suffice it to say that traces of this discontent became visible very early, and that the slumbering spark broke out in open rebellion in 997, in the very year when Stephen ascended the throne, made vacant through the death of his father, Geyza. History records three different risings, which took place with the intention of doing away with the newly introduced Christian religion, together with all the changed modes of life borrowed from western civilization. In the first instance the movement was headed by Kopán, a nobleman in the county of Sümeg. His object was to drive out the foreign Christian missionaries and priests, to dethrone Stephen, and to re-establish the old pagan faith. A vast multitude of discontented Hungarians gathered under his banners, but Stephen was not at all afraid. Collecting his army and the foreign Christian knights about him, he left his regal seat Gran (Esztergom), and marched on straight against the rebels. The engagement took place in the vicinity of Veszprém. It was a hard contested struggle, and only after a bitter fight and the death of Kopán himself, did his adherents lay down their arms. The happy issue of the battle decided the victory of Christianity in Hungary, and all that was still needed, was to strengthen the new faith. The effects of this victory were, nevertheless, of short duration, for in the year 1002, another anti-Christian movement broke

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