of him, whether I could read those Letters? Read them, says he! as easily as his own Name; and thereupon he produced some of them translated before them, viz. what I had a mind to discover. Whereupon, says Rustan, this Ambassador is but a young Man, and yet we see he can understand what the old Patriarch could not so much as read; without doubt, if he live to be old, he will prove a very Nonsuch of a Man. For that reason it was, or perhaps some other, that a while after, having Conference with Rustan about our Affairs, he treated me more familiarly than he used to do, (which was a rare thing in him) and at last he ask'd me, why I would not turn to their Religion, and to the true Worship of God? If I would do so, he promised me great Honour and a large Reward from their Emperor Solyman. I told him, I was resolved to continue in that Religion, wherein I was born, and which my Master, Cæsar, did profess. Be it so, replied he; but what then will become of your Soul? I subjoined, I hope well for that too; whereupon he, after a little Pause, broke forth into these Words. 'Tis true, indeed, and I am almost of your Mind, that they who live holy and modest Lives in this present World, shall obtain eternal Life in the next, be they of what Religion they will. That's an Heresy, that some of the Turks have taken up, neither is Rustan thought to be a true Mussulman in all Points. The Turks thinks it a Duty, and a work of Piety in them, to persuade a Christian they have any good Opinion of, to their Religion; for then they think, they shall save a Soul from Destruction, and that they count a great Honour to themselves, and the greatest Charity they can do another Man, to make him a Convert to their Religion.
