Show prayer ten centuries old among tile documents and manuscripts taken by the miss mission of franco from a cave in chinese turkestan Turk estan where they had lain during ten centuries ft 1 it ett curious rious manuscript recorded by the french academy of sciences the manuscript Is 1 in one of the oldest known ilehr bobrow texts it Is a prayer formed of passages taken from the psalms and an from the prophets written in beautiful square hebrew with a very rudimentary system of vocalization evidently the manuscript was carried on the person of tile the man who owned it scholars believe that the document dates from rom the eighth or ninth century of the christian era and that it belonged to a ploua jewish merchant of arabia no such paper was known in ill arabia in either cither the eighth or the ninth century centar therefore it la is supposed that the manuscript was transcribed for its owner when lie ho was in china where such paper was wag to be found aund Ilar harpers pers weekly |