Many of the churches are of great antiquity, but some only a few centuries old. They are invariably of substantial characters. One of the peculiarities of the older churches is that their entrances or doors are quite small and low. The reason of this was and still is in the interior to prevent the enemies of their religion from desecrating the sacred edifices by putting their horses into the churches and converting them into stables, as the greatest insult to Christianity and a single triumph of Mohammedanism. Sultan Bajazet himself boasted he “would one day feed his horse at Rome with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter’s.” What Bajazet and others of his type and character boasted that they would do in Europe, so both long before and after him, others have done it in Armenia and elsewhere; and even worse, as the following verse, composed by our immortal “prince of poets.” Nerses Shnorhali (graceful or gracious), who lived in the twelfth century: “Close by the altar in the sacred fane, Where daily God’s own paschal lamb was slain, Hadji, the impious, made vile harlots sing, And drunken broils throughout the temple ring.” The Armenians, living in large towns and cities, were and are engaged in various occupations. The following trades were almost exclusively in the hands of the Armenians in Asiatic and partly in European Turkey: Blacksmithing, goldsmithing, coppersmithing, locksmithing, watchmaking, shoemaking, tailoring, weaving, printing, dyeing, carpentry, masonry, architecture, etc. Some are storekeepers of all sorts. Others are merchants and traveling merchants, money-brokers, bankers, lawyers and physicians. “The Armenian nation,” says a writer, “is the life of Turkey.” But the Turks have been committing suicide by attempting to annihilate the Armenians in the Empire. Another says, “They are a noble race and have been called ‘the Anglo-Saxons of the East.’ They are an active and enterprising class. Shrewd, industrious and persevering, they are the bankers of Constantinople, the artisans of Turkey, and the merchants of Western and Central Asia.” One of the first missionaries of the American Board, the Rev. Dr. H. G. O. Dwight, says: “The principal merchants are Armenians, and so are nearly all the great bankers of the Turkish government; and whatever arts there are that require peculiar ingenuity and skill, are almost sure to be in the hands of Armenians.”