Shortly after, God visited the king and many of his household with a dreadful disease for his persecution of the saints. They ran around like mad people or demoniacs. While they were in this state, the king's virgin sister Chosrovitukht had a divine revelation that she should go to Ardashad and release Gregory from the pit, and he would heal them all. As he had been thrown there fourteen years ago, and was believed to be long dead, no attention was paid to it; but the next day it was repeated five times with threats, and a chief named Oda was sent, who brought him back alive, to their great amazement and joy. They prostrated themselves before him and asked forgiveness, but he told them to worship only their Creator. Then he demanded to be shown the bodies of the holy martyrs lately just slain for belief in Christ; they were found after nine days and nights untouched, and he gathered them up and put them into the wine press, where he also established himself. First he ordered the king and all the people to fast five days, and commended them to the mercy of God; and after that for sixty consecutive days he preached the word of God, instructing them in all the mysteries of the Christian religion. On the sixty-sixth day they again besought him to heal them, but first he made them build three chapels for the relics of the martyrs, each in a separate coffin, wall in the place where he had seen a vision of the Son of God coming down from heaven, and erect a crucifix before which the people should prostrate themselves. Finally, seeing that they all believed in the true God, St. Gregory bade them kneel down and pray to Him for healing; he himself prayed for them at the same time, and a miraculous cure was at once effected on all the sufferers. This done, Gregory and Tiridates set about exterminating idolatry; they smashed the idols and demolished the temples, the new converts joyfully assisting them. The work of conversion went on rapidly, under the wonderful preaching of the Saint, and the zeal of the king; all the people converted were baptized by immersion. In eight years the majority of the Armenian nation, many millions in number, had become Christians. That religion was made the State creed of Armenia in 310, while the Council of Nice, which did the same work for Rome, was not held till 325. Gregory deserves every credit for this magnificent work; but I cannot help wishing he had been less zealous in destroying the pagan literature, which is a very great loss to the world. However, Christianity is worth it, if we could not have it at a less price.