From the time of the partition to the succession of the Pakradoonian dynasty there was not in name an Armenian kingdom; but it must not be supposed that there was not an Armenian nation. No matter how its neighbor nations changed, that country was always called Armenia, and the people held to their Armenian ways and feelings. The national feeling was as strong as before, and above all the feeling of church unity was very intense. No one will ever understand Armenian history, or indeed any Oriental history at all, who does not realize that religious questions come first, and political questions second. The Armenian church was, it is true, a Christian church; but it was the Armenian Christian church, not the Greek church, and the Syrian and African churches had their separate creeds and preferences, and the Greek church, which was the official church of the Greek Empire, was always trying to root out their "heresies" and make them Greek. That was one reason why the Mohammedans conquered those countries so easily. The Africans would rather be ruled by the Mohammedans than by the Greek church, the Syrians were angry because the Greek church wanted to take away their own church and give them the Greek. But the Armenians would not take either the Greek or the Mohammedan or the Zoroastrian; they wanted their own. So they were persecuted terribly by the Greek Christians and the Persian fire-worshipers alike. Just as before the partition, each country invaded the other's part of Armenia whenever they got into war; and whichever won, the Armenians were the losers. When the Greeks won, they tortured the Armenians; when the Persians won, they tortured the Armenians; later, when the Mohammedans won, they also tortured the Armenians. The mediaeval history of Armenia is that of a battle-ground between contending races--Greeks, Persians, Scythians, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Ottoman Turks, Mongols, and so on. Millions of its people were slain; millions died of famine and disease; millions of its women were forced to embrace Mohammedanism and become the wives and mothers of Mohammedans,--half the blood of those who are called Turks at this day is Armenian; millions of its boys were forced into the Turkish service, so that many of the best-known names in Turkish history, and in the Turkey of to-day, are Armenian names. Yet through all these calamities and decimations Armenia has kept its national life and national religion.