the eternal truth of Christianity and the errors of Islam. But his books were torn in pieces by a population among whom contempt for Christians is engendered through their mother's milk; and I do not know that the bread which he cast upon the waters has been found up to the present day. Better results might be expected from their labours among the Armenians, whose clergy they discovered sunk in the depths of ignorance, where the beginning of the twentieth century finds them still. But they had not anticipated the existence of this sphere for their activities; and in the absence of special powers it was not permissible to them to receive converts from a Christian Church. It was open to the proselyte to enter the Orthodox Church of Russia; but, if he desired to be baptized by a minister of the tolerated sects, his own clergy could claim him back. It was inevitable that, with the progress of their schools and religious teaching, such a case should soon arise. It is, no doubt, the lofty virtue and the traditional practice of the Armenian Church to respect the religious tenets of other Christian Churches, and to inculcate a large tolerance among their congregation of the doctrines held by their brothers of a varying creed. In this respect the reverend traveller, to whose work I am indebted for this little history, might have learnt but failed to learn a valuable lesson from a clergy whose general standards he justly condemns. [48] But the attitude of these militant missionaries, no less than the success of their efforts, touched the vanity of the Armenian hierarchy to the quick. Two deacons of their persuasion had become allied to the Swiss teachers, without formally renouncing their own Church. They were accused of influencing the people against their old religious practices, and, according to a time-honoured usage, it was ordered by the katholikos that they should be bound and sent to Edgmiatsin. The missionaries appealed to the Governor-General, who, in the spirit of a Roman proconsul, inquired for what reason they were interfering in the concerns of the Armenian Church. Let the Germans remain Germans and the Armenians remain Armenians--a ruling which was modified by the Imperial Government, to whom this high functionary referred the case. It was decided, much to the dismay of the religious communities, that if a man were determined to leave the bosom of the Armenian Church, it was not permitted to the clergy to retain him by force. But this favourable disposition on the part of the central Government was in advance of Russian methods. The victory of the missionaries was not of long duration; the multitude of their enemies overbore the power of their few friends. Their printing press is long since silent; they have no successors, except a few Armenian preachers, faithful to the old traditions, of whom our friend at Akhalkalaki was one. He himself was confined by Government within the limits of this remote fortress; two years