The official title of the Church, whose principal bishop resides in this romantic, but singularly inaccessible, spot is "the Church of the East." This title was given to it originally by those whom we call "the Eastern Christians," viz. those of Constantinople and Antioch; and by it they meant the Church to the east of them, beyond the frontier of the Roman Empire, in what was then the kingdom of the Sassanid Persians. In the days of its greatness, this communion extended itself marvellously, in just those countries where Christianity finds it hardest to establish a footing now. In the year 1300 its bishops were distributed from Damascus to Pekin, and from Tartary to Malabar. The "Syrian Christians" of the latter land, though they now own a different jurisdiction, still remain as a memorial of its missionary zeal in the fifth century; and the Singan monument in the very heart of China tells of the presence of this "pacific, philosophical, and excellent religion" there also, and commemorates the names of sundry of its bishops and clergy. Nay, the historic Prester John (for he was an historical figure strange to say) was of this Church. A dynasty of Tartar princes of the eleventh century were Christians; and the name of their founder, Ung Khan, readily became Yukhanan, which is John, in Syriac-speaking mouths. Whether he ever was, as a matter of fact, an ordained presbyter is more questionable. Massacre (particularly the tremendous massacres of Tamerlane about the year 1400), oppression, and the proselytism of better protected and educated bodies, have reduced this Church now to a few wild tribes of mountaineers living in a most inaccessible country; and to a fringe of _rayat_ villages, many of whom are little better than serfs to the Kurds near whom they live. Yet the Church still exists, guarding its independence and its ancient rites, and boasting with legitimate pride that it, alone of all peoples, still uses in daily life the language that our Lord spoke on earth. Whether the dialects of vernacular Syriac that are here in use would have been intelligible in Palestine in the first century of this era, may be doubted; but the statement is so far true, that the language is unquestionably a variant of the Aramaic referred to.