Armenia was the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion. This she did at the beginning of the fourth century and twelve years before the conversion of the Roman emperor, Constantine. Ever since she has been persecuted by a succession of enemies and conquerors of other faiths. Almost as soon as Christianity had been adopted, the Armenians were commanded by the Persians, their overlords at that time, to give up their faith and adopt the Persian religion of fire-worship. They replied: “No one can move us from our belief, neither angels nor men, fire nor sword. Here below we will choose no other God, and in heaven no other Lord but Jesus Christ.” And they have stuck to their declaration through all the horrors and persecutions brought upon them by Persians, Saracens, Tartars, Mamelukes, and Turks. At her height Armenia was a flourishing country with a population of some thirty millions. But from the time of the great dispersal that resulted from the invasion of the Moslem hordes in the seventh century, the Armenians, like the Jews, have been decimated, their country has been ravaged, and the people have been scattered all over Europe and Asia. The Armenians assert that their country is the holiest land upon earth. It lies in Asia Minor, southeast of the Black Sea and between it and Persia. Mount Ararat is situated in Armenia, and some of the monasteries claim to have pieces of the identical ark in which Noah landed upon this mountain. A ravine near by is pointed out as the site of Noah’s vineyard. The vineyard has a monastery connected with it, and the monks show a withered old vine which they assert is the very one from which Noah brewed the wine that made him drunk. He cursed it so effectually after he got over his spree that it has borne no grapes unto this day. Noah’s wife is said to be buried on Mount Ararat. The Armenians trace their ancestry back to Japheth in one great genealogical tree. They also have a tradition that the Garden of Eden was located in Armenia, almost in the centre of the region where the worst massacres have occurred, but it is now one of the barren parts of the country. The Armenians believe that the Wise Men of the East, who followed the Star of Bethlehem to find the young Christ, came from their country and that the Star first appeared in the heavens not far from Mount Ararat.