Journey through Asia Minor and into Georgia and Persia,
with a Visit to the Nestorian and Chaldean Christians," and were
published in two volumes in Boston, and republished in London.
Though nearly forty years have since elapsed, there is still a
freshness of interest in the entire work, which makes it matter of
regret that it is now out of print. The religious condition of the
Armenians at that time, is comprehensively stated in the following
paragraphs:--

"The slightest acquaintance with ecclesiastical history may convince
one, that before the commencement of the fourth century,
Christianity had extensively degenerated from its original purity as
a religion of the heart, into a mere profession of theoretical
dogmas, and the observance of external rites. Such, it is natural to
suspect, was the form of it to which the Armenians were at that
period converted; and the circumstances of the event, if national
tradition has correctly preserved them, confirm the suspicion, that
they have from the beginning known extremely little of true
conversion. We are told that immediately upon King Durtad's
embracing the faith, the nation followed his example in a body, and
were baptized. To say nothing of the doubtfulness of all national
conversions, the very hastiness of this proceeding, by allowing no
time for competent instruction, shows that the Armenians could not
have been enlightened converts; the fact that the Scriptures were
not translated into their language until a century afterward, is an
additional indication of the scantiness of their religious
knowledge; and the confessed backsliding of many of the nobility
into the most scandalous immoralities and the blackest crimes, even
during the lifetime of Durtad, proves how superficial was their
conversion.

"Thus the Armenian Church was a soil well adapted to the rapid
growth of all the corruptions, which from that time sprang up, in
such speedy succession, in different parts of the Christian world.
Even those which then existed were, it would seem, not sparingly
introduced by St. Gregory. For, by the immediate consecration of
four hundred bishops, and a countless number of priests, he betrayed
a disposition to multiply an idle and unqualified priesthood; and by
the construction of convents and nunneries, and spending the last of
his days in a solitary cave, he showed that he was ready to foster
the monastic spirit of his age. So deeply, indeed, was the taste for
monkhood i