The news that Dominicans—and English Dominicans—are, under the active encouragement of the Holy See, to recommence work in Persia is calculated to stir our blood and turn our thoughts towards that ancient country, and Dominican connections with it.

‘ Behold, I make all things new ’—such is the glorious claim of Jesus Christ and, through Him, of the Church. In the fourteenth century Dominicans, encouraged by Pope John XXII, went out to Persia and did a great work there among the Armenians. So great, indeed, was the expansion of Dominican missionary work in the East, that a special congregation within the Order, named Fratres Peregrinantes,’ was set up, and certain distinctive features in their costume —a red sash or cummerbund, and red socks—marked out its members from the rest. The story of the reunion, effected by our friars, of large bodies of Armenians together with their clergy, is a curious one. So great was the prestige of the Order among them that the Armenian liturgy was abandoned and the Dominican liturgy, translated into Armenian, put in its place. This step proved in the’ long run to have been imprudent. Those who, among the Armenians, had refused to join the movement protested loudly, and with some justification, against so unwise an abandonment of the ancient and beautiful Armenian rite, and this was, no doubt, among the causes wdiich ultimately brought about the arrest and decline of a work so gallantly begun.