t the Milvian bridge, near Rome,
routed the army of Maxentius. In the flight the bridge broke down, and
Maxentius fell into the Tiber and was drowned. After this victory
Constantine, with his colleague Licinius, immediately gave full liberty
to the Christians of living according to their own institutions and
laws; and this liberty was more clearly defined the following year, A.D.
313, in a new edict drawn up at Milan. Caius Galerius Maximinus, indeed,
who reigned in the East, was projecting new calamities for the
Christians, and menacing the emperors of the West with war; but being
vanquished by Licinius, he put an end to his own life, in the year 313,
by swallowing poison, at Tarsus.

About this time Constantine the Great, who was previously a man of no
religion, is said to have embraced Christianity, being induced thereto
principally by the miracle of a cross appearing to him in the heavens.
But this story is liable to much doubt. His first edict in favor of the
Christians, and many other things, sufficiently evince that he was
indeed at that time well disposed toward the Christians and their
worship, but that he by no means regarded Christianity as the only true
and saving religion; on the contrary, it appears that he regarded other
religions, and among them the old Roman religion, as likewise true and
useful to mankind; and he therefore wished all religions to be freely
practised throughout the Roman Empire. But as he advanced in life,
Constantine made progress in religious knowledge, and gradually came to
regard Christianity as the only true and saving religion, and to
consider all others as false and impious. Having learned this, he now
began to exhort his subjects to embrace Christianity; and at length he
proclaimed war against the ancient superstitions. At what time this
change in the views of the Emperor took place, and he began to look upon
all religions but the Christian as false, cannot be determined. This,
however, is certain, that the change in his views was first made
manifest by his laws and edicts in the year 324, after the death of
Licinius, when Constantine became sole emperor. His purpose, however, of
abolishing the ancient religion of the Romans, and of tolerating only
the Christian religion, he did not disclose till a little before his
death, when he published his edicts for pulling down the pagan temples
and abolishing the sacrifices.

That the Emperor was sincere, and not a dissembler, in regard