ek: Chi] and [Greek: Rho] between [Greek:
Alpha] and [Greek: Omega], the whole forming the word [Greek: ARChO],
"I reign"), with the motto _Hoc Signo Victor Eris_, testify to the
special part taken by our country in the establishment of our Faith
as the officially recognized religion of Rome,--that is to say, of the
whole civilized world. And henceforward, as long as Britain remained
Roman at all, it was a monarch of British connection who occupied
the Imperial throne. The dynasties of Constantius, Valentinian, and
Theodosius, who between them (with the brief interlude of the reign
of Julian) fill the next 150 years (300-450), were all markedly
associated with our island. So, indeed, was Julian also.

SECTION B.

Spread of Gospel--Arianism--Britain orthodox--Last
Imperial visit--Heathen temples stripped--British
Emperors--Magnentius--Gratian--Julian--British corn-trade--First
inroad of Picts and Scots--Valentinian--Saxon raids--Campaign of
Theodosius--Re-conquest of Valentia.

B. 1.--For a whole generation after the triumph of Constantine
tranquillity reigned in Britain. The ruined Christian churches were
everywhere restored, and new ones built; and in Britain, as elsewhere,
the Gospel spread rapidly and widely--the more so that the Church here
was but little troubled[336] by the desperate struggle with Arianism
which was convulsing the East. Britain, as Athanasius tells us, gave
an assenting vote to the decisions of Nicaea [[Greek: sumpsephos
etunchane]], and British Bishops actually sat in the Councils of Arles
(314) and of Ariminum (360).

B. 2.--The old heathen worship still continued side by side with the
new Faith; but signs soon appeared that the Church would tolerate no
such rivalry when once her power was equal to its suppression. Julius
Firmicus (who wrote against "Profane Religions" in 343) implores
the sons of Constantine to continue their good work of stripping the
temples and melting down the images;--in special connection with
a visit paid by them that year to Britain[337] (our last Imperial
visit), when they had actually been permitted to cross the Channel
in winter-time; an irrefragable proof of Heaven's approval of their
iconoclasm. It is highly probable that they pursued here also a course
at once so pious and so profitable, and that the fanes of the ancient
deities but lingered on in poverty and neglect till finally suppressed
by Theodosius (A.D. 390).

B. 3.--And now Britain resumed her _ro