y of the Emperors,
says more. I would also refer my readers to my "Old Roman World," to
Sismondi's Fall of the Roman Empire, and to Montesquieu's treatise on
the Decadence of the Romans. The original Roman authorities which have
come down to us are meagre and few.

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.

* * * * *

A.D. 272-337.

CHRISTIANITY ENTHRONED.

One of the links in the history of civilization is the reign of
Constantine, not unworthily called the Great, since it would be
difficult to find a greater than he among the Roman emperors, after
Julius Caesar, while his labors were by far more beneficent. A new era
began with his illustrious reign,--the triumph of Christianity as the
established religion of the crumbling Empire. Under his enlightened
protection the Church, persecuted from the time of Nero, and never
fashionable or popular, or even powerful as an institution, arose
triumphant, defiant, almost militant, with new passions and interests;
ambitious, full of enthusiasm, and with unbounded hope,--a great
spiritual power, whose authority even princes and nobles were at last
unable to withstand. No longer did the Christians live in catacombs and
hiding-places; no longer did they sing their mournful songs over the
bleeding and burning bodies of the saints, but arose in the majesty of
a new and irresistible power,--temporal as well as spiritual,--breathing
vengeance on ancient foes, grasping great dignities, seizing the
revenues of princes, and proclaiming the sovereignty of their invisible
King. In defence of their own doctrines they became fierce, arrogant,
dogmatic, contentious,--not with sword in one hand and crucifix in the
other, like the warlike popes and bishops of mediaeval Europe, but with
intense theological hatreds, and austere contempt of those luxuries and
pleasures which had demoralized society.

The last great act of Diocletian--one of the ablest and most warlike of
the emperors--was an unrelenting and desperate persecution of the
Christians, whose religion had been steadily gaining ground for two
centuries, in spite of martyrdoms and anathemas; and this was so severe
and universal that it seemed to be successful. But he had no sooner
retired from the government of the world (A.D. 305) than the faith he
supposed he had suppressed forever sprung up with new force, and defied
any future attempt to crush it.

The vitality of the new religion had been preserved in ages of