onquer the empire for Christianity, or
to succeed in so doing if he had? Is there an instance on record of a
people suddenly, at a moment's notice, changing its religion, or
rather--for this is the true representation--of many different
nations changing their many different religions at the simple command
of their sovereign, and he too an upstart? In two cases, and in only
two, it may be done; first, by an unsparing use of the sword, the brief,
simple alternative of Mahomet, Death or the Koran; the other, when the
new form of belief has converted the bulk or a large portion of the
nation; of which, in this case, the conversion of the army is a
tolerably significant indication.

But again; if it be said that the people, or rather the many different
nations, abandoned their religions out of complaisance to their
sovereign, I answer, Why do we not see the same thing repeated when
Julian wished to reverse the experiment? They were not so pliant
then; then was it seen very dearly that the people were, as in
every other case, unwilling, as regards their religion, to be mere
puppets in the hands of their governors. He was animated by at least
as strong a hatred of Christianity as Constantine by a love of it.
Yet we see all the way through, that there was not a chance of
success for him.

"But there were some persecutions," you will say, "by Constantine."
True, but they were so trifling compared with what would have been
required had the conversion of an unbelieving and refractory empire
depended on such means, that few who read the history of religious
revolutions will believe that they were the cause of the change. Every
thing shows that a vast preceding moral revolution in the empire is
the only sufficient explanation of so sudden an event. Gibbon himself
admits Constantine's tolerant disposition.

"But," it may be said, "the old heathenism was worn out and effete;
no one thought it worth his while to stand up in its defence."

I answer, first, it seems to have been sufficiently loved, or at
least Christianity was sufficiently hated, to insure frequent and
sanguinary persecutions of the latter, almost up to the eve of
Constantine's accession. Secondly, you are to consider that, though
in the schools of philosophers, in the Epicurean or sceptical
atmosphere of the luxurious capital and other great cities, there was
unquestionably a numerous party to whom the old superstition was a
laughing-stock, there were vast multitud