hind a school
of generals who were able, even in those evil days, to restore the
Empire to something like its former splendour. Claudius began by
breaking the power of the Goths at Naissus in 269. Aurelian (270-275)
made a firm peace with the Goths, and also recovered the provinces.
Tetricus and Zenobia, the Gaulish Caesar and the Syrian queen, adorned
the triumph of their conqueror. The next step was for Diocletian
(284-305) to reform the civil power and reduce the army to obedience.
Unfortunately his division of the Empire into more manageable parts led
to a series of civil wars, which lasted till its reunion by Constantine
in 323. His religious policy was a still worse failure. Instead of
seeing in Christianity the one remaining hope of mankind, he set himself
at the end of his reign to stamp it out, and left his successors to
finish the hopeless task. Here again Constantine repaired Diocletian's
error. The edict of Milan in 312 put an end to the great persecution,
and a policy of increasing favour soon removed all danger of Christian
disaffection.

[Sidenote: Constantine.]

When Constantine stood out before the world as the patron of the gospel,
he felt bound to settle the question of Arianism. In some ways he was
well qualified for the task. There can be no doubt of his ability and
earnestness, or of his genuine interest in Christianity. In political
skill he was an overmatch for Diocletian, and his military successes
were unequalled since the triumph of Aurelian. The heathens saw in him
the restorer of the Empire, the Christians their deliverer from
persecution. Even the feeling of a divine mission, which laid him so
open to flattery, gave him also a keen desire to remedy the social
misery around him; and in this he looked for help to Christianity.
Amidst the horrors of Diocletian's persecution a conviction grew upon
him that the power which fought the Empire with success must somehow
come from the Supreme. Thus he slowly learned to recognise the God of
the Christians in his father's God, and in the Sun-god's cross of light
to see the cross of Christ. But in Christianity itself he found little
more than a confirmation of natural religion. Therefore, with all his
interest in the churches, he could not reach the secret of their inner
life. Their imposing monotheism he fully appreciated, but the person of
the Lord was surely a minor question. Constantine shared the heathen
feelings of his time, so that the gospel t