dome was supported by twelve pillars, surmounted with silver vases, in commemoration of the Twelve Apostles. The roof was overlaid with gold, which shed a resplendent light. A court within the church contained the tomb, over which was erected a chapel blazing with gold and gems. Near Hebron, an oak tree was pointed out as the spot where Abraham had an interview with the angels. Some polytheistic worshippers had sacred traditions connected with it, and had been accustomed to perform religious ceremonies there in honour of the Spirits that appeared to Abraham; whose name was held in reverence by several Asiatic nations. Constantine caused the place to be purified, and a church to be erected there. He also built splendid churches at Antioch and Alexandria. At Rome, he erected a superb church on the Vatican Hill, occupying the site of the circus and gardens of Nero, where early Christians had died of lingering tortures. According to current tradition, the edifice stood on the very spot where Peter suffered martyrdom. Within the enclosure of the imperial palace at Rome, called the Lateran, he built a church dedicated to the memory of the Apostle John. In his zeal to propagate the new faith, it is said he offered a white baptismal garment, and twenty pieces of gold to every convert; and that twelve thousand men, with a proportionate number of women and children, were baptized in one day at Rome. He granted an appeal from the civil courts to the bishops, whose decisions were to be in all cases binding. He frequently invited the clergy to his own table, even when they were very meanly clad. He never went a journey without taking a bishop with him; thinking it made him more secure of prospering in his undertakings. He was accustomed to say that if he should see a bishop engaged in any sinful or unbecoming action, he would cover him with his own imperial robe, rather than have others see him. He affirmed that even Grecian oracles were compelled to testify in favour of Christians; that after the advent of Christ, Apollo no longer presumed to speak through a human voice in the temple, but spoke

from a deep dark cavern, as if he had hidden himself. Being asked why he did this, he replied: "Because of the just men who are now on the earth." When Diocletian inquired who those just men were, one of the priests of Apollo, who stood by, answered: "They are Christians." Constantine declares he was one of the company, and heard it; and he calls upon God to witness it.

He passed a law to defend Christian converts from Judaism, but he found it more difficult to shield them from their own dissensions. Council after council was called to settle theological disputes, and still the strife went on. He wrote to the Bishop of Alexandria, exhorting him to pursue a peaceful and charitable course toward those who differed from him with regard to the Trinity. But he satisfied the demands of the bishops by passing very severe laws against Manicheans, Marcionites, and other Gnostic sects, whose property was confiscated. For many years before his death, he would not allow his image to be placed in any of the temples. He caused his statue to be made with a cross in his hand, inscribed with the motto: "By this he conquered." Medals and pictures representing him in a devout attitude of Christian worship were distributed throughout the empire. Other and better fruits of Christianity are also recorded of him. In times of public distress, it had been common to expose young children, to sell them into slavery, or put them to death. By advice of Lactantius, it was proclaimed that the emperor considered himself the father of all such children, and would support them at his own expense. He encouraged the sending of missionaries to distant lands. He diminished taxation, ameliorated the penal laws, and made regulations for the health and comfort of prisoners; saying it was his duty to secure a man who was accused of crime, but not to injure him. When slaves were divided among the heirs of a deceased person, he forbade the separation of husbands and wives, parents and children; a humane regulation, which had been previously neglected.

Though his adhesion to Christianity was finally unquali

fied, he did not partake of its sacraments till his last illness No one was allowed to taste the Lord's Supper till he had passed through the purifying process of baptism; and as that was supposed to wash away all sin, perhaps Constantine thought to make sure of eternal salvation by deferring a rite so efficacious until he was past the danger of committing further sin. Whatever might have been his motive, he was not baptized until a short time before his death; which took place when he was sixty-three years old, after a reign of thirty-one years.

In the honours paid to his memory, there was the same mingling of religions which had characterized a large portion of his life. His polytheistic subjects followed the old custom of placing the emperor among the deities by solemn ceremonies. The medals issued after his apotheosis bore his name, with his title "God;" and on the reverse side was the monogram from the Labarum, forming the name. of Christ. Some of the medals represented him seated. in the chariot of the Sun, drawn by four horses, while a hand issued from the clouds to take him up among the demi-gods. Cotemporary Christian writers, very naturally blinded by gratitude, exaggerated his really great merits, and eulogized him without limit, and without discrimination. The eastern churches kept an annual festival in honour of his memory, and added to his name: "Equal to the Apostles."

Niebuhr, in his History of Rome, says: "Men judge him by too severe a standard, because they look upon him as a Christian; but I cannot regard him in that light. The religion he had in his head must have been a strange compound. The man who had on his coins, Sol invictus, [The Sun invincible,] who worshipped polytheistic deities, and consulted the haruspices, while at the same time he shut up temples, built churches, and interfered with the Council of Nice, certainly was not a Christian." Mosheim, in his History of Christianity, supposes that Constantine at first regarded Christ merely as one of the gods, who had power to confer prosperity and happiness on those who honoured

him, and to punish those who contemned and persecuted him; but that being afterward better instructed in Christianity, he became a sincere convert.

The outward benefits he conferred on the Christian religion were perhaps balanced by the rapid degeneracy they induced. It became a matter of policy to profess Christianity. All classes, princes and beggars, flocked into the church, without serious conviction, or proper instruction; and all supposed that the magical waters of baptism had washed away their sins. Eusebius reckons as one of the greatest evils of that period the indescribable hypocrisy of many who pretended to be Christians merely to advance their own interests, and who abused the confidence of the emperor by their false show of zeal.

CHRISTIAN SECTS.

Having thus rapidly traced Christianity from its obscure origin, through outward perils, I will, as briefly as possible, describe the dissensions which arose among themselves.

At the outset, Christians had no creed. In the time of Irenæus and Tertullian, formularies of faith were written, on purpose to exclude the Gnostics; and catechumens were required to give public assent to them before they were baptized. The Gnostic sects were therefore outside the church. They formed a link between Christianity and the old Egyptian, Persian, and Grecian ideas, and were one of the agencies by which many of those ideas glided into the new religion, and became permanently incorporated with it. The heterogeneous elements heaved and tossed wildly, before they could be definitely settled into a theological form. It would fill volumes to explain all the subdivisions of sects on minor points of faith or practice. Asceticism, growing out of the old Oriental idea that Matter was the origin of evil, began to manifest itself very early in various forms. There was a sect called Abelites, who abstained from matrimony, in order to avoid propagating original

sin. They adopted the children of others, and brought them up in their own principles. They had great reverence for Abel, because he died unmarried, and childless. The Aquarians used water instead of wine, at the Lord's Supper, and abstained from animal food, because they thought it wrong to stimulate or please the senses. The Apostolics were also called Renouncers, because they considered it wrong to possess any property, and therefore held all things in common. They allowed no married person to belong to their churches.

QUARTODECIMANS.-One of the earliest and most troublesomne schisms in the church, after the question of circumcision was at rest, related to a mere external observance. The first Christians continued to keep the Passover as a Jewish custom. They ceased to sacrifice a lamb, because they observed the festival in commemoration of Christ, of whom the Paschal Lamb was supposed to be a type; thus Paul says: "Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us." Jews observed the first day of the first full moon, after the vernal equinox, on whatsoever day of the week it happened to fall; and Christians, in the Eastern part of the Roman empire, long continued to do the same. In the Western part, they formed the habit of keeping it the Sunday following the first day. They did this partly because Christ rose on Sunday, and partly because there was an increasing disposition to distinguish themselves from the Jews. Thus it happened that while some churches were mourning for the crucifixion, others were rejoicing over the resurrection. In the second century, the dispute grew very warm. Bishop of Rome excommunicated the Eastern churches. Polycarp remonstrated with him, and alleged that the day they kept was the same he had himself observed with the Apostle John. Synods were in vain called to settle it. Those who kept the fourteenth day were called Quartodecimans, and regarded as heretics by the churches of Italy. It was considered a question grave enough for the intervention of the emperor; and Constantine sustained the Council

The