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heart of Britain, where he had for some months assumed the title of emperor. Constantine was at Nicomedia, with the emperor Galerius. He asked permission of the emperor to go to see his father, who was ill. Galerius granted it, without difficulty, Constantine set off with government relays, called veredarii. It might be said to be as dangerous to be a post-horse as to be a member of the family of Constantine, for he ordered all the horses to be hamstrung after he had done with them, fearful lest Galerius should revoke his permission and order him to return to Nicomedia. He found his father at the point of death, and caused himself to be recognised emperor by the small number of Roman troops at that time in Britain.

An election of a Roman emperor at York, by five or six thousand men, was not likely to be considered legitimate at Rome. It wanted, at least, the formula of" Senatus populusque Romanus." The senate, the people, and the prætorian bands, unanimously elected Maxentius, son of the Cæsar Maximilian Hercules, who had been already Cæsar, and brother of that Fausta whom Constantine had married, and whom he afterwards caused to be suffocated. This Maxentius is called a tyrant and usurper by our historians, who are uniformly the partisans of the successful. He was the protector of the pagan religion against Constantine, who already began to declare himself for the christians. Being both pagan and vanquished, he could not but be an abominable man.

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Eusebius tells us that Constantine, when going to Rome to fight Maxentius, saw in the clouds, as well as his whole army, the grand imperial standard called the labarum, surmounted with a Latin P. or a large Greek R. with a cross in "saltier," and certain Greek words which signified, " By this sign thou shalt conquer." Some authors pretend that this sign appeared to him at Besançon, others at Cologne, some at Treves, and others at Troyes. It is strange that in all these places heaven should have expressed its meaning in Greek. It would have appeared more natural to the weak understandings of men that this sign should have

appeared in Italy on the day of battle; but then it would have been necessary that the inscription should have been in Latin. A learned antiquary, of the name of Loisel, has refuted this narrative; but he was treated as a reprobate.

It might, however, be worth while to reflect, that this war was not a war of religion, that Constantine was not a saint, that he died suspected of being an Arian, after having persecuted the orthodox; and, therefore, that there is no very obvious motive to support this prodigy.

After his victory, the senate hastened to pay its devotion to the conqueror, and to express its detestation of the memory of the conquered. The triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius was speedily dismantled to adorn that of Constantine. A statue of gold was prepared for him, an honour which had never been shown except to the Gods. He received it, notwithstanding the labarum, and received further the title of Pontifex Maximus, which he retained all his life. His first care, according to Zozimus, was to exterminate the whole race of the tyrant, and his principal friends; after which he assisted very graciously at the public specgames.

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The aged Dioclesian was at that time dying in his retreat at Salona. Constantine should not have been in such haste to pull down his statues at Rome; he should have recollected that the forgotten emperor had been the benefactor of his father, and that he was indebted to him for the empire. Although he had conquered Maxentius, Licinius his brother-in-law, and Augustus like himself, were still to be got rid of; and Licinius was equally anxious to be rid of Constantine, if he had it in his power. However, their quarrels not having yet broken out in open hostility, they issued conjointly at Milan, in 313, the celebrated edict of liberty of conscience. "We grant," they say, all the liberty of following whatever religion they please, in order to draw down the blessing of heaven upon us and our subjects; we declare that we have granted to the Christians the free and full power of exercising their religion; it being understood that all

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others shall enjoy the same liberty, in order to preserve the tranquillity of our government." A volume might be written upon such an edict, but I shall merely venture a few lines.*

Constantine was not as yet a Christian; nor, indeed, was his colleague Licinius one. There was still an emperor or a tyrant to be exterminated; this was a determined pagan, of the name of Maximin. Licinius fought with him before he fought with Constantine. Heaven was still more favourable to him than to Constantine himself; for the latter had only the apparition of a standard, but Licinius that of an angel. This angel taught him a prayer, by means of which he would be sure to vanquish the barbarian Maximin. Licinius wrote it down, ordered it to be recited three times by his army, and obtained a complete victory. If this same Licinius, the brother-in-law of Constantine, had reigned happily, we should have heard of nothing but his angel; but Constantine having had him hanged, and his son slain, and became absolute master of everything, nothing therefore has been talked of but Constantine's labarum.

It is believed that he put to death his eldest son Crispus, and his own wife Fausta, the same year that he convened the council of Nice. Zozimus and Sozomen pretend that, the heathen priests having told him that there were no expiations for such great crimes, he then made open profession of christianity, and demolished many temples in the east. It is not very probable that the pagan pontiffs should have omitted so fine an opportunity of getting back their grand pontiff, who had abandoned them. However, it is by no

* Edicts of this liberal class are very suspicious from quarters which we cannot for a moment imagine to be imbued with the lofty principle of equity, on which alone they are justly and philosophically grounded. As the mere temporary policy of essentially intolerant sects, which are only for the present the weaker, they are to be exceedingly suspected. Nobody was deceived by the affected liberality of James II. in his intended repeal of the penal statutes. The United States of America alone exhibit consistency and sincerity in respect to this important branch of human liberty.-T.

means impossible that there might be among them some severe men; scrupulous and austere persons are to be found everywhere. What is more extraordinary is, that Constantine, after becoming a Christian, performed no penance for his parricide. It was at Rome that he exercised that cruelty, and from that time residence at Rome became hateful to him; he quitted it for ever, and went to lay the foundations of Constantinople. How durst he say, in one of his rescripts, that he transferred the seat of empire to Constantinople" by the command of God himself?" Is it anything but an impudent mockery of God and man? If God had given him any command, would it not have been, not to assassinate his wife and son?

Dioclesian had already furnished an example of transferring the empire towards Asia. The pride, the despotism, and the general manners of the Asiatics, disgusted the Romans, depraved and slavish as they had become. The emperors had not ventured to require, at Rome, that their feet should be kissed, nor to introduce a crowd of eunuchs into their palaces. Dioclesian began in Nicomedia, and Constantine completed the system at Constantinople, to assimilate the Roman court to the courts of the Persians. The city of Rome from that time languished in decay; and the old Roman spirit declined with her. Constantine thus effected the greatest injury to the empire that was in his power.

Of all the emperors he was unquestionably the most absolute. Augustus had left an image of liberty; Tiberius, and even Nero, had humoured the senate and people of Rome: Constantine humoured none. He had at first established his power in Rome by disbanding those haughty prætorians who considered themselves the masters of the emperors. He made an

entire separation between the gown and the sword. The depositories of the laws, kept down under military power, were only jurists in chains. The provinces of the empire were governed upon a new system.

The grand object of Constantine was to be master in everything; he was so in the church as well as in the

state.

We behold him convoking and opening the

council of Nice; advancing into the midst of the assembled fathers, covered over with jewels, and with the diadem upon his head, seating himself in the highest place, and banishing unconcernedly sometimes Arius and sometimes Athanasius. He put himself at the head of Christianity without being a Christian; for at that time baptism was essential to any person's becoming one; he was only a catechumen. The usage of waiting for the approach of death before immersing in the water of regeneration, was beginning to decline with respect to private individuals. If Constantine, by delaying his baptism till near the point of death, entertained the notion that he might commit every act with impunity in the hope of a complete expiation, it was unfortunate for the human race that such an opinion should have ever suggested itself to the mind of a man in possession of uncontroled power.

CONTRADICTIONS.

SECTION 1.

THE more we see of the world, the more we see it abounding in contradictions and inconsistencies. To begin with the grand Turk he orders every head that he dislikes to be struck off, and can very rarely pre

serve his own.

If we pass from the grand Turk to the Holy Father, he confirms the election of emperors, and has kings among his vassals; but he is not so powerful as a duke of Savoy. He expedites orders for America and Africa, yet could not withhold the slightest of its privileges from the republic of Lucca. The emperor is the king of the Romans; but the right of their king consists in holding the pope's stirrup, and handing the water to him at mass.

The English serve their monarch upon their knees, but they depose, imprison, and behead him.

Men who make a vow of poverty, gain in consequence an income of about two hundred thousand crowns; and, in virtue of their vow of humility, they become absolute sovereigns. The plurality of bene

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