tians
had prompted them to the murder, by poison, of the most powerful and
zealous of the Pagan priests. To labour incessantly until he attained
the influence and position formerly enjoyed by his relative, and to use
that influence and position, when once acquired, as the means of
avenging Macrinus, by sweeping every vestige of the Christian faith
from the face of the earth, were now the settled purposes of his heart.
Inspired by his determination with the deliberate wisdom which is in
most men the result only of the experience of years, he employed the
first days of his convalescence in cautiously maturing his future
plans, and impartially calculating his chances of success. This
self-examination completed, he devoted himself at once and for ever to
his life's great design. Nothing wearied, nothing discouraged, nothing
impeded him. Outward events passed by him unnoticed; the city's
afflictions and the city's triumphs spoke no longer to his heart. Year
succeeded to year, but Time had no tongue for him. Paganism gradually
sank, and Christianity imperceptibly rose, but change spread no picture
before his eyes. The whole outward world was a void to him, until the
moment arrived that beheld him successful in his designs. His
preparations for the future absorbed every faculty of his nature, and
left him, as to the present, a mere automaton, reflecting no principle,
and animated by no event--a machine that moved, but did not perceive--a
body that acted, without a mind that thought.

Returning for a moment to the outward world, we find that on the death
of Jovian, in 364, Valentinian, the new Emperor, continued the system
of toleration adopted by his predecessor. On his death, in 375,
Gratian, the successor to the imperial throne, so far improved on the
example of the two former potentates as to range himself boldly on the
side of the partisans of the new faith. Not content with merely
encouraging, both by precept and by example, the growth of
Christianity, the Emperor further testified to his zeal for the rising
religion by inflicting incessant persecutions upon the rapidly
decreasing advocates of the ancient worship; serving, by these acts of
his reign, as pioneer to his successor, Theodosius the Great, in the
religious revolution which that illustrious opponent of Paganism was
destined to effect.

The death of Gratian, in 383, saw Ulpius enrolled among the chief
priests of the temple, and pointed out as the nex