alvary with all their holy souvenirs.

IT GATHERS POLITICAL POWER. For many years Christianity manifested
itself as a system enjoining three things--toward God veneration, in
personal life purity, in social life benevolence. In its early days of
feebleness it made proselytes only by persuasion, but, as it increased
in numbers and influence, it began to exhibit political tendencies, a
disposition to form a government within the government, an empire within
the empire. These tendencies it has never since lost. They are, in
truth, the logical result of its development. The Roman emperors,
discovering that it was absolutely incompatible with the imperial
system, tried to put it down by force. This was in accordance with the
spirit of their military maxims, which had no other means but force for
the establishment of conformity.

In the winter A.D. 302-'3, the Christian soldiers in some of the legions
refused to join in the time-honored solemnities for propitiating the
gods. The mutiny spread so quickly, the emergency became so pressing,
that the Emperor Diocletian was compelled to hold a council for the
purpose of determining what should be done. The difficulty of the
position may perhaps be appreciated when it is understood that the wife
and the daughter of Diocletian himself were Christians. He was a man
of great capacity and large political views; he recognized in the
opposition that must be made to the new party a political necessity,
yet he expressly enjoined that there should be no bloodshed. But who can
control an infuriated civil commotion? The church of Nicomedia was razed
to the ground; in retaliation the imperial palace was set on fire, an
edict was openly insulted and torn down. The Christian officers in the
army were cashiered; in all directions, martyrdoms and massacres were
taking place. So resistless was the march of events, that not even the
emperor himself could stop the persecution.

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPEROR. It had now become evident that the
Christians constituted a powerful party in the state, animated with
indignation at the atrocities they had suffered, and determined to
endure them no longer. After the abdication of Diocletian (A.D. 305),
Constantine, one of the competitors for the purple, perceiving the
advantages that would accrue to him from such a policy, put himself
forth as the head of the Christian party. This gave him, in every part
of the empire, men and women ready to encounter fire an