the splendor of his
purple, rather than by the superiority of wisdom, or virtue, from
the many thousands of his subjects who had embraced the doctrines of
Christianity. Nor can it be deemed incredible, that the mind of an
unlettered soldier should have yielded to the weight of evidence, which,
in a more enlightened age, has satisfied or subdued the reason of a
Grotius, a Pascal, or a Locke. In the midst of the incessant labors
of his great office, this soldier employed, or affected to employ, the
hours of the night in the diligent study of the Scriptures, and the
composition of theological discourses; which he afterwards pronounced
in the presence of a numerous and applauding audience. In a very long
discourse, which is still extant, the royal preacher expatiates on
the various proofs still extant, the royal preacher expatiates on the
various proofs of religion; but he dwells with peculiar complacency
on the Sibylline verses, and the fourth eclogue of Virgil. Forty years
before the birth of Christ, the Mantuan bard, as if inspired by the
celestial muse of Isaiah, had celebrated, with all the pomp of oriental
metaphor, the return of the Virgin, the fall of the serpent, the
approaching birth of a godlike child, the offspring of the great
Jupiter, who should expiate the guilt of human kind, and govern
the peaceful universe with the virtues of his father; the rise and
appearance of a heavenly race, primitive nation throughout the world;
and the gradual restoration of the innocence and felicity of the golden
age. The poet was perhaps unconscious of the secret sense and object of
these sublime predictions, which have been so unworthily applied to
the infant son of a consul, or a triumvir; but if a more splendid, and
indeed specious interpretation of the fourth eclogue contributed to
the conversion of the first Christian emperor, Virgil may deserve to be
ranked among the most successful missionaries of the gospel.

Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.--Part III.

The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were concealed
from the eyes of strangers, and even of catechumens, with an affected
secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and curiosity. But the
severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had
instituted, were relaxed by the same prudence in favor of an Imperial
proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle
condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantin