ne was not circumscribed by the narrow limits of his life,
or of his dominions. The education which he bestowed on his sons and
nephews secured to the empire a race of princes, whose faith was still
more lively and sincere, as they imbibed, in their earliest infancy, the
spirit, or at least the doctrine, of Christianity. War and commerce
had spread the knowledge of the gospel beyond the confines of the
Roman provinces; and the Barbarians, who had disdained as humble and
proscribed sect, soon learned to esteem a religion which had been so
lately embraced by the greatest monarch, and the most civilized nation,
of the globe. The Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the standard of
Rome, revered the cross which glittered at the head of the legions, and
their fierce countrymen received at the same time the lessons of faith
and of humanity. The kings of Iberia and Armenia * worshipped the god of
their protector; and their subjects, who have invariably preserved the
name of Christians, soon formed a sacred and perpetual connection with
their Roman brethren. The Christians of Persia were suspected, in time
of war, of preferring their religion to their country; but as long as
peace subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the
Magi was effectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine. The
rays of the gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of Jews,
who had penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia, opposed the progress of
Christianity; but the labor of the missionaries was in some measure
facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation; and
Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, * who, in the time
of Constantine, devoted his life to the conversion of those sequestered
regions. Under the reign of his son Constantius, Theophilus, who was
himself of Indian extraction, was invested with the double character
of ambassador and bishop. He embarked on the Red Sea with two hundred
horses of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which were sent by the emperor
to the prince of the Sabaeans, or Homerites. Theophilus was intrusted
with many other useful or curious presents, which might raise the
admiration, and conciliate the friendship, of the Barbarians; and he
successfully employed several years in a pastoral visit to the churches
of the torrid zone.

The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was displayed in the
important and dangerous change of the national religion. The terrors
o