treasures of Europe in the orthodox cause; and signified, by
a concise and peremptory epistle to his brother Constantius, that unless
he consented to the immediate restoration of Athanasius, he himself,
with a fleet and army, would seat the archbishop on the throne of
Alexandria. But this religious war, so horrible to nature, was prevented
by the timely compliance of Constantius; and the emperor of the East
condescended to solicit a reconciliation with a subject whom he had
injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride, till he had received three
successive epistles full of the strongest assurances of the protection,
the favor, and the esteem of his sovereign; who invited him to resume
his episcopal seat, and who added the humiliating precaution of engaging
his principal ministers to attest the sincerity of his intentions. They
were manifested in a still more public manner, by the strict orders
which were despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents of Athanasius,
to restore their privileges, to proclaim their innocence, and to
erase from the public registers the illegal proceedings which had been
obtained during the prevalence of the Eusebian faction. After every
satisfaction and security had been given, which justice or even delicacy
could require, the primate proceeded, by slow journeys, through the
provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Syria; and his progress was marked by the
abject homage of the Oriental bishops, who excited his contempt without
deceiving his penetration. At Antioch he saw the emperor Constantius;
sustained, with modest firmness, the embraces and protestations of his
master, and eluded the proposal of allowing the Arians a single church
at Alexandria, by claiming, in the other cities of the empire, a similar
toleration for his own party; a reply which might have appeared just
and moderate in the mouth of an independent prince. The entrance of
the archbishop into his capital was a triumphal procession; absence and
persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his authority, which
he exercised with rigor, was more firmly established; and his fame
was diffused from AEthiopia to Britain, over the whole extent of the
Christian world.

But the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity of
dissembling, can never expect a sincere and lasting forgiveness; and
the tragic fate of Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a powerful and
generous protector. The civil war between the assassin and the only
sur