cable Jehovah
of the Mosaic law." The tables had turned; Christianity was now in
power; the heretofore persecuted soon set out on the way to become the
persecutors.

IV

SAINT HELENA AND THE TIME OF CONSTANTINE

At last we see Christianity triumphant. What has been an obscure but
hated and persecuted sect now becomes the dominant religion in the
Empire; the people who had hidden underground in the Catacombs are now
the favorites of the palace. It had been a conflict between spiritual
forces and carnal weapons, between patient propagandism and vindictive
conservatism; on one side, invincible missionary zeal joined with
undefensive submission, on the other, senseless misrepresentation and
cruel persecution. But what can overcome the idea for which men and
women are ready to die? It was a conflict in which, on the Christian
part, women were as well fitted to engage as were men. The exalted
purity of Christian maidens was as effective in setting at naught the
counsels of the ungodly as were the elaborate arguments of the
apologists; the blood of believing matrons was as fertile for the
increase of the Church as was that of bishops and presbyters. The
followers of Christ clung to the Cross and conquered.

At the same time, victory did not come without heavy loss to the Church.
In this loss, however, must not be reckoned the lives of the martyrs.
The men and women who sacrificed themselves to the Cause were considered
to have won thereby, not mere fame, but the enjoyment of celestial glory
in a conscious eternal life; and their death was always repaid to the
Church by an increase of a hundred-fold. But as the Church gained in
extension, it lost in intention. The organization, the religion, the
name won; but the spirit, the inner principles of Christianity lost. In
this sense the victory was much in the nature of a compromise.
Christianity became the faith of the Empire; but the Empire did not
adopt for its rule the pure precepts of Christ. Constantine's court
worshipped the Nazarene; but Constantine's conduct was not superior to
that of many of his heathen predecessors. The ancient religion was
superstitious, and it is not possible to contend that the religion of
Helena was free from that fault. The women of an older Rome were greatly
subject to frailties of the flesh, and like scandals were by no means
uncommon in the palaces of Christian emperors. It is not difficult to
match Agrippina and Poppaea in the histor