he heart, in Greek, _cardia_
[Greek: kardia].

The coins of Constantine the Great, 306 A.D., will always remain of
peculiar interest, as connected with the early history of Christianity.
Constantine, after forcing his brother-in-law, Licinius, from his
Eastern dominions, built Constantinople, and made Christianity the state
religion. The principal emblem upon his coins is the Labarum, or sacred
banner, bearing the monogram of Christ--the letters [Greek: Ch] and
[Greek: R]--being the initials of [Greek: CHRISTOU], the angles of which
are occupied by the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha
and Omega, in allusion to Christ's declaration in Revelation. A rarer
type of Constantine's coins has the monogram, and the legend, _In hoc
signo vinces_. The _signum_ was the vision of a beautiful cross in the
heavens, which was presented to the view of Constantine, near Milan,
during his march against Maxentius. To this cross he attributed both his
victory and conversion. These Christian emblems remained upon the coins
of his successors until the reign of Julian the Apostate, who removed
them and substituted pagan emblems. Nor do they again appear until the
accession of Michael Rhangabe (811-813), when the bust and sometimes the
full length of Christ is on the obverse, with the _nimbus_, and the
legend, _Jesus Christus nica(tor) rex regnantium_. Upon the reverse, the
emperor, with a singular degree of boldness, is seated by the side of
the Virgin, the two holding aloft the banner of the cross.

We come to more modern coins. England and Ireland were in continual
trouble about the standard of coinage. On the accession of Mary, she
declared the intention of restoring the old standard of silver coinage,
viz., 11 oz. 2 dwt. fine, to 18 dwt. alloy; but, instead of that, the
new coinage was a pennyweight lower than that of Edward. Nor did it mend
matters that her handsome face and Philip's were on the obverse. The
wits of the day had many a joke over it; and Butler's sarcastic pen
could not omit the opportunity of writing:

'Still amorous, fond, and billing,
Like Philip and Mary upon a shilling.'

The first manifestation of displeasure between the mother country and
the colonies was with Massachusetts, of course. The old Bay State was as
impatient toward masters then as later in the Revolution against George,
and still later with the slaveholders. Charles II. was displeased with
the colonists for coining money, which