the Great,
was emperor. He was a terrible ruffian, but people of tender qualities
could hardly hope to survive in that hard-fighting age. During a long
and checkered career, Constantine had experienced many ups and downs.
Once, when almost defeated by his enemies, he thought that he would try
the power of this new Asiatic deity of whom everybody was talking. He
promised that he too would become a Christian if he were successful in
the coming battle. He won the victory and thereafter he was convinced of
the power of the Christian God and allowed himself to be baptised.

From that moment on, the Christian church was officially recognised and
this greatly strengthened the position of the new faith.

But the Christians still formed a very small minority of all the people,
(not more than five or six percent,) and in order to win, they were
forced to refuse all compromise. The old gods must be destroyed. For a
short spell the emperor Julian, a lover of Greek wisdom, managed to save
the pagan Gods from further destruction. But Julian died of his wounds
during a campaign in Persia and his successor Jovian re-established the
church in all its glory. One after the other the doors of the ancient
temples were then closed. Then came the emperor Justinian (who built the
church of Saint Sophia in Constantinople), who discontinued the school
of philosophy at Athens which had been founded by Plato.

That was the end of the old Greek world, in which man had been allowed
to think his own thoughts and dream his own dreams according to his
desires. The somewhat vague rules of conduct of the philosophers had
proved a poor compass by which to steer the ship of life after a deluge
of savagery and ignorance had swept away the established order of
things. There was need of something more positive and more definite.
This the Church provided.

During an age when nothing was certain, the church stood like a rock and
never receded from those principles which it held to be true and sacred.
This steadfast courage gained the admiration of the multitudes and
carried the church of Rome safely through the difficulties which
destroyed the Roman state.

There was however, a certain element of luck in the final success of
the Christian faith. After the disappearance of Theodoric's Roman-Gothic
kingdom, in the fifth century, Italy was comparatively free from foreign
invasion. The Lombards and Saxons and Slavs who succeeded the Goths were
weak and backwar