ded at last to overthrow the old bulwark which for so
many centuries had guarded Christendom. Above all, it was Constantine
who first essayed the problem of putting a Christian spirit into the
statecraft of the world. Hard as the task is even now, it was harder
still in times when the gospel had not yet had time to form, as it were,
an outwork of common feeling against some of the grosser sins. Yet
whatever might be his errors, his legislation was a landmark for ever,
because no emperor before him had been guided by a Christian sense of
duty.

[Sidenote: Division of the Empire.]

The sons of Constantine shared the Empire among them 'like an ancestral
inheritance.' Thrace and Pontus had been assigned to their cousins,
Dalmatius and Hannibalianus; but the army would have none but
Constantine's own sons to reign over them. The whole house of Theodora
perished in the tumult except two boys--Gallus and Julian, afterwards
the apostate Emperor. Thus Constantine's sons were left in possession of
the Empire. Constantine II. took Gaul and Britain, the legions of Syria
secured the East for Constantius, and Italy and Illyricum were left for
the share of the youngest, Constans.

[Sidenote: Recall of Athanasius, 337.]

One of the first acts of the new Emperors was to restore the exiled
bishops. Athanasius was released by the younger Constantine as soon as
his father's death was known at Trier, and reached Alexandria in
November 337, to the joy of both Greeks and Copts. Marcellus and the
rest were restored about the same time, though not without much
disturbance at Ancyra, where the intruding bishop Basil was an able man,
and had formed a party.

[Sidenote: Character of Constantius.]

Let us now take a glance at the new Emperor of the East. Constantius had
something of his father's character. In temperance and chastity, in love
of letters and in dignity of manner, in social charm and pleasantness of
private life, he was no unworthy son of Constantine; and if he inherited
no splendid genius for war, he had a full measure of soldierly courage
and endurance. Nor was the statesmanship entirely bad which kept the
East in tolerable peace for four-and-twenty years. But Constantius was
essentially a little man, in whom his father's vices took a meaner form.
Constantine committed some great crimes, but the whole spirit of
Constantius was corroded with fear and jealousy of every man better than
himself. Thus the easy trust in unworthy fa