"HIS MOST CATHOLIC MAJESTY." The historians, secular and ecclesiastic, have alike failed to do justice to the vast abilities of Constantine the Great. Those who have questioned his superiority to all other Roman emperors (if, indeed, not to all other men) have united in ascribing to accident, to the mere drifting of events, facts which were really the forecastings of profoundest statesmanship, guided by a political sagacity that pierced through to the very core of the whole social and religious life of the vast empire over which he ruled, almost untroubled by the influences of human passions, fears, and faith. On the other hand, those who have felt constrained to give even the slightest credence to his alleged profession of faith in Christ have attributed to religious zeal, enthusiasm, or fears, the most salient actions of a life that was, from beginning to end, dominated only by the lust for dominion, incapable of any creed but atheism, and absolutely content with the negation of the existence of any Being greater than himself. To those who take a more rational view of his magnificent but criminal career, and who, looking behind the mask of reverence for paganism which he cast aside at precisely the politic moment, in order to assume a false pretense of reverence for Christianity, discern the cool, deliberate atheist, who was ready to profess any creed and foster any superstition that might best serve to smooth the road to absolute power, and make mankind his slaves: to them the astute politician, the successful warrior, the consummate ruler of men, assumes such colossal proportions that, compared with him, Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon, seem to sink into the lower grade of butchers and stabbers, only half-taught in the science of government, of which Constantine alone was master. For it is no more certain that he despised and pitied paganism while he was solemnly offering sacrifices to Jupiter, and winning the admiration and love of the Roman world for his imperial piety, than it is certain that he pitied and despised the Church of Christ, even while he was manipulating the faith into a sure and reliable support of the empire; in both courses he only played with the world, giving men any religious toy which the greater part might prefer to have, in exchange for the liberty of which he robbed them so plausibly and successfully that they scarcely perceived his theft, and enthusiastically caressed the royal thief.