THE CHURCH UNDER CONSTANTINE.--The accession of Constantine made Christianity the predominant religion in the Roman Empire. His conversion was gradual. More and more he came to rely for support in his conflicts with his rivals upon the God of the Christians. The sign of the cross, which he said that he beheld in the sky, and which led him to make the cross his standard, may have been an optical illusion occasioned partly by his own mental state at the moment, when, after prayer, he was standing at noon-day in the door of his tent. He remained, like many others in that day, not without relics of the old beliefs, as is seen from inscriptions on his coins, and other evidences. His own baptism he deferred until he was near his end, on account of the prevalent idea that all previous guilt is effaced in the baptismal water. The edict of unrestricted toleration was issued from _Milan_ in 312. _Constantine_ did not proscribe heathenism. He forbade immoral rites, and rites connected with magic and sorcery. But, with this exception, heathen worshipers were not molested. But the emperor gave his zealous personal countenance to the Christian cause, and marks of his favor to its adherents. By the privileges and immunities which he granted to the Church and its ministers, he did more than he would have been likely to effect by the use of severity against its adversaries. ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH.--The early Christian societies were little republics, at first under the supervision of the apostles. Their organization shaped itself partly after the model of the synagogue, and partly from the pattern of the civil communities and the voluntary associations about them. In the apostolic age a body of _elders_ or _bishops_ and a body of _deacons_ in each church guided its affairs, while the members took an active part in the choice of their officers, and in the general direction of ecclesiastical proceedings. In the second century, when we get a distinct view of the churches after the obscure interval that follows the age of the apostles, we find that over the elders is a _bishop_, whose office grows in importance as the churches become larger, as the need of more compact organization is felt, and as the clergy become more and more distinct from the laity. The bishop of the city church acquires jurisdiction over the adjacent country churches. The bishop in the capital of each province comes to exercise a certain superintendence within the province. This is the _metropolitan_ system. More and more the bishops of the great cities, especially _Rome_, _Alexandria_, and _Antioch_, exercise a parallel supervision in larger divisions of the empire. This is the _patriarchal_ system. As early as the closing part of the second century, the catholic or universal church presents itself before us, conceived of as a unity which is made such by the hierarchy of bishops, and by connection with the apostolic sees,--the churches founded by the apostles in person. As the apostles