Such was the condition of the world towards the close of the fourth century. Christianity had undermined all the temples of idolatry, and was enthroned as the established religion of the Roman empire. Ambitious men rallied about it as a great political power. Wicked men nominally embraced it as an essential step to worldly advancement. Christianity had thus, perhaps, more to fear from favoritism than from persecution. Unprincipled men, grasping at wealth and power, embraced Christianity merely as an instrument for the promotion of their own temporal aggrandizement. They hated its spiritual teachings, and endeavored to make it a religion of dead doctrines and of pompous ceremonies, rather than a rule to govern heart and life. They crucified Christianity while crowning it. Lured by hopes of court favor and preferment, many who were still in heart pagans had hypocritically professed Christianity. Corruption thus crept into the Church. To conciliate the ignorant idolatrous populace, and to lure them into the Christian churches, the pomp and pageantry of pagan rites were introduced to supplant the unostentatious and simple ordinances of the gospel. Hence the origin of those theatric shows which are still the prominent features in the worship of the Church at Rome. The death-bed of Constantius was that of an awakened and despairing sinner. He had been a wicked man. He had known his duty; for he had enjoyed the teachings of a Christian father. He had also heard the faithful preaching of the gospel. Death brings all to the same level: the emperor and his humblest slave are upon an equality in that dread hour. As one reads the record of the remorse of the dying Constantius, he may say,―― “By many a death-bed I have been, By many a sinner’s parting scene, But never aught like this.” As the moment drew near when his spirit, leaving the body, was to be transported to God’s bar, he trembled, and cried aloud for mercy. He gathered the most devout of the clergy around his bedside, and entreated them to pray for him. Professing heart-felt repentance, the dying monarch implored that the rite of baptism and that of the Lord’s Supper might be administered to him. He received both of these ordinances, and still found but little peace. There are doubtless death-bed repentances; but they are very rare. It is only by living the life of the righteous that one can expect to know by blessed experience what it is “sweetly to fall asleep in Jesus.” Trembling, hoping, despairing, the imperial sinner passed away into the vast unknown. How deep is the shade of melancholy which lingers around these sad recitals! Where now are those monarchs who once ruled the world? Where now are the soldiers of those thronging armies, which, fourteen centuries ago, swept the nations with billows of flame and blood?