Eusebius, in his “Ecclesiastical History,”[16] puts on record the following account of a most remarkable event:[17]--“It is said that when Marcus Aurelius Cæsar was forming his troops in order of battle against the Germans and Sarmatians, he was reduced to extremities by a failure of water. Meanwhile the soldiers in the so-called ‘Melitene legion,’ which for its faith remains to this day, knelt down upon the ground, as we are accustomed to do, in prayer, and betook themselves to supplication. And whereas this sight was strange to the enemy, another still more strange happened immediately--thunderbolts which caused the enemy’s flight and overthrow; and upon the army to which the men were attached, who had called upon God, a rain, which restored it entirely when it was all but perishing by thirst.” This fact had been previously put on record by Claudius Apollinaris,[18] Bishop of Hierapolis, in his “Apology for Christianity,” addressed about the year 176 to the Emperor Marcus. Tertullian, about fifteen years later, affirms the truth of the same fact when addressing the Proconsul of Africa. Each of these writers gives point to the narrative, the first by recording that henceforth the term “Thundering Legion” was applied to that in which the Christian soldiers had prayed: the second by his statement that the Emperor had, in consequence, promulgated an edict in favour of the Christians. It is clear from Eusebius, likewise, that the Pagans acknowledged the miracle, as they could not fail to do, wrought as it was in the presence of so many; but, of course, they denied that it was to be attributed to the prayers of the Christians. Julius Capitolinus attributed it to the prayers of the Emperor;[19] Dionysius Cassius to the operations of Arnuphis, an Egyptian magician.[20] A record of the unquestioned fact, however, is sculptured on the Antonine column at Rome;[21] a medal, struck the very year of the occurrence, likewise commemorates the event. Here, then, we find on record an occurrence which ordinary people will call a miracle; here we obtain a distinct example of the Supernatural. In answer to the prayers of certain Roman soldiers, sons and servants of the Crucified, palpable benefits are vouchsafed, and marvellous deliverances effected. The foe is destroyed, and they are rescued. And this fact is testified to by Pagans worthy of credit as well as by Christians, and is put on record in the modes already set forth. Another example, the appearance of a luminous Cross to Constantine (A.D. 312), must here be given, because of its inherent importance; because the testimony to its having occurred before so many is very general; and because the moral and religious changes consequent upon it, results that both immediately and eventually followed, have been at once great and notorious:--