The Character of Constantine. Turing from the consideration of the equivocal conduct of the emperor to his character, we have a subject about which there is less disagreement among authorities; for even Christian apologists are compelled to admit the wickedness of this first Christian emperor. "Relying with presumptuous confidence," says Neander, "on the great things which God had done throug him, for the advancement of the Christian Church, he found it easy to excuse or extenuate to his conscience, many a wrong deed, into which he had suffered himself to be betrayed by ambition, the love of rule, the arbitrary exercise of power, or the jealousy of despotism."[A] [Footnote A: Neander Ch. Hist., vol. ii, p. 24.] "It is indeed true that, Constantine's life was not such as the precepts of Christianity required," Dr. Mosheim remarks, but softens the statement against the emperor by saying that "it is but too notorious that many persons who look upon the Christian religion as indubitably true, and of divine origin, yet do not conform their lives to all its holy precepts."[A] [Footnote A: Mosheim's Institutes, vol. i, p. 214.] Dr. Lardner, after drawing a most favorable outline of Constantine's person and character, and citing the flattery of contemporary panegyrists as a description of the man, says: "Having observed these virtues of Constantine, and other things, which are to his advantage: a just respect to truth obligeth us to take notice of some other things, which seem to cast a reflection upon him."[A] And then in the most naive manner he adds: "Among these, one of the chief is putting to death so many of his relatives!" He enumerates the victims of the first Christian emperor as follows: "Maximian Herculius, his wife's father; Bassianus, husband of his sister, Anastasia; Crispus, his own son; Fausta, his wife; Licinius, husband of his sister, Constantia; and Licinianus, or Licinius, the younger, his nephew, and son of the forementioned Licinius."[B] The last named victim was a mere lad when put to death, "not more than a little above eleven years of age, if so much," is Dr. Lardner's own description of him. Fausta was suffocated in a steam bath, though she had been his wife for twenty years and mother of three of his sons. It should be remembered that this is the list of victims admitted by a most learned and pious Christian writer, not a catalogue drawn up by pagan historians, whom we might suspect of malice against one who had deserted the shrines of the ancient gods for the faith of the Christians. But this rather formidable list of murdered victims admitted by Dr. Lardner shakes not his faith in the goodness of the first Christian emperor. Some of these "executions" he palliates, if not justifies, on the ground of political necessity; and others on the ground of domestic perfidy; though he almost stumbles in his efforts at excusing the taking off of Crispus, the emperor's own son; Fausta, his wife, and the lad Licinius.