to be located at some spot "within the Arctic Circle." Then, referring in a foot-note to a book entitled Paradise Found and to a paper therein quoted, he argues that no fatal objection is likely to be brought against the view that within the same circumpolar district is to be found the cradle of the entire human race. The recent treatises advocating the European origin of the Aryans are now so numerous and so much in demand that the Boston Public Library two years ago printed the extended list of their titles for public use. See Bulletin, vol. ix, pp. 130-134. Among the authors there cited many recognize with more or less distinctness the Arctic character of essential features in the Aryan myths. Several base upon them arguments of no small cogency relative to the primitive Aryan habitat. Penka anticipates some of Krause's insights, just as years ago Wolfgang Menzel in other instances anticipated Penka. The above-named works by Krause and O'Neill are certain to concentrate attention for some time to come on these geographical birthmarks traceable in the oldest traditions of the Indo-Europeans. Dr. Krause's championship of Tuiskoland is so able, and Mr. O'Neill's accumulations of Aryan and extraAryan facts are so abundant and significant, that neither can be ignored. To a believer in the origin of the human race at the North Pole the issue of the debate over the location of the cradle of the Aryans is not material, for the reason that the origination of the Aryan stock was post diluvian, and hence subsequent to the period when the polar region was habitable. It would interest him, however, should the final verdict of science be that the invention of the zodiac was antediluvian, and that the elaborate primeval astronomy and cosmology of which it is a part were constructed from a polar standpoint. Such a conclusion would not only settle the long-mooted question as to the location of the cradle of mankind, but would also demonstrate the supersavage endowments of quaternary or tertiary men. Moreover, it is perfectly safe to say that the reaching of this conclusion was never so strongly probable as it is to-day.

William J. Warren.

ART. VII.--CONSTANTINE AND CHRISTIANITY.

No picture is ever hung on the walls of the Louvre, in Paris, until the artist shall have been dead at least ten years. It is supposed that an artist's real worth cannot be estimated while living. So, it is claimed, the true character of a great man and his work can never be ascertained while living, and that posterity alone can judge of the value of his life to the world. While this is doubtless true in the main it must be confessed that very great difficulty attends the effort of one who attempts to analyze the character and weigh the work of a man who has been dead nearly sixteen hundred years; for, while in some respects the passage of years brings out more clearly the intrinsic value of a man's life to his own and to succeeding generations, the motives that inspired him,.the prejudices that warped his judgment, the ambitions that impelled him can only be understood by putting one's self, as far as possible, into the midst of his environment. The critic should never forget that he is himself the creature of educational surroundings and the product of the generation in which he lives, as well as is the character that he may attempt to criticise. The influence of environment, therefore, at both ends disqualifies one, to some extent, to give an impartial and just estimate of a man's character and work who lived and wrought at so great a distance in the past as Constantine the Great. Ruter says:

No character has been exhibited to posterity in lights more contradictory and irreconcilable than that of Constantine. Christian writers, transported with his profession of their faith, have perhaps magnified his abilities and virtues to excess and thrown an almost celestial splendor over every part of the portrait; while pagan historians have spread their gloomy shades upon the canvas and obscured every trait that was great and amiable.

Constantine was born at Naissus, in Mosia, A. D. 274. Ilis father was Constantius, a general in the Roman army, who was promoted by Diocletian "to the dignity of Cæsar, a sort of lieutenant emperor," and assigned to Britain, Gaul, and Spain. Helena, the supposed discoverer of the real cross on which our Lord was put to death, was his mother. Both his parents were friends of Christianity, while in later life his mother became a

most enthusiastic, if not a superstitious, follower of Christ. In his early life Constantine was a pronounced pagan. At thirtyone he joined his father in Britain. Upon the death of Constantius, at York, his soldiers immediately declared Constantine his successor. Two years later, in A. D. 308, there were five emperors of Rome besides himself, each being assigned to a department of his own.

Three things at this time were manifest: (1) that the Roman empire could never be restored to its former glory while divided into so many fragments; (2) that paganism was tottering to its fall and rapidly losing its hold upon the people; (3) that despised and persecuted Christianity was multiplying its adherents with marvelous rapidity and was on its way to the throne of the Cæsars before Constantine blessed or cursed it (a matter still in question) with his toleration and subsequent support. He therefore at once addressed himself to the herculean task of uniting the empire under one head, and that head himself, by dethroning his rivals. In six years he had conquered four of them, leaving the empire to the joint rule of himself and Licinius. It was when on his way into Gaul, and when he was in doubt as to whether he should accept Christianity or continue a pagan, that he claimed to behold in the clear sky, shortly after noon, a vision of the cross bearing the inscription, "By this conquer." This vision was related by the emperor himself to Eusebius, the historian, confirmed by an oath, and was received with implicit confidence during many ages of Christianity. But the more critical investigations of modern historical inquiry have almost destroyed its authority with rational men. "His vision," says Bishop Hurst, in his Short History of the Early Church, "though in the line of his sympathies, was probably only a shrewd method to attract the Christians to his support." The probability is that the emperor saw a remarkable natural phenomenon, and that his lively imagination gave it the form of a cross with the accompanying inscription. His succeeding dream, in which Christ, as claimed, appeared to him and ordered him to make a banner in the shape of the celestial sign, under which his army would be crowned with certain victory, can easily be accounted for without admitting a divine revelation. Certain it is, however, that Constantine believed in both the vision and the dream, and therefore proceeded to make the

famous labarum, a shaft encased in gold, bearing the image of the cross and the name of Christ, together with the bust of the emperor and his family, which was ever afterward carried at the head of his army. Says Milman :

And so for the first time the meek and peaceful Jesus became a god of battle, and the cross, the holy sign of Christian redemption, a banner of bloody strife. This irreconcilable incongruity between the symbol of universal peace and the horrors of war, in my judgment, is conclusive against the miraculous or supernatural character of the transaction.

But this circumstance created boundless enthusiasm among the soldiers, and at the battle of Milvian Bridge Maxentius went down in the Tiber, leaving Constantine and Licinius joint rulers of the empire. Following this victory came the edict, bearing the names of the two emperors, granting toleration to all religions, including Christianity, of course, and ordering the restoration of all Christian churches, giving as a reason for the issuance of the same the manifest favor of the Christian's God to the army. It is worthy of note that this was not the first edict of the kind emanating from a Roman emperor. In A. D. 260 Gallienus, when he saw that his father prospered as long as he favored the disciples of Christ, declared Christianity to be a lawful religion, and ordered the restoration of all confiscated churches and property to their rightful owners. This first edict of toleration was revoked by Aurelian in A. D. 275.

Licinius soon became jealous of the growing fame and power of Constantine and returned again to the old method of persecuting the Christians, who had universally rallied to the support of Constantine. The lines were now drawn more distinctly than ever between paganism and Christianity, and a war, virtually between the two systems, but involving the unity of the empire, was carried on by the respective leaders. In the year 324 Constantine conquered his last rival and was left the sole emperor of the Roman world. Christianity soon became the state religion, though paganism was tolerated and to some extent supported by the emperor.

Following his successful enthronement as sole emperor came domestic crimes that seriously becloud his name. Suspicious of his son Crispus, born of his first wife, Minervina, he condemned

him to death. Then Fausta, the empress, for no better reason, was sent to the same fate. Crime followed crime until the mind of Constantine was haunted day and night with bloody specters. A bold satire privately circulated, and also posted on the walls of the royal palace, compared the splendid but bloody times with those of Nero. The populace of Rome became indignant, restless, and threatening, and the emperor, in punishment of the Italians, and doubtless also to protect his own person, removed from the city on the Tiber to the city on the Bosporus, where he established the new capital of Constantinople. After a reign of several years of great worldly show and extravagance, which cannot be followed in this paper, Constantine died, aged sixtythree years, having been emperor thirty-one years. He was not baptized and formally received into the Christian Church until a few days before his death. After his baptism he laid aside his imperial purple and dressed in white, which he wore until his death. He was interred in Constantinople under a church of his own construction.

Constantine was a shrewd political trimmer. I have already said that when he first came into power, as one of the six emperors of Rome, he found paganism falling to pieces, and the empire with it, under the leavening power of Christianity. It did not require a very great mind to forecast the future of Christianity. Galerius had forced Christians into the army, and his generals ordered them to adore the image of the emperor and sacrifice to the gods. The one act was blasphemy, the other idolatry. A young Numidian sublimely refused and was slain. When the army was honoring Cæsar in pagan style at Tangiers, Marcellus, a centurion, rose from the camp table and flung down his belt and sword, saying, "From this moment I cease to serve as a soldier. I despise the worship of your gods." He was executed. The word of God was ordered to be burned. Diligent search was made in every house to find and destroy this precious treasure. An African bishop said, "Here is my body; take it, burn it; but I will not deliver up the word of God." A deacon said, "Never, sir; never! Had I children I would sooner deliver them to you than the divine word." He and his wife were burned together. But in the midst of all this Christianity marched on toward the throne. It could not be stamped out or burned out. He must have been