known in history as "Constantine the Great." The great lights of the
heathen world, the powers civil and ecclesiastical, were not eclipsed,
but extinguished, heathen priests and augurs were extirpated and
idolatrous temples were closed. Christianity was professed by the
emperor himself, and his authority exerted for its recognition and
diffusion throughout his dominions. Thus did the God of Israel "avenge
his own elect, who cried to him night and day from under the altar;" and
thus did he afford unto them a "season of rest."

Constantine, however, was more of a politician than divine. To the
student of history he will appear in many respects a striking prototype
of William Prince of Orange, who on a less extended scale answers as an
antitype in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Neither of them
exemplified in their lives the "power of godliness". Like Charles the
Second, they did not consider primitive apostolic Christianity "a
religion for a gentleman." Constantine combined in his character the
properties of the lion and the fox. He was crafty and ambitious.
Usurping the prerogatives of Zion's King, he assumed a blasphemous
supremacy over the church, and proceeded to model her external polity
after the example of the empire. Among the Christian ministry, he found
mercenary spirits who pandered to his ambition,--"having his person in
admiration because of advantage." Advancing these to positions of
opulence and splendor, he could certainly rely upon them to support him
in his schemes of aggrandizement. Thus the mystery of iniquity, whose
working Paul discovered in his time, was nurtured to its full
development in Heaven's appointed time. (2 Thess. ii. 7, etc.) If on
such occasions mighty kings and valiant generals are stricken with
dismay, what shall be the terror of all the impenitent enemies of the
Lord and his Anointed when the heavens and the earth shall pass away and
leave them without these imaginary hiding places from "the wrath of the