58 MANUAL OF INSTRUCTION 



He adopted the cross on his banners, and went 

 forward to victory. Whether it pleased God to 

 work a special miracle for his conversion or not, we 

 cannot tell, but from the hour that Constantine saw, 

 or fancied he saw, the cross in the sky, he favored 

 the Christians, and sought to make their religion that 

 of the empire. Thus after over two centuries of 

 sorrow, the Church triumphed. Edicts were issued 

 by the Emperor calling upon his subjects to embrace 

 the Christian faith, forbidding the idolatrous rites 

 of paganism, and putting an end to the cruelties 

 which had been so generally practiced. 



Christians were appointed to. the public offices, 

 the clergy were loaded with favors, the sign of the 

 cross was marked upon the armor and weapons 

 of the soldiers, and many churches were built. 



His ardor was inflamed more and more by his 

 mother, Helena, a British lady, who had long been 

 a very zealous Christian, and who induced him to 

 expend great sums of money in identifying the 

 scenes of sacred events in Jerusalem, and in the 

 construction there of a magnificent church. 



The two great events which stand out promi- 

 nently in the reign of the first Christian emperor, 

 are the assembling of the first general Council of 

 the Church at Nice, and the building of the city of 

 Constantinople. Both of these were events of great 

 importance. The first was the authoritative settling 

 of the faith of the Church as against the errors of 



