Constantine became a convert, perhaps from conviction, but certainly rather late.  Supposing him a political convert, as many have done, it could only be because he saw that Christianity had done its work to such an extent as to render it more probable that it would assist him than that he could assist it.  This induced him to take it under the wing of his patronage.  And on such a theory, what but such a conviction could have justified him in the attempt for a moment?  How could he be fool enough to add to the difficulties of his position—­a candidate for empire—­the stupendous difficulty of forcing upon his unwilling or indifferent subjects a religion which by supposition they were any thing but prepared to receive?  If the prospects of Christianity had not already decided the question for him, so far from receiving credit for political sagacity, as he ever has done, he would deserve rather to be considered an absolute idiot!

Again; is it not plain from history in general, and must we not infer it from the nature of the case a priori, that Christianity must in some fashion have conquered its millions before Constantine or any other man was likely to attempt to conquer the empire for Christianity, or to succeed in so doing if he had?  Is there an instance on record of a people suddenly, at a moment’s notice, changing its religion, or rather—­for this is the true representation—­of many different nations changing their many different religions at the simple command of their sovereign, and he too an upstart?  In two cases, and in only two, it may be done; first, by an unsparing use of the sword, the brief, simple alternative of Mahomet, Death or the Koran; the other, when the new form of belief has converted the bulk or a large portion of the nation; of which, in this case, the conversion of the army is a tolerably significant indication.

But again; if it be said that the people, or rather the many different nations, abandoned their religions out of complaisance to their sovereign, I answer, Why do we not see the same thing repeated when Julian wished to reverse the experiment?  They were not so pliant then; then was it seen very dearly that the people were, as in every other case, unwilling, as regards their religion, to be mere puppets in the hands of their governors.  He was animated by at least as strong a hatred of Christianity as Constantine by a love of it.  Yet we see all the way through, that there was not a chance of success for him.

“But there were some persecutions,” you will say, “by Constantine.”  True, but they were so trifling compared with what would have been required had the conversion of an unbelieving and refractory empire depended on such means, that few who read the history of religious revolutions will believe that they were the cause of the change.  Every thing shows that a vast preceding moral revolution in the empire is the only sufficient explanation of so sudden an event.  Gibbon himself admits Constantine’s tolerant disposition.