THE DECLINE AND FALL

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'chap, year, twelve thousand men were baptised atRome , besides a proportionable number of wo-men and children ; and that a white garment,with twenty pieces of gold, had been promisedby the emperor to every convert/ The power-ful influence of Constantine was not circum-scribed by the narrow limits of his life, or ofhis dominions. The education which he be-stowed on his sons and nephews, secured tothe empire a race of princes, whose faith wasstill more lively and sincere, as they imbibed,in their earliest infancy, the spirit, or at leastthe doctrine, of Christianity . War and com-merce had spread the knowledge of the gospelbeyond the confines of the Roman provinces;and the barbarians, who had disdained an hum-ble and proscribed sect, soon learned to esteema religion which had been so lately embraced bythe greatest monarch, and the most civilized na-tion of the glohe. B The Goths and Germans ,who enlisted under the standard of Rome , re-vered the cross which glittered at the head ofthe legions, and their fierce countrymen received

* See Acta Sti. Silvestri, and Hist. Eocies. Nicephor. Callist. 1. vii, c.34 , ap. Baronium Annal. Eceles. i>. 324, No. 67-74. Such evidenceis contemptible enoughj but these circumstances are in themselves soprobable, that the learned Dr. Howell (History of the World, vol. iii,p. 14) has not scrupled to adopt them.

* The conversion of the barbarians under the reign of Constantine is celebrated by the ecclesiastical historians (See Sozomen , l. ii, c. 6,and Theodoret, 1. i, c. 23, 24). But Rufinus, the Latin translator ofEusebius , deserves to be considered as an original authority. His in-formation was curiously collected from one of the companions of theapostle of .Ethiopia , and from Bacurius, an Iberian prince, who wascount of the domestics. Father Mamachi has given an ample compila-tion on the progress of Christianity , in the first and second volume* ofhi* great but imperfect work.