the name of " parhelion," which in an afternoon sky not unfrequently assumes almost the form of the cross. He also brings in, as a new illustration, the Aurora Borealis which appeared in November, 1848, and was variously interpreted, in France as forming the letters L. N., in view of the approaching election of Loui.-* Napoleon, in Rome as the blood of the murdered Rossi crying for vengeance from heaven against his assassins. Mosheim, after a lengthy discussion of the subject in his large work on the ante-Nicene age, comes to no definite conclusion, but favors the hypothesis of a mere dream or a psychological illusion. Neander and Robertson connect with the supposition of a natural phenomenon in the skies a dream of Con- stantine which reflected the optical vision of the day. Keim, the latest writer on the subject, 1. c. p. 89, admits the dream, but denies the cross in the clouds. So Mosheim. 24 THIRD PEEIOD. A.D. 311-590. The propriety of a miracle, parallel to the signs in heaven which preceded the destraction of Jerusalem, might be justified by the significance of the victory as marking a great epoch in history, namely, the downfall of paganism and the establish- ment of Christianity in the empire. But even if we waive the , purely critical objections to the Eusebian narrative, the as- sumed connection, in this case, of the gentle Prince of peace with the god of battle, and the subserviency of the sacred sym- bol of redemption to military ambition, -is repugnant to the genius of the gospel and to sound Christian feeling, unless we stretch the theory of divine accommodation to the spirit of the age and the passions and interests of individuals beyond the ordinary limits. We should suppose, moreover, that Christ, if he had really appeared to Constantino either in person (ac- cording to Eusebius) or through angels (as Rufiniis and Sozo- men modify it), would have exhorted him to repent and be baptized rather than to construct a military ensign for a bloody battle.' In no case can we ascribe to this occurrence, with Eusebins, Theodoret, and older writers, the character of a sudden and genuine conversion, as to Paul's vision of Christ on the way to Damascus ; ' for, on the one hand, Constantine was never hostile to Christianity, but most probably friendly to it from his early youth, according to the example of liis father ; and, on the other, he put off his baptism quite'five and twenty years, almost to the hour of his death. The opposite hypothesis of a mere military stratagem or intentional fraud is still more objectionable, and would compel us either to impute to the first Christian emperor at a venerable age the double crime of falsehood and perjury, or, if Eusebius invented the story, to deny to the " father of church history " ^ Dr. Murdock (notes to his translation of Mosheim) raises the additional objec- tion, which has some force from his