IN N the year 336 A. D. a magnificent pageant was witnessed in the city of Constantinople. The people are out in countless throngs, dressed in holiday garments. The soldiers are marching with waving banners, keeping step to the strains of martial music. The nobles, the gentry, the dignitaries of the realm, and the ambassadors from foreign courts vie with each other in the splendor of their retinue and the costliness of their equipages; while the officers of the imperial court spare neither money nor pains in the effort to make the occasion memorable for its magnificence in the annals of Rome. The whole people rejoice, and that not feignedly but sincerely, for to-day the mighty Emperor Constantine celebrates the thirtieth year of his victorious reign; and never since the days of Marcus Aurelius has the empire been more united and prosperous, the people more contented, or the sovereign himself more respected and beloved. And now for the first time in the history of the world, the ministers of the Christian church are seen mingling on equal terms with the highest dignitaries of the state and tak ing a prominent part in the public exercises of such a royal fête. And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his And I saw another beast coming up feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. REVELATION xiii. 1-18. out of the earth; and he had two horns like unto a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. |