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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1835 Excerpt:...already learned to despise the prejudices of his education, and of his people, before he could erect, in the midst of Rome, his own statue bearing a cross in its right hand, with an inscription, which referred the victory of his arms, and the deliverance of Rome, to the virtue of that salutary sign, the true symbol of force and courage.f The same symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers of Constantine; the cross glittered on their helmets, was engraved on their shields, was interwoven into their banners; and the consecrated emblems which adorned the person of the emperor himself, were distinguished only by richer materials, and more exquisite workmanship. But the principal standard which displayed the triumph of the cross, was styled the labarum, an obscure though celebrated name, which has been vainly derived from almost all the languages of the world. It is described as a long pike, intersected by a transversal beam."J On all occasions of danger or distress, it was the practice of the primitive Christians to fortify their minds and bodies by the sign of the cross, which they used in all their ecclesiastical rights, in all the daily oc "Antiquity explained," by Montfaucon: translated by Humphreys, fol. Vol. V. p. 158. f "The Christian writers, Justin, Minutius Felix, Tertullian, Jerom, and Maximus of Turin, have investigated with tolerable success the figure or likeness of a cross in almost every object of nature or art; in the intersection of the meridian and equator, the human face, a bird flying, a man swimming, a mast and yard, a plough, a standard, &c. &c. &c. See Lipsius de Cruce, L. i. C. 9.--Gibbon, 8vo. Vol. III. 256. J Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 8vo. Vol. III. 257. currences of life, as an inf...