CHAPTER VII.

THE FULNESS OF TIME.

HISTORY is like a river, or like a number of confluent streams, proceeding from some high table land, or lofty mountain range, rushing through the plains beneath, now diverging, then again approaching, finally flowing together in some common channel, and by a single mouth or mouths falling into the sea. One great principle or law governs the whole. All the streams tend one way, all find themselves, at last, in the ocean. Thus, from some common origin in the depths of Asia, we find mankind diverging into various communities and peoples, long separated from each other, then mingled together, by means of war, commerce, literature, religion, and other causes, evermore tending in one direction, and passing on to some common destiny. The hand of God presides over the rushing millions, evolving grand and benignant purposes, preparing the world for new eras and revolutions, and above all for the peaceful and eternal reign of the Messiah. Thus history has two aspects, the one superficial and gloomy, like a

sea vexed with storms, the other clear and calm like the same sea in its profounder depths. It has two movements, the one temporary and tumultuous, setting in towards time, the other permanent and majestic, setting in towards eternity. Hence we find the ancient nations brought together, revolutionized, thrown into new shapes and positions, or utterly extinguished in the process of human civilization. But amid all changes, there is an onward movement. Truth is preserved among men, and in the lapse of ages, discovered in greater beauty, comprehensiveness, and power. Religion, like a deeper life, having its sources in the infinite, advances to its goal, now apparently lost amid the heaving surges of human passion, then again reappearing with greater force, and evidently moving, with the progress of events, to some august consummation. So also the chosen people, with whom it is mainly deposited, are preserved and pushed forward, in connection with the truth, to the same final issue. Dynasties rise and fall with reference to this alone. It weaves itself, like a supernatural agency, which it really is, in all their affairs, and when these have served its purposes, it leaves them for a new, and perhaps wider career with others. Thus God used the old Assyrians to punish his people, and convey his truth into the remoter Oriental world; so

that even in the courts of Nineveh and Babylon he had witnesses for the truth; he used the Persians to provide them a congenial home, to restore them to their native land, to rebuild the temple and reëstablish their ancient worship; he compelled Alexander of Macedon and his early successors, both in Syria and Egypt, to protect them; he permitted Antiochus Epiphanes, by bloody persecution, to try their faith and test their devotion; but he put "a hook in his nose," and said, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther;" finally, he brought the Romans to enslave them, yet, by this very means, to maintain, within certain limits, their national integrity, and above all to save them from the vengeance of the kings of Syria, who longed for their destruction. By these and similar means he not only preserved them in the land of Palestine, with their inspired books, sacred places, and Messianic hopes, but he scattered them also through the civilized world, in Rome, Greece, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Babylon, and even India, into which places they carried their peculiar principles and expectations; so that great numbers of the heathen became their proselytes, and cherished, in form more or less perfect, their peculiar hopes.

How singularly, in its external aspects, not to speak of its interior forces, was the world pre

pared for the establishment and propagation of Christianity!

It was a time of transition and convergence, such as the nations had never before seen. The old dynasties were subdued, and Rome was every where dominant. The languages of the most intelligent and aggressive civilizations, the Grecian and the Roman, spread with the advance of their conquering armies. Greece herself had fallen into decay, but her language, from a great variety of causes, had become almost cosmopolitan. It was spoken not only in its old native haunts, but throughout Asia Minor, and in many parts of. Syria, especially in all the great centres of commerce and power, Rome, Damascus, Babylon, Jerusalem, Cæsarea, Antioch, and Alexandria. Thus the nations were brought together. Thus the streams of history were converging to some great issue.

Indeed, that was a most peculiar and critical era, which closed, in some sense, the troubled drama of the ancient world, and prepared man. kind for a new order of things.

The existing religions, and consequent civilizations, all of which, with a single exception, embodied the element of idolatry, and what is worse, of selfishness and lust, had fallen into a state of dotage. Their old fiery heart ceased to beat. A strange torpor seized them all. Indeed,

mankind, in consequence of their advancing intelligence, had outgrown their religions, while their morals were becoming more and more corrupt. The splendid visions of Grecian polytheism had long been tarnished. Olympus was deserted. Magnificent temples, beautiful poetry, exquisite statuary remained, but all earnest worship was lost. The whole was thoroughly penetrated by the spirit of doubt and lust. The stronger, but equally idolatrous faith of Rome gave signs of decay. Like the civil polity which it supported, it was tottering to its fall. Superstitions enough remained, but all profound and coherent faith, even in idolatry, was breaking to pieces, and vanishing away. The whole array of the priesthood began to be contemned, nay, what is more significant, began to contemn themselves. Philosophers, who despised the vulgar notions, often spoke with contempt of superstition; then again urged a more rational veneration of the popular divinities, but without the slightest success. The awe-struck imagination of the elder pagans, which prostrated itself in burning adoration before the starry host, the sacred fire, or the Olympian Jove, could nowhere be found. Sacrifices enough were offered, especially by the magistrates, but rather to appease the hunger of the populace than to attract the favor of the gods. Xenophon tells us that the common peo