brew, and Greek, and Latin. Whence came these foreign dialects? When the Old Testament was closed the Greek was scarcely a written language, confined to a small corner of Europe; and Rome, from which the Latin language went abroad, was a straggling village upon the banks of the Tyber. Of this whole period, in which nations and monarchies had been born and flourished and decayed, the Bible gives us no trace. Our introduction into Judea in the New Testament is therefore altogether abrupt and unprepared.

To give some general idea of these preceding events, I shall devote the first part of the series to the Providential preparation of the world for the advent of the Redeemer, and the circumstances in the condition of the human race, which made that period a conjuncture most opportune for the introduction of a spiritual and universal religion. To this gradual preparation of the world for the coming of the Messiah, Paul seems to have alluded in his Epistle to the Galatians, in the fourth chapter, fourth verse, where he uses the following expression: "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son." Likewise in his speech to the Athenians on Mars' Hill, he seems to have the same thing in view where he says, "that God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the whole earth, and hath determined the times before

appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from any one of us." That is, if I understand it aright, that God has arranged the position and existence of the several nations of the earth in such a manner as to promote the recognition, the establishment, and the propagation of the true religion, the knowledge and worship of the true God. To illustrate this position is the main purpose of this introductory discourse, that God so established the Jews as to their geogra phical position, and so ordained their relations to other nations as to promote the general knowledge of the true God, and prepare the way for the introduction through Christ of a spiritual and universal religion.

Whatever knowledge of the true God may have been imparted to the ancestors of our race, or however long it may have lasted, certain it is that at the time of Abraham the nations generally had fallen into idolatry. To him God was pleased to make himself known, and to promise, "that of him he would make a great nation, and in him and in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed," that is, through him and his posterity he would impart to them the greatest possible good, the knowledge of the true God. To accomplish this purpose God selected the spot in which he and his posterity were to be placed.

And no spot on earth could have been more opportune for the purpose, the land of Canaan, afterwards called Judea, afterwards Palestine, a tract of country situated about the middle point between the three great divisions of the earth, Asia, Africa and Europe, on the great high road of nations, in the very path of conquest, commerce, and travel, equally accessible to all parts of the then known world. But in the time of Abraham those circumstances did not exist, which afterwards made Judea so favorable a location for the radiating point of the true faith. There was then neither conquest, nor commerce, nor travel. The world was then overspread by wandering tribes, scarcely having boundaries or a fixed habitation. Chaldea, the cradle of the human race, and Egypt, the birth place of learning and the arts, were the only considerable nations. In the time of Abraham it is not probable that any such thing as alphabetic writing existed, for we read that he took no other evidence of the purchase which he made of a burying place for his family than living witnesses of the bargain. At that period, therefore, divine communications must have been confined to individuals. The fulness of time had not then come even for that partial revelation which was made by Moses. There was no mode by which revelation could be recorded and preserved. The invention of writing was neces sary to prepare the world for that. That invention

is thought to have taken place some time within the five hundred years which elapsed between Abraham and Moses. Into Egypt, the mother of the Arts, the posterity of Abraham were sent as if to school, not in divine things, for in the knowledge of divine things the shepherds of Canaan as far exceeded the refined Egyptians as light exceeds darkness, but in the knowledge of those things by which life is rendered comfortable. When they had become sufficiently numerous to take possession of the destined territory, a leader was raised up for that especial purpose, Moses, the child of a bond slave, his life exposed in infancy in a frail cradle of bulrushes upon the waters, yet destined to be the mightiest agent in the affairs of men that the Almighty has ever employed on earth, with the exception of him who proclaimed himself the Light of the world. Who can but admire the wisdom of Divine Providence in the education of this great Founder of a nation, this prophet of divine truth, this enlightener of the world! Who can apprehend the glorious position which he holds in the world's history! What a distinction to have framed the constitution of a nation, which lasted fifteen hundred years, and stamped a people with marks of nationality which more than three thousand years have not obliterated; to have written a book which has been read with interest and ardor by revolving ages and growing millions of the human race, to impart to nations and

continents the saving knowledge of the one true God! What a glory by one sentence to have laid the foundation of true religion in so many millions of minds. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The more we contemplate the mission of Moses, the higher will its moral sublimity rise in our estimation. Contemplate him during the forty years sojourn in the wilderness. He was the only depository of the true religion on earth. With the exception of the tribes he led, the whole world was sunk in the debasement of idolatry. What a noble use did the Almighty make of the recent invention of man's ingenuity, the invention of letters, to engrave on stone his awful testimony against the great fundamental and all polluting sin of the world, the worship of idols! "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them."

To realize and carry out this one principle alone was the whole object of the separate existence of the Jewish nation, and it took fifteen hundred years to do it. So prone were men in a rude state, in that age, and probably in all ages, to substitute the seen for the unseen, to worship the creature instead of the Creator, that forty days had not elapsed from the utterance from Sinai of this fundamental precept,