=Central and Exposed to Attack on Every Side.= Palestine, in common with the rest of Syria, held a central position in relation to the other ancient civilizations. Through it ran the great highways from Babylon and Assyria to Egypt. Along its eastern border passed the great road from Damascus and Mesopotamia to Arabia. It was the gateway and key to three continents--Africa, Asia, and Europe. From each of these in turn came conquerors--Egyptians and Ethiopians, Babylonians and Assyrians, Greeks and Romans--against whom the divided peoples of Palestine were practically helpless. Palestine, because of its physical characteristics and central position was destined to be ruled by rather than to rule over its powerful neighbors. And yet this close contact with the powerful nations of the earth inevitably enriched the civilization and faith of the peoples living within this much contested land. It produced the great political, social, and religious crises that called forth the Hebrew prophets. It made the Israelites the transmuters and transmitters of the rich heritage received from their cultured neighbors and from their inspired teachers. In turn it gave them their great opportunity, for repeated foreign conquests and exile enabled them in time to go forth and conquer, not with the sword of steel, but of divine truth, and to build up an empire that knew no bounds of time or space. =Significance of Palestine's Characteristics.= Thus the more important characteristics of Palestine are richly suggestive of the unfolding of Israel's life and of the rôle that Judaism and Christianity were destined to play in the world's history. Palestine is the scene of the earlier stages of God's supreme revelation of himself and his purpose to man and through man. The more carefully that revelation is studied the clearer it appears that the means whereby it was perfected were natural and not contra-natural. The stony hills and valleys of Palestine, the unique combination of sea and plain, of mountain and desert, placed in the centre of the ancient world, were all silent but effective agents in realizing God's eternal purpose in the life of man. III THE COAST PLAINS