and elements of culture found among the several civilized races hitherto isolated, contributed now to one universal civilization, and a rapid circulation of the new life-blood driven by the church through the veins of the nations was made possible and easy. With special power and universal success had the exploits of Alexander the Great in this direction made a beginning, which reached perfection under the Roman empire. The ever advancing prevalence of one language, the Greek, which at the time of the beginning of the church was spoken and understood in all quarters of the Roman empire, which seemed, like a temporary suspension of the doom of the confusion of languages which accompanied the rise of heathenism (Gen. xi.), to celebrate its return to the divine favour, belongs also pre-eminently to those preparatory influences. And as the heathen state sought after the concentration of all might, =Industry= and =Trade=, moved by the same principle, sought after the concentration of wealth and profit. But as worldly enterprise for its own ends made paths for universal commerce over wastes and seas, and visited for purposes of trade the remotest countries and climes, it served unwittingly and unintentionally the higher purposes of divine grace by opening a way for the spread of the message of the gospel. § 8. JUDAISM. In a land which, like the people themselves, combined the character of insular exclusiveness with that of a central position in the ancient world, Israel, on account of the part which it was called to play in universal history, had to be the receiver and communicator of God’s revelations of His salvation, had to live quiet and apart, taking little to do with the world’s business; having, on the other hand, the assurance from God’s promise that disasters threatened by heathenish love of conquest and oppression would be averted. This position and this task were, indeed, only too often forgotten. Only too often did the Israelites mix themselves up in worldly affairs, with which they had no concern. Only too often by their departure from their God did they make themselves like the heathen nations in religion, worship, and conversation, so that for correction and punishment they had often to be put under a heavy yoke. Yet the remnant of the holy seed (Isa. iv. 3; vi. 13) which was never wholly wanting even in times of general apostasy, as well as the long-suffering and faithfulness of their God, ensured the complete realisation of Israel’s vocation, even though the unspiritual mass of the people finally rejected the offered redemption.