“Such is the moral of all human tales; ’Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,―― First freedom, and then glory――when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption,――barbarism at last, And history, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page.” An allusion to such a man, in such a book as this, could not be justified, but on this satisfactory ground;――that the changes which he wrought in the Roman government, and the conquests by which he spread and secured the influence of Roman civilization, seem to have done more than any other political action could do, to effect the general diffusion, and the perpetuity of the Christian faith. A glance at these great events, in this light, will show to us the first imperial Caesar, as Christ’s most mighty precursor, unwittingly preparing the way for the advance of the Messiah,――a bloody and all-crushing warrior, opening the path for the equally resistless triumphs of the Prince of Peace. Even this striking characteristic, of cool and unscrupulous ambition, became a most glorious means for the production of this strange result. This same moral obtuseness, too, about the right of conquest, so heinous in the light of modern ethics, but so blameless, and even praise-worthy in the eyes of the good and great of Caesar’s days, shows us how low was the world’s standard of right before the coming of Christ; and yet this insensibility became, in the hands of the God who causes the wrath of man to praise him, a doubly powerful means of spreading that faith, whose essence is love to man. Look over the world, then, as it was before the Roman conquest, and see the difficulties, both physical and moral, that would have attended the universal diffusion of a new and peaceful religious faith. Barbarous nations, all over the three continents, warring with each other, and with the failing outworks of civilization,――besotted tyranny, wearing out the energies of its subjects, by selfish and all-grasping folly,――sea and land swarming with marauders, and every wheel of science and commerce rolling backward or breaking down. Such was the seemingly resistless course of events, when the star of Roman fortune rose on the world, under whose influence, at once destructive and benign, the advancing hosts of barbarity were checked and overthrown, and their triumphs stayed for five hundred years; the elegance of Grecian refinement was transplanted from the unworthy land of its birth, to Italian soil, and the most ancient tracks of commerce, as well as many new ones, were made as safe as they are at this peaceful day. The mighty Caesar, last of all, casting down all thrones but his, and laying the deep basis of its lasting dominion in the solid good of millions, filled up the valleys, leveled the mountains, and smoothed the plains, for the march of that monarch, whose kingdom is without end.