PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE HEATHEN.--In the heathen world, there was not wanting a preparation for such a Deliverer. The union of all the nations in the Roman Empire had lessened the mutual antipathy of peoples, melted down barriers of feeling as well as of intercourse, and weakened the pride of race. An indistinct sense of a common humanity had entered the breasts of men. Writers, like _Cicero_, talked of a great community, a single society of gods and men. The _Stoic philosophy_ had made this idea familiar. Mankind, it was said, formed one city. Along with this conception, precepts were uttered in favor of forbearance and fraternal kindness between man and man. In religion, there was a drift towards monotheism. The old mythological religion was decaying, and traditional beliefs as to divine things were dissolving. Many minds were yearning for something to fill the void,--for a more substantial ground of rest and of hope. They longed for a goal on which their aspirations might center, and to which their exertions might tend. The burden of sin and of suffering that rested on the common mass excited at least a vague yearning for deliverance. The Roman Empire, with all its treasures and its glory, failed to satisfy the hearts of men. The dreams of philosophy could not be realized on the basis of ancient society, where the state was every thing, and where no higher, more comprehensive and more enduring kingdom could spring into being. CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES.--Four years before the date assigned for the beginning of the Christian era, _Jesus_ was born. _Herod_, a tyrannical king, servile in his attitude toward the Romans, and subject to them, was then ruling over the Jews in Palestine. But, when Jesus began his public ministry, the kingship had been abolished, and Judaea was governed by the procurator, _Pontius Pilate_ (A.D. 26). Jesus announced himself as the _Messiah_, the founder of a kingdom "not of this world;" the members of which were to be brethren, having God for their Father. He taught in a tone of authority, yet with "a sweet reasonableness;" and his wonderful teaching was accompanied with marvelous works of power and mercy, as "he went about doing good." He attached to himself twelve disciples, among whom _Peter_, and the two brothers _James_ and _John_, were the men of most mark. These had listened to the preaching of _John_, the prophet of the wilderness, by whom Jesus had been recognized as the Christ who was to come. The ministry of the Christ produced a wide-spread excitement, and a deep impression upon humble and truth-loving souls. But his rebuke of the ruling class, the _Pharisees_, for their formalism, pretended sanctity, self-seeking, and enslavement to tradition, excited in them rancorous enmity. His disappointment of the popular desire for a political Messiah chilled the enthusiasm of the multitude, many of whom had heard him gladly. After about three years, he was betrayed by one of