1. =There was a political preparation.= Six centuries before Christ the world around the Mediterranean was divided into states, whose normal condition was war. At no time was peace prevalent over all the world at once. If Christ had come at that time it would have been impossible to establish the Gospel except through war and conquest. But kingdoms were absorbed into empires, empires rose and fell by turns, each with a larger conception of the nation than its predecessor. From the crude combination of undigested states in the Assyrian Empire to the orderly, assimilated, systematic condition of the Roman world was a great advance. Christ appeared at the only point in the world's history when the great nations of the world were under one government, with a system of roads such that a traveler could pass from Mesopotamia to Spain and could sail the Mediterranean Sea in perfect safety. 2. =There was a preparation of language.= The conquests of Alexander, though accomplished in ten years, left a deeper impress upon the world than any other two centuries of history. They gave to the whole of that world one language, the noblest tongue ever spoken by human lips, "a language fit for the gods," as men said. Through Alexander Greek cities were founded every-where in the East, Greek kingdoms were established, the Greek literature and the Greek civilization covered all the lands. That was the language in which Paul preached the Gospel, and in which the New Testament was written--the only language of the ancient world in which the thoughts of the Gospel could be readily expressed. While each land had its own tongue, the Greek tongue was common in all lands. 3. While these preparations were going on there was another in progress at the same time, =the preparation of a race=. We might point to the history of the Israelites from the migration of Abraham as a training; but we refer now to their special preparation for their mission after the restoration, B. C. 536. There was a divine purpose in the division of Judaism into two streams; one a little fountain in Palestine, the other a river dispersed over all the lands. Each branch had its part in the divine plan. One was to concentrate its energies upon the divine religion, to study the sacred books, to maintain a chosen people, whose bigotry, narrowness, and intolerance kept them from destruction; the other branch was out in the world, where every Jewish synagogue in a heathen city kept alive the knowledge of God, and disseminated that knowledge, drawing around it the thoughtful, spiritual minds who were looking for something better than heathenism. Palestine gave the Gospel, but the Jews of the dispersion carried it to the Gentiles, and each synagogue in the foreign world became the nucleus of a Christian Church, where for the first time Jew and Gentile met as equals.