Through Lent, dear Lord, I seemed to walk with thee As thy disciples once; thy tender voice, From Mary won, making my soul rejoice E’en through the sorrow of Gethsemani, Though oft I wept such infinite love to grieve. And seemed thy human life to mine so near That ever shadowed all my joy the fear The end must come, and thou that life must leave. To-day with Magdalen I weep once more— My Lord is risen and my life’s love lost. O silly soul, on sorrow’s ocean tossed, Does he not tell thee, as to her before, “Be not afraid”?—to thee is he less near? Dead, yet arisen; crucified, yet here! THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY IN THE SIX CENTURIES BEFORE CHRIST. The period of six centuries before Christ may be taken as the immediate period of preparation for Christianity—not in a precise numerical sense of exactly six hundred years, but as a general term denoting an epoch whose beginning is somewhat vague and indeterminate. Some of the great events are prior to B.C. 600, and the larger number of those which are important are much later. What we would do is to describe an historical cycle including the great prophetic cycle of Daniel, which embraces seventy weeks in the mystical numeration of Holy Scripture—_i.e._, a period of four hundred and ninety years; beginning at the rebuilding of the city and temple of Jerusalem, and ending with the promulgation of the New Law to the nations of the earth by St. Peter. We consider this last event as the culmination and ultimate term of the preceding historical period of preparation, from which history takes a new point of departure, thenceforward moving directly towards its final consummation through its last period, the one in which we live. These six centuries comprise what is specially the pre-Christian historical period. The greatest part of ancient profane history is taken up with the record of its events. The history of the ages going before is vague and scanty, and even the chronology is uncertain. A few dates will show how great a portion of what is known to us from childhood as historical antiquity is comprised within this relatively recent and modern period.