Who does not see a plan, a purpose, a Providence in this fact that the cradle of the human race was placed in the midst of the continents of the north and not at the centre of the tropical regions? The balmy but enervating atmosphere of the equatorial regions would have lulled man to sleep, and he would have made no progress. With an abundant supply for his natural wants, there would have been no motive to industry, to enterprise, and to the development of his intellectual powers. Unable to endure the rigors of a colder climate, and to live on a less luxuriant soil, he could not have been induced to migrate to less favorable regions, and, crowded on a narrow area, the race must have been finally exterminated. But planted in the Temperate Zone, in the midst of the continents of the North, so well adapted by their forms, their highly articulated peninsulas, and their climate to stimulate the active powers of man, to promote enterprise, to favor commerce, and hasten individual development and social organization, he was surrounded by conditions most favorable to the fulfillment of his destiny. It is also worthy of being noted that Western Asia was not only the geographical centre of the human race, but also the grand centre of religious light--the cradle of man's spiritual nature. It was here in the midst of the six great nations of antiquity--the Babylonians, the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Phœnicians, and Egyptians--that for ages "the living oracles" proclaimed the "Truth of God," and patriarchs and prophets and seers were received into intercourse with the higher world. And it was in Palestine, the centre of the three continents of the Old World, and near five great seas--the highways of the world's travel and commerce--that Jesus of Nazareth taught "the glad tidings of great joy" for the nations, and sent forth his apostles "into all the world to preach that Gospel to every creature." 2. Another important fact which history enables us very distinctly to recognize is _that those epochs of civilization which represent the highest degree of culture attained by man at different periods in his history have not succeeded one another in the same place, but have passed from one country to another_. It is an undoubted historic fact, as we have already seen, that Asia was the cradle of the human race. Western Asia is the theatre of the earliest civilization of which we have any historic records. Then a newer and higher form appears on the peninsula of Greece. The centre of civilization again changes place, and Rome embraces and improves upon that of the ancient world. Then passing the Alps, still further to the west, it spreads over France and Germany and the British Isles, and assumes a nobler form; and finally it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, and develops its highest type in the New World. This order may be called the geographical march of civilization.