Thus, cotemporaneously with Augustus transpired that central event of all history. The free personal sacrifice of Christ offered once for all, gloriously realizing all that of which the whole Levitical priesthood and sacrifice was nothing but a shadow and a type. Man had already tenanted the earth thousands of years, when that child was born whose mission was to produce effects so incalculably great that even yet probably men are but seeing the beginning of them. As soon as the way was sufficiently prepared, Christ came to abolish the law by fulfilling it. He rendered manifest those sacred forms which a bigoted understanding had as yet failed to understand. From the bosom of a contracted people, the Son of Man arose to proclaim the Universal Father--that God who, as the most intelligent of Christians declared to the Athenians, "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." For this sublime doctrine the moment had at length arrived; a race of men existed who were ready to receive its announcement and appreciate its worth. Says Eusebius, "Like a sunbeam it streamed over the face of the earth." Mankind had now received something better than Greek or Roman cultivation, which is nothing but the varnish of civilization. The doctrines of Christ subdue and save humanity by making authority a thing inviolable, by making obedience a thing holy, and by making self-renouncement and charity things divine. Under the force of law, a Curtius or a Codrus could die for the salvation of his country, and a Regulus for the superstition of his oath; but the Christian martyrs made the like sacrifice for conscience, and the baptism of their blood, falling under the Cross, was the primary seed of earth's richest harvest. In the hands of Providence new wine is never put into old bottles. The leaven of Christianity for a season seemed lost in the lump of human sin; nevertheless, it was doing its great work with resistless power. Its first progress was marked by blood and flame, only to be more widely seen and longer remembered. The ashes of meek heroes sowed the earth with Cadmean germs, powerful in growth and prolific of good. All adverse winds were let loose, but they only blew the fires of divine illumination into a loftier and wider splendor.