with whom somehow, but how they knew not, sometime, when, where they knew not-they would be brought into closer union, of whom they would have a fuller revelation, from whom should at last come a leader into the realization of a great hope, as yet dimly expressed, and to the last ill understood. With Abraham had come their founding and the promise; with Moses, the charter of their nationality and the law of their life; with the judges, the fixing of their still enduring characteristics; with the kings, their more commanding position and influence among the nations. Then century after century the Prophets had given form and color to their whole mental and spiritual culture, with utterances ever gathering import and definiteness as time passed on. Then had come the splitting of the nation into mutually hostile parts, to become the field of factions, strifes, and foreign spoilers. Then the vices to which as Orientals they were prone, had grown prevalent. In the cities, and with the great, religion had become a form and cloak of evil; in the hamlets and among the poor, it was unintelligent and half a superstition. The saddest of all to the few pure and thoughtfulprophecy, the great teacher, quickener and consoler of the people, had long and as they knew forever ceased. Then had come the decay or destruction of all that was great or sacred or dear to the "Israelites indeed." Their country had been overrun by foreign armies, raiding, ravishing, profaning, whilst domestic factions had been waging even bloodier and more demoralizing warfare; and this all resulted in the Roman conquest just before Christ's birth, and the ruin of the city and nation only forty years from his death. There were:

(1.) The Pharisees, rigid in orthodoxy, loveless towards God and man, at once wicked at heart and presumptuous upon their observance of the tortured letter of the outward law; (2.) The Sadducees, materialistic, cynical, gross, scoffers at everything ideal or divine in man, or life or thought; (3.) The Essenes, mystics, of no clear-cut convictions, men of moods and meditations, without manliness of action or of thought; as sub-classes (4 and 5) the Scribes and Lawyers, sticklers for jots and tittles, petty, blind, spiritually dead; (6.) The ignorant mass, without knowledge or spiritual insight; only now and then was there (7) a man or woman or family possessing the wisdom, fervor, longings and exalted spirituality of the noble race of old.

Hebraism was worn out-both inwardly moribund and mortally smitten from without. In the fullest, mournfullest sense, "the law was weak, through the flesh," and "circumcision" and all it stood for "availed nothing." Alike for social and personal evils and ends Hebraism was empty and impotent. At best, it was not the absolute and final religion, but it had been first degraded and then in heart discarded, until, with comparatively few exceptions, the old truth and helpfulness of Hebrew piety had perished. There was a wide-spread neglect of all religion, save as to its outward non-essentials; the hearts of the people were burdened or embittered by the conviction of the abortiveness and inadequacy of what they possessed; misinterpreted prophecies of good and glory led them into ruinous revolts against their conquerors; foolish running after this and that false Messiah brought but added woes and deeper despair. The long decay and at last terrible collapse of a people, as to all that makes its life and glory, finds other illustrations in ancient and modern history, as witness Rome and France; but that of the Jewish commonwealth during the two centuries before Christ is perhaps most mournful and complete.

2. Yet through this gloom and all those pitiless storms there shone out anon the ancient promise of one who should console, restore-aye, bring back a better than the ancient age. Nurtured by the not wholly neglected pondering of their Scriptures, there sprang out of their very miseries a hope and longing for him that should come; a hope ineradicable and dear, if also unintelligent and alloyed with political and carnal interests and passions. This at least they knew that by the law no rest could come, and that, for everything needed and hoped for, their one sure trust was in Jehovah and his badly interpreted promises.

When the Messiah came, therefore, it was to a people sadly needing him, earnestly longing for him; and so for serving them and saving them that coming was in "the fulness of times."

Next, if such was the inward preparation of the Jews for Christ's appearance, still more plainly did he come in "the fulness of times" as regards the Gentile world.

1. As for the Jews, so for the Gentiles, the world had grown old and wearisome, and " the times were out of joint." Turmoil and disorder prevailed in the outer as did darkness and indecission in the inward life. For them of the pre-christian centuries

the outlook was dark and doubtful. If occasionally there flashed up the light of some nobler soul so splendidly that to some it seemed as if a new day were dawning, soon all things resumed their old drear and phantasmal look, and men plodded on their unlighted ways in ignorance or in terror, or recklessly awaiting death and its too late letting in of light.

Matthew Arnold and greater men write much these days of the beautiful joyfulness of the classic and especially Greek inner and outer life. To be sure, there is a gladness and confidence expressed in the earlier literature and mythology of various ancient peoples, but soon ordinarily, at last invariably, these yield to other moods. Certainly at Christ's coming the earlier faiths. and philosophies of the two classic nations were no longer adequate to the solving of the problems that pressed most heavily upon the thought. The earlier religion had become a jumble of superstitions, confessedly disbelieved in, and philosophy so pursued and degenerated at once, as to yield only results nugatory and torturing; a universal skepticism pervaded the holy places. "What is truth?" was asked by others than him who asked, "and staid not for an answer," as says Bacon, but sometimes as a despairing sneer, sometimes in honest but hopeless longing for an answer, oftenest in utter doubt if anything were true, and if truth and error were not mere self-evoked chimeras wherewith man was doomed to be tormented. Ajax' prayer for "light" was that of all who would not grovel and yet could not reach that after which they groped, and felt if haply they might find it. The old joyousness had long ago perished. Even Plato, of such a sweep and accuracy of thought, and such loyal love and insight for the truth as made many of the fathers believe him inspired, even in his better age, this prince among men and thinkers confesses utter ignorance as to many most deep and sacred things, meekly saying; "We will wait for one to be a god or inspired man, to instruct us in holy things, and as Diomed says in Homer, 'take the darkness from our eyes; "" and when four centuries later Plato's longed-for "God or inspired man" came as God and man to accomplish Plato's longed-for work, utter confusion and uncertainty prevailed in the thoughts and systems of the heathen world. Not in philosophy, nor in religion, was anything assured. Concerning God, the soul, immortality, duty, "What is truth?" was asked as we said, as a scoff,

or in despair, or with the burdened earnestness of men who still must seek because they have sought so long in vain.

The more we read of the too neglected literature of the two or three pre-christian centuries, the more the prevailing sadness, spiritual loneliness, studies ending in yet deeper doubts, and energies baffled and unnourished of the thinkers of that time, impresses and saddens us. Through all these sounds this bitter and unanswered wail,-"Who will show us any good?” "The bond-woman Hagar" was indeed desolate in the desert; the "wild olive tree" was watered with bitter tears only to yield bitter fruit, that sharpened the hunger it could not allay.

Failing in the search for truth and inward peace, antiquity turned to sensuality, as if thus it might quiet sorrow and the sense of lack. How abominable and widespread their vices were, study and travel afford the too abundant proofs. Few of the travellers hurried through Herculaneum and Pompeii, and the collections there made, are aware of what these cities show to the better read observer. It almost seems as if the ashes and lava of Vesuvius had been let loose upon them the very century in which Christ lived, to ruin and preserve them at once, that at least another luxurious and skeptical age should uncover them to see what man, unhelped and unquickened by truth and grace divine, will inevitably become. Nor were those cities worse in tendencies, nor worse in fact perhaps, than others of that age or this. They had a population, splendid, rarely cultured in art and letters and manners, and of as good material as we so lavish of supercilious pity for other races, and who imagine “AngloSaxons" incapable of going en masse to the devil.

And how varied and universal are the expressions of this profound melancholy sprung from conscious evils and necessities? The sciolist's "Greek joyousness" belongs to times far earlier than that of which we speak, and even then was not the prevailing mood. The undertone of Greek life and letters is a sigh rather than a song. Even those nobler heathen to whose souls God was in some way speaking, even those, who by the love of holiness, by a power and honesty of thought and purpose yet unsurpassed, and by a turning and obedience to God as He was revealed to them, had attained the highest knowledge and best estimate of man and of life-for even these life had little zest or preciousness. The answer of the oracle to Midas' question,

"What is the happiest lot for man?" was current as a proverb; "Oh, children of a day, why make me utter what were best concealed? It were best to hide life from its own evil; never to have been born were the happiest lot for man." Plato makes Socrates say, that even if death made him unconscious, such dreamless, endless sleep were preferable to the most fortunate life. Pliny says: "Every one should quiet his heart with the thought that the greatest gift nature affords is an early death, and the best of it is, every man can procure this for himself in accordance with which many of the manliest souls of heathendom not only sanctioned but committed suicide as a legitimate, glad escape from lives not worth the living. "Whom the gods love die young," says Menander, and in the same prevalent tone, Alexis recalls the above given utterance of the oracle with his "It is better never to be born, or being born quickly to reach the goal." These are not strained or isolated extracts, but fairly representative of the tone of thought of all who thought at all. Greek art is sad, as witness the Laöcoon and Niobe groups, Greek literature is sad, as witness its characteristic art-growths, the matchless tragedies. Trench says with equal truth and beauty: "That whole period was 'the hour and power of darkness; the world was again a chaos, and the creative words: 'Let there be light,' though just about to be spoken as yet were not uttered." Man is a shadow stalking through darkness into utter darkness; such was the prevailing view of serious souls of man and destiny. Men had lost most of what was true, and all of what was comforting in their thoughts of God. Their religion was "religion run wild," as Schelling says, suggestive of Paul's "wild olive." And one of the many lessons of the study of that too neglected period of history and of thought, is that if once a people or a soul slips the anchor that entereth into that within the veil, shipwreck and sorrow must ensue.

2. This shows the work of one who should vitalize and sublime their beliefs and lives, by bringing life and immortality to light. Yet after all, and at his worst, man is the offspring of God, and God hath never left himself without witness in the soul of man, as well as in outward providences. And so, as we saw it was with the Jews, in this dirge of heathen sadness we can catch some hopeful notes. As "when the tale of bricks is doubled Moses comes," according to a Jewish proverb, so-out of the