own general as emperor. The
claimants attacked one another in turn, and the strongest won. The
turmoil lasted for only a year or so, just long enough for the distant
legions to gather around Rome; the bloodshed was nothing as compared to
former ages; the helpless senate acquiesced in each new proclamation of
each successful army; and the rest of the world, scarce even jarred in
its daily course, flowed on as before.

On the whole, then, these two hundred years were one long period of
peace. It was Augustus who for the first time in centuries closed the
gates of the war-god's temple in Rome. He encouraged literature, and we
have the "Augustan" age. He boasted that he found Rome built of bricks,
and left it of marble. He and his successors did far more than that.
They constructed roads extending from end to end of their domains.
Communication became easy; a mail post was established; people began to
travel for pleasure. The nations of the world intermingled freely, and
discovered, for the first time on earth, that they were much alike. The
universal brotherhood of man may be not even yet fully recognized and
welcomed; but the first step toward its acknowledgment was taken under
imperial Rome.

CHRISTIANITY

This brings us to a very solemn thought. Many earnest men have believed
that they see a divine Providence running through the whole course of
history, and nowhere more obvious than here. They point to the careers
of both Greece and Rome as being a special preparation for the coming of
the Christ. The mission of Greece, they tell us, was to arouse the mind
of man, to make him capable of thought and sensitive to spiritual
beauty; that of Rome was to teach him the value of law and peace, and
yet more, to draw all men together, that all might have opportunity to
hear the lessons of the new faith.

Certain it is that at any earlier date it would have seemed practically
impossible for a religion to spread beyond a single people. Not only was
communication between the nations faint and intermittent, but they were
so savage, so suspicious of each other, that a wanderer had to meet them
weapon in hand. He must have a ship to flee to or an army at his back.
Now, however, under the restraint of Roman law, strangers met and passed
without a blow. Latin, the tongue of law, was everywhere partly known.
Greek was almost equally widespread as the language of art and culture.

The Hebrews, too, had done their share in the work