200 THE WORLD AT THE ADVENT. 



away, should, from the throne of his glory, at one glance of his eye 

 kindle into radiance worlds more in number than the men, whom, in 

 their wildest battle-dreams they had seen beneath their thralL 

 Glutted with spoils, satiated with pomp, writhing under tyranny 

 refined yet galling, a system of self-denial and of universal equality, 

 like Christianity, would at least be likely to secure from them a 

 patient hearing, and sometimes a hearty response. It is sometimes 

 best to talk to a man of the virtues of moderation, when he has eaten 

 himself into a nausea on roast-pig — or of temperance, when his head 

 is yet aching from his last night's revelry. 



In this wide dominion of one nation, whose power was embodied in 

 one man, were eminent advantages for the wide diffusion of new 

 opinions. Nations were formed into a sort of confederacy. Their 

 common centre, the imperial city, gave them unity. This tended to soften 

 gradually their diflferences and erase their distinctions. It was as though 

 the great God in his Providence had reversed his work at Babel, and 

 had descended to harmonize the many tongues ; as though He had said 

 " their language is confounded and they understand not one another's 

 speech : " "Go to, let us go down that the whole earth may be one, 

 and have one language." Greek became the medium of universal 

 communication among educated men, and to a great extent among the 

 people. He, who multiplied the tongues of his disciples, was lessening 

 those of the nations. 



Remote countries were brought together. The terror of the Roman 

 arms was the safe-guard of the traveller : " I am a Roman citizen" was 

 the dread announcement, at vvhich savage bands grew pale in the pres- 

 ence of a single and unarmed man. This free access, with the union 

 and consolidation which it occasioned, was itself a proof that God de- 

 signed great changes. Periods of great national concentration always 

 precede important revolutions. There was this compacting of the 

 moral world, at the era of the Reformation. Mind had been thrown into 

 great masses, and cultivated intellect, through the medium of printing, 

 held converse with its fellows. The density given the world in our 

 own day by the increased facility of communication, has been at once a 

 cause and evidence of its revolutionary character. The road-makers, 

 the boat-builders, the printers, and the telegraphers, are the original 

 movers in great, civil and moral convulsions. 



In the mine of one nation the nitre has been crystalizing. Sulphur 

 has been swimming on the volcanic bosom of another, the elements are 

 brought together, and mingled by the hand never seen, but doing all. — 

 Some stupendous event inflames them, and when the shower of torn 



