THE WORLD AT THE ADVENT. 201 



fragments cast heaven-high has fallen, and the smoke has rolled away — 

 there lie the huge fragments ready for the thoughtful minds and earnest 

 hands of the builders to reconstruct and beautify beneath the guidance 

 of Him Who sitteth upon the Throne, and saith "Behold / make all 

 things new." 



It was in exact keeping with the economy of the divine providence 

 to introduce the gospel at just such a period. It is making the most of 

 selected agencies. It is human wisdom, in the trite proverb, to kill two 

 birds with one stone. Too homely in its associations to be applied 

 to Deity, this sentence illustrates a sublime verity, which tells the 

 secret of a thousand mysteries. God is not wasteful of his power. 

 He makes such a disposition of cause and effect, and throws mind 

 into such relations with the material world that every impulse produces 

 the greatest possible amount of influence. All, that falls or rises at 

 his bidding, sustains the highest place it can bear in the grand and 

 universal destiny. 



There was perfect communication both by water and land wiihin the 

 territorial limits, facilitating the journeys and the preaching of the bear- 

 ers of the Word. On water little boats glided along every shore. The 

 goose-bosomed vessels with prows ornamented by beautiful or grotesque 

 carvings and mouldings in metal, of beasts and men, and implements of 

 war, mingled in every port. Ships with two prows, sailed like politi- 

 cians, with the same ease backwards or forwards. The iron anchor, 

 with two flukes, had superseded the huge stones and baskets of sand 

 employed in the heroic age. Nimble sailors ran to the cup above the 

 yard of the vessel to obtain a distant view — and the lead was heard 

 plunging in the water as now. The ships with three banks of oars 

 went with the rapidity of a steamboat, and the powerful navy prevented 

 piracy on the high seas. On land magnificent roads, whose compacted 

 strata, after the lapse of more than a thousand years, are left unbroken, 

 traversed the country in every direction. The little cow-path, which ran 

 round Rome or led to the neighboring villages, gave way to those stu- 

 pendous structures, to take part in whose formation conferred a title of 

 honor which Consuls and Emperors were proud to add to their names, 

 and which was thought worthy of inscription on the. tomb-stone. They 

 ran straight as an arrow through morasses, down ravines, up mountain 

 sides, and ovei rivers. These huge trunks cut by thousands of roads, 

 each less models of the great national arteries, connected the whole 

 Empire with Rome, and brought the ends of the world together. 



In the midst of the local wars, to which we have referred, the 

 general condition of the Empire was one of peace. There was enough 

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