THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 



113 



above and on earth beneath, inspired a great thought". It 

 became his ruling policy to enable Greek ideas, language and 

 culture to penetrate to the farthest East. He led his armies 

 to India, and returning, died at the age of thirty-three. Had 

 he survived, he would have turned to the West, invaded Italy 

 and prevented the Roman Empire, which became so helpful 

 for the first planting of Christianity in Asia Minor. Mean- 

 while (270 B.C.) Celtic tribes, repulsed from Italy, and finding- 

 no rest or place in the northern regions of Europe, crossed 

 the Bosphorus and gave birth to the Galatian people, to whose 

 peculiarities we owe the Epistle to the Galatians. About the 

 same time, Seleucus, Alexander's greatest general, whose 

 kingdom stretched from the Euphrates almost to the west 

 coast of Asia Minor, transplanted 2,000 families of Jews into 

 all the cities of his kingdom. Their synagogues became centres 

 from which rays of revealed truth began to lighten the Gentiles. 

 Devout men and women multiplied. Their monotheism broke 

 the spell of idolatry ; their morals awoke in many heathen minds 

 a yearning for purer life. It was preparing the way of the 

 Lord. 



In this same Asia Minor grew up Saul of Tarsus, near 

 enough to Jerusalem and Antioch in Syria to feel the influence 

 of those great centres in which the Church was born, and won 

 its first triumphs, and he naturally turns to the land of his 

 birth, and preaches Jesus and the Resurrection. 



As he traverses the great Roman roads, he finds representa- 

 tives of Celts and Germans, and Phrygians and Greeks, and 

 Romans and Jews. To this it is that we owe the marvellous 

 completeness of his Epistles, and the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

 Among these various peoples sprang up those various spiritual 

 needs which led the inspired Apostle to write his wonderful 

 letters. He had studied the Roman character till he could 

 write the Epistle to the Romans. His versatile mind could 

 grasp the great variety of the statements needful to meet every 

 spiritual difficulty, and to expound the Truth of Jesus Christ 

 in its application to the widely different circumstances of those 

 to whom he wrote, with the result that his Epistles are a 

 complete statement of Christian doctrine and Christian ethics. 



Time would fail to speak of the marvellous preparation of 

 the European peoples and especially of the Saxon race for 

 carrying on the great work. Perhaps this may be the subject 

 of a future paper. 



