was what he aimed at. In Paul's time the known world was so small
a place, that it did not seem impossible even for a single man to make
a spiritual conquest of it; and it had been wonderfully prepared for
the new force which was about to assail it.

74. It consisted of a narrow disc of land surrounding the
Mediterranean Sea. That sea deserved at that time the name it bears,
for the world's center of gravity, which has since shifted to other
latitudes, lay in it. The interest of human life was concentrated in
the southern countries of Europe, the portion of western Asia and the
strip of northern Africa which form its shores. In this little world
there were three cities which divided between them the interest of
those ages. These were Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, the capitals of the
three races--the Romans, the Greeks and the Jews--which in every sense
ruled that old world. It was not that each of them had mastered a
third part of the circle of civilization, but each of them had in turn
diffused itself over the whole of it, and either still held its grip or
at least had left imperishable traces of its presence.

75. The Greeks were the first to take possession of the world. They
were the people of cleverness and genius, the perfect masters of
commerce, literature and art. In very early ages they displayed the
instinct for colonization and sent forth their sons to find new abodes
on the east and the west, far from their native home. At length there
arose among them one who concentrated in himself the strongest
tendencies of the race and by force of arms extended the dominion of
Greece to the borders of India. The vast empire of Alexander the Great
split into pieces at his death; but a deposit of Greek life and
influence remained in all the countries over which the deluge of his
conquering armies had swept. Greek cities, such as Antioch in Syria
and Alexandria in Egypt, flourished all over the East; Greek merchants
abounded in every center of trade; Greek teachers taught the literature
of their country in many lands; and--what was most important of
all--the Greek language became the general vehicle for the
communication of the more serious thought between nation and nation.
Even the Jews in New Testament times read their own Scriptures in a
Greek version, the original Hebrew having become a dead language.
Perhaps the Greek is the most perfect tongue the world has known, and
there was a special providence i