individuals dwelling in distant countries could meet three times in the
year at Jerusalem to celebrate the great festivals. The Israelites
themselves had a presentiment of coming changes, and anxiously awaited
the appearance of a Messiah. They were actuated by an extraordinary zeal
for proselytism, [11:3] and though their scrupulous adherence to a stern
code of ceremonies often exposed them to much obloquy, they succeeded,
notwithstanding, in making many converts in most of the places where they
resided. [12:1] A prominent article of their creed was adopted in a
quarter where their theology otherwise found no favour, for the Unity of
the Great First Cause was now distinctly acknowledged in the schools of
the philosophers. [12:2]

From the preceding statements we may sec the peculiar significance of
the announcement that God sent forth His Son into the world "_when the
fulness of the time was come_." [12:3] Various predictions [12:4]
pointed out this age as the period of the Messiah's Advent, and
Gentiles, as well as Jews, seem by some means to have caught up the
expectation that an extraordinary personage was now about to appear on
the theatre of human existence. [12:5] Providence had obviously prepared
the way for the labours of a religious reformer. The civil wars which
had convulsed the state were now almost forgotten, and though the
hostile movements of the Germans, and other barbarous tribes on the
confines of the empire, occasionally created uneasiness or alarm, the
public mind was generally unoccupied by any great topic of absorbing
interest. In the populous cities the multitude languished for
excitement, and sought to dissipate the time in the forum, the circus,
or the amphitheatre. At such a crisis the heralds of the most gracious
message that ever greeted the ears of men might hope for a patient
hearing. Even the consolidation of so many nations under one government
tended to "the furtherance of the gospel," for the gigantic roads, which