And it has
been among us, and the nations who are our kinsmen, that the light
of the gospel has shone ever since, while all through the East,
where the apostles preached most and earliest, it has died out. So
that our Lord's words have been fulfilled, that many that are last
shall be first, and those that are first shall be last. God grant
that it may not always be so. God grant that his kingdom may return
to its ancient seat at Jerusalem, and that all nations may go up to
the mountain of the Lord's house, in the day of which St. Paul
prophesies, when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, and all
Israel shall be saved, when the earth shall be full of the knowledge
of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. But it is not so now; and
cannot be so, as far as we can see, for many a year to come.
But in the meanwhile, why were our forefathers--heathens though they
were, and sinners in many things, being truly children of wrath,
fierce, bloodthirsty, revengeful, without the grace of Christ, which
is Love and Charity--nevertheless a people prepared for the Lord?
How was it true of them that to him that hath shall be given?
I will tell you. There is an old book, written in Latin by a
heathen gentleman of Rome, who lived in St. Paul's time, and wrote
this book about twenty years after St.
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