aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

856 ABOUND THE WORLD.
whose touch was a blessing, and presence a benediction,
cultivated the sympathetic, the self-denying, the religious
faculties; but Plato the perceptive and the philosophical.
Centuries have rolled inta the abysmal past. Now millions
march under the banner of the cross, made memorable by
the martyrdom of that religious enthusiast and radical
Palestinian reformer. The once thorn-crowned Jesus Christ
is now companioned with those celestial angels, the presence
of which make radiant the kingdom of God. The preeminent
greatness of Jesus consisted in his fine harmonial
organization ; in a constant overshadowing of angelic
influences ; in the depth of his spirituality and love ; in the
keenness of his moral perceptions ; in the expansiveness and
warmth of his sympathies ; in his unshadowed sincerity of
heart ; in his deep schooling into the spiritual gifts of
Essenian circles and Egyptian mysteries ; in his soulpervading
spirit of obedience to the mandates of right
manifest in himself ; in his unwearied, self-forgetting, self-,
sacrificing devotion to the welfare of universal humanity,
and his perfect trust in God.
CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS BEFORE THE TIME OF JESUS CHRIST.
The patriarch Abraham, when returning from the
" slaughter of the kings," convicted of the sin of war, met
Melchisedec, Kifig of Salem, priest of the most high God,
and received his blessing. Abraham, conscious of the
superiority of this so-considered " heathen ." King of Salem,
King of Peace, paid tithes, giving him at once " a tenth of
all." But " who was Melchisedec ? " Why, he was the
king of some contiguous nation, the peace-king of Salem,
the baptized of Christ ; in a word, a Christian. This Christspirit,
or Christ-principle, is truly " without father or mother,
without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end
of life, a continually abiding priest."
There were Christians in those pre-historic periods,
Christians in golden ages past, Christians long before the