HISTORY has a sphere and the world a place where Athens and Rome seem for ever linked together: civilization and Jerusalem! The civilization of the ancient world owed its spirit to Athens, and its law and order to Rome: both played a part, under the providence of God, in forming that world in which, in the fulness of time, the Word was made flesh. But it was from Jerusalem that both Rome and Athens received the faith of Christ—the faith which is now their life, and in which both were reborn. Since the time of the apostles, these two cities have looked to Jerusalem as the eartlily shadow of their heavenly capital and the cradle of their common hope.

But if that common hope of theirs, in the person of our Saviour, were to return today to the holy city where he prayed and preached and suffered and died for love of us, in order to establish his kingdom in our midst, he would fmd there, alas, no greater unity than he found before.