Rev. Edward Everett Hale preached last evening in Appleton Chapel from the text "I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles," Acts 47:13.

This verse is the key-note of the New Testament, which is European, in contrast with the Old Testament, which was wholly Asiatic. Between the book of Malachi, the last of the Old Testament series, and the birth of Christ, tour hundred years elapsed. These four centuries mark the transition period of the Jewish people from a simple, agricultural community to a powerful commercial people, whose land had been changed and improved under the influence of Roman civilization. If we are to understand the means by which the religion of Christ was spread abroad among the nations of the world, we must know the history of the transition period. This is contained in the books of the Apocrypha, which are, unfortunately, not printed in American bibles.

What challenges our attention first in the New Testament is the new view of life and death introduced among the Jews; for there is no reference in old Jewish law to an after life. It is, indeed, only by a most severe stretching of the text that you can get a hint of immortality from the psalms of David. But in the New Testament the whole air is full of immortality, although the Sadducees and agnostics pretended not to believe in it. All this change and much more was brought about during those four lost centuries. Alexander the Great overthrew the vast Persian Empire and, as a great poet has said, "his chariot wheels smoothed the way for the gospel of Christ." Then the Roman Empire began to spread and extend its influence over all the civilized world. When Augustus defeated Antony the unification of Europe, Asia, and Africa was completed and the reigning of universal peace began. He must be blind who does not see the hand of God during these four centuries ploughing the fields of the earth for the planting of the gospel.