Note 16 — Chapter XI · The Strength of Judea

—page 72. It has often been remarked that the selection of Judea as the home of the chosen people bears the marks of divine wisdom. At the point where the three continents of the ancient world meet, surrounded by desert, mountain, and sea, broken by rugged ranges and defiles impassable in the face of even a small opposing force, and filled with a dense population, it was not only unique in character but impregnable to foreign foe so long as Israel remained faithful to its covenant with Jehovah. When the barriers, which at first excluded the people from the outside world in their earlier development, were broken down, it became the one place from which all the world was most accessible for the spread of the Hebrew Theism and of Christianity.