together to slay him who had dared to remind them of their manifold transgressions. Even the brothers and sisters of Noah reviled him, and asked by what authority he had assumed the right of censuring the conduct of those older, wiser, and better than himself. It was in vain, therefore, that he besought their patient hearing; in vain that he urged them to repent and flee from the approaching storm. Yet still in prayer did he approach the throne of Mercy, to implore pardon and pity for his fallen race.

The corruption of mankind, meanwhile, increased daily; and when crime and profligacy had attained their height, the Lord commanded Noah that he should build an ark, of certain dimensions and proportions, to contain his own household, and of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort, to replenish the earth after it should be destroyed. "For, behold," said the Almighty, "I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die." And Noah, that he might yield implicit obedience to the word of the Lord, retired from the immediate haunts of those among whom his life had hitherto been passed; for he desired not to see the destruction of those who, despite their crimes, were still dear to him by the ties of kindred, and early and long affection.

May we not picture to ourselves the deep, yet silent sorrow, the throng of recollections, the yearnings of love, which though scorned had not been all crushed, with which he turned upon the hill-side to gaze for the last time upon the shingle-covered huts of his native valley. The bright sun still smiling as in happier days, when wickedness had not arisen in the earth; the waters gliding as smoothly through long level lawns of the purest and freshest green grass, gemmed with the red tipped daisy, the deep yellow cowslip, and the graceful hyacinth. The shouts that were wafted onward by the gentle zephyr, were the sounds of remembered voices, of his kindred and those whom he had daily seen from his infancy; even the ribald song and the profane jibe came from lips that nature had endeared to him: and he was looking upon that spot for the last time, or if again he should behold it, how changed would be its aspect; how cold and desolate the ruined hearths on which the mid-day fires then blazed.

It was in a quiet retreat at the foot of a mountain, where a neighbouring forest afforded abundance of wood, and of all things necessary both for food and for use, that Noah began to build the ark according to the revelation which the Lord had made. Nearly a hundred years did he and his family labour to complete the work which had been com

manded them; and in all that time they were encouraged and comforted by heavenly visitants, who joined in their songs of thanksgiving and praise at morn, at noon, and eve. Noah, though he grieved for the sins of mankind, and sometimes wept to think of the punishment which they had incurred, no longer besought that the earth might be saved. It would, he thought, have seemed like breathing a reproach against the justice of the Lord.

Long before the ark was completed, innumerable animals, reptiles, insects, and birds of every kind, male and female, all without taint or blemish, had collected in the forests and glades in the vicinity of which the ark was being constructed. The produce of the earth, meanwhile, seemed to spring forth spontaneously; never had seed yielded such abundant harvests; never had so little labour been needed to till the ground, or to preserve its fruits of increase. And when the ark was finished, and its seams and timbers pitched and strengthened, the Lord said unto Noah, "Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and the female; and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For yet

seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth."

And Noah and his sons went forth to the field and the forest without dread, and drove into the ark, according to the commandment of God, the living creatures, which were not to be destroyed in the general wreck. Two and two went they into the ark, the male and female; clean and unclean; beasts of the earth and fowls of the air, cattle and creeping things, together with food for all the kinds that Jehovah had said should be saved alive in the day of the great flood.

It was in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, that the doors were closed by an angel upon the eight persons selected by the Lord for salvation, and upon the other inmates of the ark. The ark itself rested upon the mountain whereon it had been built. In the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. The sea-tide flowed continuously without ebb for a whole day, and the rain ceased not. The rivers overflowed their banks, the hill torrents were swoln into wild cataracts: the lowland fields and pastures, which but a day before smiled with all the mellow joyousness of Autumn, were soaked and desolate. The first night passed unheeded. The morn arose