Chapter X.

NOAH A PREACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

GOD had told Noah that He would send a great flood of waters to destroy all the wicked people on the earth. But God did not send the flood at

once.

God waited an hundred and twenty years, that the wicked people might repent, and become good, that He might save them.

For an hundred and twenty years, good and righteous Noah went about telling the wicked people to repent, to leave off their sins, and to serve God. God had sent Noah to preach to them, and to tell them that He was going to send a great flood to destroy all the wicked.

But the wicked people would not mind what Noah said. They would not turn to God, but went on still in their wickedness. They went on just as before, eating and drinking, fearing nothing, until the flood came to destroy them'.

1 Gen. vi. 3. 1 Pet. iii. 20. 2 Pet. ii. 5. St. Matt. xxiv. 38.

But Noah did as God commanded him, and made the ark, that it might be ready whenever God should send the flood.

To repent, means to be sorry for our sins, and leave them off.

Chapter 1.

THE FLOOD.

AT last the time came when God would bear no longer with the wicked people with whom the world was filled. Then God told Noah to go into the ark, and that in seven days it should begin to rain upon the earth.

God said, "Yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing which I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.”

And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. He went into the ark, and his wife, and his three sons, and their wives with him. And he took in with him some of every sort of

beast, and bird, and insect, and every kind of living creature. They went in two and two into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days, the flood began to come upon the earth. The windows of heaven were opened, and the rain fell for forty days and forty nights.

And the water rose above the tops of the houses, and above the tops of the highest trees, and above the tops of the highest hills. The whole earth was covered with water. And all the wicked people were drowned. But the ark floated on the top of the water.

And every living creature that was upon the earth died; all birds, and all cattle, and all beasts, and every creeping thing, and every man and every child, all died. Noah only remained alive, and those who were with him in the ark.

How sad to think of all those wicked people to whom Noah had preached in vain! How full of fear they must have been, when they saw the water rising higher and higher all around them; when they saw that they must die, and knew that

God was wroth with them! Then they must have wished that they had been good, like Noah, and had obeyed God; or that they had listened to what Noah said, and had repented, and turned to God, and prayed Him to forgive them, before the flood came. For when the flood came, the time for repentance was past and gone. They could not repent then.

When we hear how God destroyed all those careless people, who would not mind the words of Noah, it should make us think how fearful a thing it is to forget God. It should make us fear to be heedless, and not to mind when God speaks to us, by His voice within our hearts, or by those whom He sends to teach us. For God will surely punish all who are wicked and will not serve Him, even as He punished the wicked people in the time of Noah, though He bear a long time with them.

Chapter XEE.

THE END OF THE FLOOD.

AFTER Noah had been an hundred and fifty days in the ark, God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters began to go down. And the waters became less and less, till at length the ark rested on the top of a mountain. The ark rested on the top of the mountain Ararat.

Then Noah opened the window of the ark, and he sent out a large bird called a raven. And the raven went forth to and fro, backwards and forwards, till the waters were dried up from off the earth.

Then Noah sent out a dove. And the dove which Noah sent out could find no place to rest upon, so she came back to him to the ark. She could find no rest for the sole of her foot, for the earth was still covered with water. So Noah put forth his hand, and took her back into the ark.

After seven days more, dove again out of the ark.

Noah sent forth the

And when she came