back to him in the evening, she had in her mouth an olive leaf. Then Noah knew that the waters were going down. The tops of the trees must have been uncovered, or the dove could not have plucked the olive leaf.

Noah waited seven more days, and then he sent forth the dove again; but this time she did not come back to him any more. The dove had now found a dry place to rest upon.

A mountain is a very high hill.

Chapter XEEE.

THE RAINBOW THE SIGN OF GOD'S PROMISE TO

NOAH.

AND when Noah knew that the waters had gone down from the earth, he took off the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry.

But Noah did not come out of the ark as soon as he saw that the ground was dry. God had

commanded Noah to go into the ark, and he would not come out of it till God told him that he might do so.

Noah waited eight weeks, and then God spoke to him, and told him to come forth out of the ark.

Then Noah went forth, and his wife, and his three sons, and his sons' wives, and all the living creatures that were with him.

The first thing Noah did when he came forth upon the earth again, was to worship God, and thank Him for his goodness to him. As soon as he had come out of the ark, he built an altar unto the Lord, and took some of the beasts and the birds which had been with him in the ark, and offered them up upon the altar for a burnt offering to God.

It was God's will that men should burn animals before Him for sacrifice. God had given all animals to men, and He then willed that they should offer some to Him.

Noah's sacrifice was pleasing to God. And God blessed Noah and his sons.

God then gave men leave to kill animals for food.

And God promised that He would never again send a flood of waters to drown the earth. And God said that the bow which He had set in the cloud should be a sign of this promise to Noah.

The beautiful rainbow which we sometimes see, when dark rainy clouds are in the sky, is the sign which God then gave to men. God of his goodness gave men that sign, that they might not fear that He would drown the world again.

An altar was a table built of stones, or earth; a fire was made upon it, and the animals which were offered to God were burnt upon it.

Anything offered to God was called a sacrifice.

Chapter XIV.

THE TOWER OF BABEL.

WHEN the flood had passed away, God had blessed Noah and his sons, and promised that they should

have many children, and that the earth should again be filled with people.

So about an hundred years after this, there were again a great many men in the world.

Then some of these people said one to another, "Let us make bricks, and let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach to heaven, that we may not be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth."

And God saw the city and the tower which men were building, and it displeased the Lord.

Then God made them all speak different languages; He made them call things by different names, so that they could not understand one another's speech; and then they could not go on to build the tower. And God scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city and the tower.

The tower which they had tried to build was called the tower of Babel. Babel means 66 fusion."

con

Before this time, all the people in the world spoke the same language, they called things by

the same names. But from the time that men tried to build the tower of Babel, the people who live in different countries have called things by different names. Men do not now speak everywhere the same language. So the people who live in one country, cannot understand the people who come from another country.

Chapter XV.

THE CALL OF ABRAM.

ABOUT five hundred years after the flood, all the people in the world had again become wicked. They had forgotten God, who in his goodness had made them, and kept them alive; who had given them all that they had, and had promised to love them, if they would obey Him, and do His will.

Instead of loving and obeying God, they had made themselves images of wood and stone, which they were so wicked as to call gods. They worshipped them, and prayed to them instead of praying to

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