And Adam was nine hundred and thirty years old when he died; for in those days men lived to a much greater age than they have ever done since. And one of Seth's descendants was named Noe; he was good and feared God, but the greater number of men had become very wicked and forgotten God, and neither prayed to Him nor obeyed Him. When God saw the great wickedness of men, He repented, says the Scripture, that He had made man on the earth. And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart, He said, "I will destroy man, whom I have created, from off the face of the earth, from man even to beasts, for it repenteth Me that I have made him." By this expression, however, we must not suppose that God repented as men repent, as He is unchangeable and incapable of any passion such as grief or repentance; but the dreadful sins which men committed in His all-pure sight made God determine to destroy men whom He had before so much favoured, and placed at first in so happy a

state.

But there was one man who, with his whole family, had always loved and served God amidst all the dreadful wickedness around him. This man was named Noe; and he had three sons, whose names were Sem, Cham, and Japheth. And God spoke to Noe, and told him that He was going to destroy the earth because men were so very wicked, and that He would send a great deluge or flood of waters, which should drown every one except Noe and his family, and every creature that lived upon the face of the earth. Then He told Noe to make himself an ark of wood, or timber-planks, as Scripture calls it, and to make little rooms in it, and cover it with pitch within and without. It was to be very large, so as to hold two of all the birds and beasts that existed. And it was to have many rooms and

windows in it, and a door at the side to admit Noe and his wife, and all the sons of Noe and their families, and all the birds and beasts and insects which were to be saved from the flood of waters. And the ark was to be covered with pitch inside and out, to keep out the wet. Noe was six hundred years old when this ark was built and the flood came. And when all was finished and the ark was ready, Noe, Sem, Cham, and Japheth, his sons, Noe's wife, all his sons' wives with them, went into the ark, and all the beasts, birds, and insects went in, two of every sort; and God closed the door outside and shut them all in, and then the great Deluge began. The flood-gates of heaven were opened, the lakes swelled and overflowed upon the lands, and the rivers rushed over their banks; the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the rain poured down in torrents: for forty days and forty nights the heavy rains fell without stopping. And the waters prevailed beyond measure upon the earth, says the Scripture; and all the high mountains even were covered with water, so that there was not a dry spot on which even a bird could rest any where.

Then, as the waters rose higher and higher, all those wicked people who had despised God's holy laws, and thought simply of their own pleasures and enjoyments, and had passed their lives in sinning continually against Him, began to be filled with alarm and terror as they saw the waters slowly but surely rising, and covering first the lowest lands and then the rising grounds, and washing away their houses and every thing that belonged to them. And no doubt they fled from the approach of the fearful waves up to the hill-countries, and then climbed the highest trees, and at last took refuge even on the sharp crags of the highest mountains, filling the earth with their cries of terror. But the

God of heaven, who alone rules the floods, sent His awful waters to pursue them; and the waves, rushing and roaring, as we know the mighty waters of the sea do when they are disturbed with God's winds, overtook all these unhappy people and swallowed them up.

Thus did God treat the first generations of hardened and impenitent sinners; and this is the first lesson by which we learn that God, whose patience is so marvellous and His mercy so unspeakable, will not permit wicked men to mock Him for ever. He waits, indeed, long, and very long, for the repentance of those of His creatures who offend Him, and He gives them one opportunity after another of turning to Him again and asking His forgiveness; but if men continue to sin on and resist His grace, if they harden their hearts and turn a deaf ear to His merciful calls, He becomes a God of justice, and then it is too late to call upon Him, as these wretched people found who perished in the flood.

THE DRYING OF THE WATERS.

FOR One hundred and fifty days the great flood of waters covered the earth, and nothing could be seen except the ark, which swam on the top of these waters; just as we may say the Church of God swims on the waters of the wicked world; and just as the ark was the house for Noe and his family in which they were to be saved from the world of sin, so the Catholic Church floats on the floods of the world, being, like the ark, a house of salvation for the children of God.

And at the end of the one hundred and fifty

days God remembered Noe, and all the living creatures who were shut up with him in the ark, and He sent a wind upon the earth to dry it up; and the fountains of the great deep and the flood-gates of heaven were shut up, and the rains stopped. And in the seventh month of the year, on the twentyseventh day of that month, the ark settled on some high mountains in a country called Armenia, in Asia. And the waters, gradually drying up, got less and less for about two or three months, and then the tops of the mountains could be seen; and after forty days had passed, Noe opened the window of the ark, and put out a raven. And the raven flew out, and did not come back to the ark till the waters were dried up upon the earth. Then Noe, in order to see if the earth was really dry, as the raven did not come back, sent forth a dove, which, being a tamer bird, perhaps would be more likely to return, and give him some sign of the state of the earth. And the dove, not as yet finding a dry place to rest her foot upon, returned to Noe, who put out his hand and caught her, and took the dove safe into the ark again. And at the end of another week he sent out the dove again, and the dove flew about all day, and came back to Noe in the evening with a green olive-branch in her mouth. By this Noe knew that the waters must have gone from the earth, and that the green leaves were beginning to grow again and look beautiful. And after another week he sent out the dove again; and this time, finding the trees and green fields, in which she could live and rest, the dove came back no more. So now Noe knew that the great flood was over, and he opened the covering of the ark, and looked all round and saw the earth once more dried and fit to live in. And then God ordered Noe to go out of the ark, with his wife and his sons and their wives and chil

dren, and all the beasts, birds, and creatures which he had taken in with him.

And the first thing that Noe did on coming out of the ark, in which he had been saved from death, was to offer a sacrifice to God. He built an altar, and offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving, with prayers and praises, to God, for having been saved by His mercy, with all his family, from the dreadful death of the rest of mankind in the raging waters.

THE TOWER OF BABEL.

AND God blessed Noe and his sons, and promised them that He would never again destroy the world by waters; and as a sign of this promise He said He would set His bow in the clouds. So when rain comes we often see the rainbow, which shows us how God never forgets His promises; for it shines upon us as it did upon Noe and his family, to tell us that the rain shall cease in due season.

The three sons of Noe had now large families of children and grandchildren, and began to people the earth. Sem's children settled in Asia; and Japheth and his family are said to have peopled Europe. Cham's descendants spread over Africa;but Cham was not so good as his brothers Sem and Japheth.

And the sad evil of sin began again to increase upon the earth as men increased and became more numerous, and only a few remained serving God as Noe had done; and those men who were irreligious and did not care for God began to lay plans for putting themselves out of His power, forgetting what dust they were, and how God could scatter them as ashes at His pleasure.