and then Noah knew that the waters were going
away.

[Illustration: Dove returns with an olive leaf.]

After seven days again he sent out his good little dove, and she did
not come back. So Noah was sure that the earth was getting dry, and
that God would soon tell him to go out of the ark.

And so he did. Think how glad the sheep and cows were to find fresh
grass, and the birds to fly to the green trees.

What a silent world it must have been, for there were none but Noah and
his family in all the earth. Noah did not forget how God had saved
them, and he made an altar of stone, and offered beasts and birds as a
sacrifice. When he looked up to the sky there was a beautiful rainbow.
It was God's promise that there should be no more floods upon the
earth. He still sends the rainbow to show us that He is taking care of
this world, and will always do so.

Perhaps the people who lived after this--for Noah's children's children
increased very fast--did not believe God's promise, for they began to
build a great tower, or temple, on the plain of Shinar; or perhaps they
had grown proud and wicked, and wanted a temple for the worship of
idols; but the Lord changed their speech, so that they could not
understand each other, and they were scattered over other countries;
and so each country began to have a language of its own.

CHAPTER III.

ABRAHAM--THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL.

The people who lived four thousand years ago were very much like
children who easily forget. They told their children about the great
flood, but nearly all forgot to tell them of the good God who is the
Father of us all, whom we should always love and obey. Yet there is
always one, if not more, who remembers God, and keeps his name alive in
the world.

Abram had tried to do right, though there was no Bible in the world
then, and no one better than himself to help him but God, and one day
He called Abram, and told him to go away from his father's house into
another country.

"A land that I will show thee," said the Lord, "and I will make of thee
a great nation."

He also made Abram a wonderful promise,--

"In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed."

He meant that sometime the Savior should be born among Abram's
children's children, and that He should be the Savior of all the
nations of the earth.

Abram did just what God told him to do. He took Sarai, his wife, and
Lot, his nephew, and some servants, and cows, and