r we
read that there was "violence in the land," and wherever you have
alcohol you have violence. We read also that Noah planted a vineyard
and fell into the sin of intemperance. He was a righteous man, and if
he did that, what must the others have done? Well, if they had
saloons, no doubt they sang ribald songs about Noah and his ark, and
if they had theaters they likely acted it out, and mothers took their
children to see it.

And if they had the press in those days, every now and then there
would appear a skit about "Noah and his folly." Reporters would come
and interview him, and if they had an Associated Press, every few days
a dispatch would be sent out telling how the work on the ark was
progressing.

And perhaps they had excursions, and offered as an inducement that
people could go through the ark. And if Noah happened to be around
they would nudge each other and say:

"That's Noah. Don't you think there is a strange look in his eye?"

As a Scotchman would say, they thought him a little daft. Thank God a
man can afford to be mad. A mad man thinks everyone else mad but
himself A drunkard does not call himself mad when he is drinking up
all his means. Those men who stand and deal out death and damnation to
men are not called mad; but a man is called mad when he gets into the
ark, and is saved for time and eternity. And I expect if the word
crank was in use, they called Noah "an old crank."

And so all manner of sport was made of Noah and his ark. And the
business men went on buying and selling, while Noah went on preaching
and toiling. They perhaps had some astronomers, and they were gazing
up at the stars, and saying, "Don't you be concerned. There is no sign
of a coming storm in the heavens. We are very wise men, and if there
was a storm coming, we should read it in the heavens." And they had
geologists digging away, and they said, "There is no sign in the
earth." Even the carpenters who helped build the ark might have made
fun of him, but they were like lots of people at the present day, who
will help build a church, and perhaps give money for its support, but
will never enter it themselves.

Well, things went on as usual. Little lambs skipped on the hillsides
each spring. Men sought after wealth, and if they had leases, I expect
they ran for longer periods than ours do. We think ninety-nine years a
long time, but I don't doubt but that theirs ran for nine hundred and
ninety nine years. And when they ca