nimals, and the other five were for food and
sacrifice. Noe spent a hundred years in making the ark. At that time men
lived much longer than they do now. Adam lived over 900 years and
Mathusala, the oldest man, lived to be 969 years old. There are many
reasons why men live a shorter time now than then. When the door of the
ark was closed, God sent a great rain that lasted for forty days and
forty nights. All the springs of water broke forth, and all the rivers
and lakes overflowed their banks. Men ran here and there to high places,
while the water rose higher and higher till it covered the tops of the
mountains, and all not in the ark were drowned. The big ark floated
about for about a year; for although it stopped raining after forty
days, just think of the quantity of water that must have fallen! Think
of the rain what would fall during the whole of Lent from Ash Wednesday
to Easter Sunday--forty days. It took a long time, therefore, for the
waters to go down and finally disappear. When the waters began to go
down, Noe, wishing to know if any land was as yet above the water,
opened the little window, and sent out a raven or crow over the waters.
The raven did not come back, because it is a bird that eats flesh, and
it found plenty of dead bodies to feed upon. Then Noe sent out a dove,
and the dove came back with the bough of an olive tree in its mouth.
From this Noe knew that the earth was becoming dry again. After some
days, the ark rested on the top of a mountain named Ararat. When all the
waters had dried up, Noe and his family and all the animals passed out
of the ark. He offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and he and his
family settled once more upon the earth. For a while, the descendants of
Noe were good, but when they became numerous they soon forgot the deluge
and its punishments, and became very wicked. Many forgot the true God
altogether, and began to worship the sun, moon, and stars. Some
worshipped animals, and others idols of wood or stone. They offered up
human victims and committed all kinds of sins most displeasing to God.
Many were in slavery; masters were cruel; and things were becoming daily
worse, till just before the coming of Our Lord the world was in a
terrible condition of misery and sin. The lawmakers tried to remedy
these evils by their laws, and the teachers and professors by their
teaching; but all was of no avail. God Himself must save the world.

God gave many promises of the Redeemer. T