hat he had made man upon the earth,
and it grieved him at his heart."[I]

At this time of general apostasy, Noah--and, it would seem, he
alone--was seen righteous before God. Him, therefore, with his family,
the Almighty preserved in the ark, when in his fierce wrath he caused
the deluge to sweep away the corrupt inhabitants from the face of the
earth they had polluted. Notwithstanding the wide-spread corruption of
the times, it does not appear that either Noah or his sons were
polygamists. Certainly, if any one of them had been such prior to the
building of the ark, he was not permitted to bring his harem into it for
protection from the fearful storm. Only "eight persons," we are
informed, were preserved alive; namely, Noah and his wife, with his
three sons and their wives. Then, at what may be termed the second
starting-point of the human race, there was again an equal number of men
and women upon the earth; clearly pointing out that the design of the
Almighty in this matter was the marriage of _one_ man with _one_ woman.
God made no provision for the marriage of either man or woman after the
obtaining of a divorce.

It might have been supposed that so fearful a display of the wrath of
God would have made a lasting impression upon the descendants of Noah;
but as is the case with perverse mankind now, so it was then; the
lessons of the past were lost upon them. No very great period of time
elapses till we find the posterity of this good man, Noah, impiously and
daringly conceiving the idea of measuring strength with the Almighty by
attempting to build a tower so high that it could not possibly be
overflowed should a subsequent deluge occur. The dispersion of mankind,
and the consequent division into tribes, or races, was the result of
such presumption. The desperately wicked heart of man began to devise
new mischiefs, and revive old ones. Monogamy, the great conservator of
moral purity, was disregarded, and one corruption viler than another
followed in rapid succession. Before the calling of Abraham, mankind, as
a whole, appear to have lapsed, if not into absolute heathenism, at
least into something very near it. The knowledge and worship of the true
God seems to have been retained only in isolated families, and even
there to have been but partially observed, being marred and dishonored
by human inventions and substitutions.

That Abraham might be delivered from the pernicious example of his
neighbors, and that his