ty, and we have a minute account of
it in the Bible.

More than two thousand three hundred years before our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ came to earth, man's wickedness had attained to such a
height that God resolved to destroy the inhabitants of the world by a
deluge. But, in the midst of wrath, God remembered mercy. He spared
Noah and his family, and saved them from destruction by placing them in
the ark along with pairs of the lower animals.

Every reader of the Bible knows the story of the deluge; but everyone
may not be aware that traditions of this deluge are found in every part
of the earth. East, west, north, and south--civilised and savage--all
men tell us of a great flood which once covered the world, and from
which only one family was saved, in a boat, or a canoe, or an ark.

What the barbarous and savage nations know dimly from tradition, we know
certainly and fully from the inspired Word of God. The ark was built;
the flood came; Noah with his family and two of every living creature
entered into it; and for months the first ship floated on a sea whose
shoreless waves flowed round and round the world.

What the ark's form was we cannot precisely tell; but we know its
dimensions pretty accurately.

Although it was not intended for voyaging, the ark must necessarily have
been a perfect model of a vessel, meant to float upon the waters. To
some extent, too, it must have been fitted to ride upon turbulent
billows; for it "went upon the face of the waters" for upwards of seven
months, and before it rested finally on the top of Mount Ararat, "God
made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged." In regard
to its size, the most interesting way to consider it, perhaps, will be
to compare it with the _Great Eastern_, the largest ship that has yet
been built by man. Assuming a cubit to be about 18 inches, the length
of the ark was about 450 feet, its breadth about 75 feet, and its depth
about 45 feet.

The _Great Eastern's_ length is 680 feet, its breadth 83 feet, and its
depth from deck to keel 60 feet.

The ark was built of gopher-wood, which is thought by some to be pine,
by others cedar. It consisted of three stories, and had a window and a
door, and was pitched within and without. But it had neither masts nor
rudder; and it is evident that, although it was man's refuge, the ark
was not designed to be managed by man, for after Noah and his family had
entered in, God took on himself th