after you, and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth, from all that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth. No more shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth."

And Noah and his family prostrated themselves and did homage when they heard the words of the Almighty. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations; I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth."

To this promise of peace Noah could make no answer, for his heart was filled with the abundant grace and kindness of God. But Jehovah, who can read what passes in the heart and mind of man, knew that his servant whom he had saved was rendering truer and worthier homage for his beneficence

than mere lip-service. So the Lord blessed Noah, and his sons, and their wives, and said unto them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. And to Noah and his family the earth was given for a heritage. The animals which had been preserved with them in the ark, the birds, the fishes, the fruit, and the green herbs, were committed to their hands for food, for clothing, and for pleasure. And God gave solemn commandments to Noah and his children, concerning the sins which had excited his anger against the generations which had been destoyed. "Surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Who so sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man."

49

THE DISPERSION OF MANKIND.

NOTWITHSTANDING the dreadful visitation which the family of Noah had witnessed, the generation that had seen the flood had not passed away before man began again to tempt the anger of the Lord by his perverseness. The sons of Ham, especially, were disobedient, and regardless of the injunctions of the patriarch their sire, and of the living warning afforded by his miraculous preservation.

Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, was a man of proud, unyielding spirit, of great personal strength and courage, and disposed to use the powers of his mind and body to make instruments of his brethren for the accomplishment of his own will, and the gratification of his desires. Fluent of speech and fertile in expedients, Nimrod led forth a colony of his kinsmen towards the land of Assyria; and being too restless of mind to settle to the life of industry which had been prescribed to man as the honest means of existence, he sought to sustain himself and his followers by the chace, a pursuit of which the adventurous wildness charmed him, both as

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it afforded intense excitement for the mind, and required no steady aim or deliberate plan of action.

The loud halloo of the hunter, the deep bay of the gaunt and well trained hound, the bound of the swift and timid antelope, of the wild ox, or the fierce beast of prey, often awakened the echoes of the vast forests and jungles, and the rocky glens, that skirted the Euphrates, or the pleasant streams that poured their clear waters into that magnificent river. At morn, at noon, arose the cry of pursuit, and at eve the festive song of successful sportsmen. Day followed day in the same round of self-imposed toil and inebriating pleasure. The sabbath was at first but half observed, then neglected, and at last scoffed at. Even the worship of the Almighty was made to depend upon the leisure which his creatures could afford for devotion; or, in other words, was regarded as a task which might be omitted when any other occupation could be found, and resorted to only in moments of vacancy: as though the Lord could be pleased with homage which was but a refuge from utter idleness.

The wandering life of the Assyrian hunters was full of danger as well as of enterprise. The chace led among caverns and precipices; through ravines, where silent and dangerous gulfs lay concealed beneath faithless weeds and briars; over cliffs, where frightful chasıns lay yawning beneath, into which