SECOND AGE OF THE WORLD.

FROM THE DELUGE, A.m. 1656, TO THE CALL OF ABRAHAM, A.M. 2083; COMPRISING THE SPACE OF 427 YEARS.

A.M. 1657.] Noe quits the Ark: the Rainbow.

Gen. viii.

[A.C. 2347.

THE flood had continued in its full fury for a hundred and fifty days, when God was pleased to remember Noe and his companions in the ark. He put the wind into motion, which, blowing steadily from one point, began to dispel the clouds, and to drive the waters back to their source. Thus the inundation visibly decreased, and in the seventh month of the year, five months after Noe had entered the ark, it rested on the top of Mount Ararat, in Armenia. The ark had remained in that position for some months, when Noe, being desirous to know whether the waters had subsided, opened the window and sent forth a raven; the raven, an unclean bird, and the emblem of an abandoned sinner, returned no more into the ark; but the dove which was sent out seven days after, not finding where her foot might rest, soon flew back, and was taken in again. At the end of seven days more, she was sent out a second time, and in the evening came back with a green olive branch in her mouth, which Noe joyfully received, not only as a proof that the flood had abated, but likewise as a sign that God was now reconciled with the world. After seven other days, he again sent forth the dove; and she returned no more. Noe, however, did not yet leave the ark. On the first day of the next month, which was the first month of the year, he once more opened the covering of the ark, and looking around, saw that the waters had retired from the surface of the earth. He still, however, awaited the Divine command, which came to him in the second month of the year, and then at length, the earth being dry, he went out of the ark, he and his wife and his sons,. and every other living creature with them, after they had been shut up for a whole year.

He no sooner set his foot upon the dry land, than he

NOE QUITS THE ARK: THE RAINBOW.

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erected an altar, and offered a sacrifice to God in acknowledgment of His special goodness towards him. God was

pleased with Noe's gratitude, and accepted his sacrifice. He blessed him and his children, telling him to re-people the earth, which He promised never again to curse on account of the sins of men. To convince them of the care He took of their future preservation, He impressed upon the brute creation an awe and fear of man, and gave to Noe and his sons power over all living creatures, with permission to use them for food, as they had hitherto used the vegetables of the earth.

God, moreover, entered into a solemn covenant with the holy Patriarch and his posterity, and assigned the rainbow as a token of the peace thus established between them. "When you shall see My bow in the clouds," said He, "be then assured that I am mindful of the promise I have made, never to destroy the world by another flood." And in effect, since that period no such calamity has befallen mankind: and though their heinous crimes have often cried, and still cry aloud for vengeance, God nevertheless continues faithful to His word, nor will His promise ever fail. The rainbow is a standing sign of His mercy towards us; as often as it appears it ought to remind us of the gratitude we owe Him: for His power is still the same, nor is His arm shortened, although, no doubt, it is no longer exerted with the same visible marks of terror.

But it is not simply to the radiant bow, which appears in a cloudy sky, that we are to confine our view; it is the Church, says St. Ambrose, on which we are to fix our attention. Brilliant as the rainbow in all its glory, the Church shoots her rays of brightness on every side, through the clouds that surround her. Those brilliant rays are the various graces with which God adorns His spouse, and makes her shine so charming to the eyes of men. Faithful and

dutiful, she receives them all as the gifts of His Divine goodness to her; she bows to God, the author of her greatness; and she adores Him as the sun of justice, that enlightens and sets her up, not only as a sign, but as a peacemaker between God and His people.

A.M. 1658.] Cham cursed by his Father.-Gen. ix. [A.c. 2346.

Scarcely had the effects of God's anger ceased upon the earth when an event occurred, which shows what little good is to be expected from man, when his heart is once corrupted, or is governed only by servile fear. Of the three sons of Noe, who had been so miraculously preserved from the general wreck, there was one who, having first drawn upon himself the malediction of his father, merited also that of God, and who, instead of being the head of a virtuous race, for which he had been preserved, became the father of a very unfortunate posterity.

Noe, seeing himself in the midst of a ruined and dispeopled country, applied himself to the work of husbandry, and amongst other rural employments he planted the vine. When the time of vintage came, he gathered and pressed the grapes, drank freely of the juice, and intoxication was the consequence, before he was aware of it. He fell asleep in a posture, as it happened, not decent to be seen, and lay uncovered in the middle of his tent. Cham, his second son, the father of Chanaan, was the first to discover him in that situation. Filial piety, one would think, ought to have prompted him to conceal, if he did not compassionate, an aged father's disgrace; but he, on the contrary, shamelessly diverted himself at what he saw. Nor was that all; he went to Sem and Japheth, and invited them also to come and join in his merriment. But they, more mindful of the reverence

THE TOWER OF BABEL.

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due to a parent, threw a mantle over their shoulders, and, respectfully turning their faces a different way, covered their father. Noe, as soon as he awoke, being informed of all that had passed, condemned the conduct of Cham, and pronounced the curse which his son Chanaan was to inherit on account of it. "Chanaan," said he, "shall be a slave to the slaves of his brethren unto future generations; while for their piety, Sem and Japheth shall be blessed with a long and prosperous posterity."

This story, in the literal meaning of the words, conveys a most important instruction for children, reminding them to pay that respect to their parents which God commands, and always to be careful not to laugh at them, nor to expose any private failings they may discover in them. In its figurative sense, as explained by St. Augustine, it inculcates to all Christians a respect for Jesus Christ, their true Father, in His state of humiliations and sufferings. The bitter cup of affliction, which His heavenly Father gave Him to drink, the fruit of that ungrateful vine which He Himself had planted the nakedness and disgrace to which He was subjected on the cross-are all strongly marked in the circumstances of Noe's story. And though few, perhaps, may be impious enough to laugh openly at the cross and ignominies of Jesus Christ, yet the number of those, who by their conduct throw that slight upon their suffering Redeemer, is by no means small. We in effect laugh at Christ, says the same holy Doctor, when by our actions we contradict the principles of our Christian profession; we despise the humiliations of Christ by indulging the pride of life: we ridicule, in fine, the sufferings and the cross of Christ, by showing our contempt of those who are more professedly the followers of His footsteps and the imitators of His patience.

A.M. 1757.] The Tower of Babel.—Gen. xi. [A.C. 2247. The descendants of Noe soon became very numerous; in the space of about a single century they had increased to such an extent that the country in which they dwelt no longer afforded accommodation for their numbers. Being obliged to

*The district inhabited immediately after the Flood by Noe and kis family, was the high table land of Armenia, which occupies a central position

extend their territories, they began to look out for new settlements in different parts of the globe. Before their separation they proposed to leave some monument behind them, that might make their memory famous in after ages. With that view they undertook to build a city, and in it to erect a Tower, the top of which might reach to heaven. They intended, moreover, thus to provide themselves with a place of security against any future deluge that might happen. Extravagant as the project was, they seemed, nevertheless, determined to effect it. They set immediately to work: upon the conceited notion of human pride they foolishly laid the foundations of their own disgrace, and wickedly attempted to raise themselves above the reach of being deterred from sin by the fear of punishment.*

God fixed His eye upon those busy sons of Adam, and looking down upon the Tower they were building, He saw how bent they were upon finishing it. At that time they all spoke the same language, and thereby encouraged one another in their impious undertaking. Full of that thought, they did not consider from whom they had received the gift of speech, and forgot that it was as easy for the Almighty to take away as it had been to give. But in a moment, by a stroke of the Divine power, they lost their uniformity of language, and were surprised to hear from one another nothing but a confused and discordant sound of words which no one understood. The disorderly noise and tumult that ensued, forced them to desist, and the tower they had begun, was, on that account, called the Tower of Babel or Confusion.

That Tower of Confusion, says St. Bernard, is the figure of all those worldly projects which presumptuous mortals through every age were to form in opposition to the commands of God. More pleased with the appearance than with the reality of being truly great, men often set aside the sub

between the Black and the Caspian Seas on the north, and the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf on the south.

It has frequently been remarked by writers on Biblical topography, that this being the region in which the four great rivers of Western Asia take their rise -the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Araxes and the Halys-it formed a convenient centre from which the descendants of Noe might overspread the earth.

The site of the work thus projected, was the plain of Sennaar, or Shinar, which is intersected by the Tigris and the Euphrates.