them. The first act of Noah was one of solemn worship. Noah built an altar; he offered a sacrifice; he kneeled and prayed to God. And God

blessed him, and made a covenant with him, and God said, "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for the token of a covenant between me and the earth and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.' And so, when you see the Rainbow in the cloud, you should upon the justice and the mercy of God.

think

It would be a happy thing to write that with the flood of waters all the wickedness of the earth was swept away. But, alas! this is not the truth. Those who came out of Noah's ark worshipped and served God, but their children's children forgot his mercy, and turned to wickedness and folly.

One of the wicked and foolish things done by the people, years after Noah and his sons were dead, was to attempt the building of a tower, the top of which should reach the sky; and the name of the tower they called Babel. They thought that if another flood came, they should be able to escape from it by climbing up this tower; that they need not then be afraid of God. It was a wicked, idle purpose, and God punished them. At that time there was only one language in the world; now there are more than three thousand. All the builders of this tower clearly understood one another, though, perhaps, many of them had come from distant parts. One day when their work was going on, as they thought, very successfully, the Lord God looked upon the tower which the children of men builded. And God confused their language. Every man began to speak a different tongue from his fellow. You may readily imagine the stormy scene that followed: the overseer could not understand the men; the men could not understand the overseer, nor each other; no orders given could be done, for no one understood what the order meant ; they all spoke, but all spoke in new languages. Never was seen such a sight-never was heard such a babble before or since. Of course, the work could not go on; so they left off building the city and the tower, and God scattered them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

North, south, east, west, they started to people the earth: and so

the world became filled with the different nations who now live in it; and they all spoke different languages.

You will see from these stories of the old world, that God is good and gracious to those who love and obey Him, but that those who are foolish and wicked are sure to meet with punishment sooner or later; so it was then, so it is now, so it will be at the end of the world. The dealings of God are always the same. Men change, but God does not. "With Him there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." As He was in Eden, so He is to-day. If you, my little children, disobey Him, as Adam disobeyed Him, He will cast you forth from His presence. If you are proud, as the men who built the Tower of Babel were, He will scatter and confuse your worldly plans. But if you do as Noah did, you will be saved out of the midst of the wicked, whom God will judge. Remember what our Lord and Saviour Christ said, "The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal."

ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB.

ANY years after the great flood of waters, of which
you read in the former story, there lived, in a land
called Ur of the Chaldees, a man named Abram.
He had a wife named Sarai, but he had no child of
his own.
The land in which he lived was one of

idolatry; that is, the people worshipped blocks of wood and stone, or, perhaps, the stars in the sky; but they did not worship the living God, who made all things. Now Abram was a good man, and God loved him; and God called to

him, and told him he must leave the land in which he was born, and must go into a strange country; but that, in time to come, this country should all belong to Abram's children. You see there was a double promise; God promised to give children to Abram, and to give them a beautiful land to live in.

Abram did not doubt what God said. He was seventy-five years old, and his wife was perhaps as old as himself, but he knew it was impossible for God to lie; so he took what belonged to him, and went away with Sarai his wife, and his nephew Lot, and came into the country God told him of. This country was called Canaan, and as it was at some time

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