swift to contrive and execute schemes of cruelty and oppression; in the midst of all, their life was taken from them, and they, with all their possessions, became the prey of the avenging flood.

One family, however, survived the destruction of their race. Noah with his wife and children, secure in their spacious vessel, ride safely over the conflicting waters; preserved on account of the righteousness of the patriarch, and designed to re-people the desolated earth. For months they moved slowly over the vast ocean, till, the waters beginning to subside, the ark rested on one of the mountains of the east. But it was not the work of a moment to repair the evils of such a deluge, and they were obliged to remain much longer imprisoned in their abode. By degrees the mountain tops appeared. Higher and higher they seemed to rise, whilst the waters sunk away, till the streams ran more confined from the valleys, and islands and continents took their present form. The sun exhaled the moisture from the reviving earth, and Noah impatiently awaited the moment of deliverance from the ark. Twice he sent forth a dove, and the second time she returned with an olive-branch as a proof that the lowlands were free from water. He opened the ark and was rejoiced to look once more upon the green bosom of the earth. After another short interval had elapsed, God himself called to him, and bade him remove from the now unnecessary shelter, and give liberty to all the creatures which had been his inmates, that they might go forth and multiply in the earth.

Sweet must have been his sensations, when he led forth his happy family from the ark which had been for more than a year their gloomy abode, in which they had often shuddered at the horrors of the flood, and the cries of their perishing fellow-creatures. But how changed was the scene! When the ark received them as its inmates, all around was life and bustle. Planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage, occupied the attention of the busy and heedless mortals, while the sound of the laborer, the peal of laughter, and the shout of noisy mirth, were heard around. Alas! how changed from what it was! No human being met their eye; nor friend nor relative greeted them when they stept again upon the earth, and felt themselves free to dwell there. Silence and desolation reigned around; and the fate of his brethren, and the cheerless aspect of nature, filled the patriarch's mind with sadness. Still, he did not forget, that he and they who were dearest to him, had been saved from the general wreck; that his and their life had been preserved, though all besides had perished; and he called upon them to prostrate themselves before that Being who had preserved them, and permitted them again to breathe the refreshing air, and to resume their life-supporting labors.

Noah builds an altar to Jehovah, and, assembling his family around it, offers up the sacrifice which gratitude prompted as an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God, and of the mercy with which he had visited the patriarch. The sacrifice found acceptance with the God of the Universe. In the words of Scripture, Jehovah smelled a

sweet savour.

His goodness had not been manifested to an unworthy object; and the flame which consumed the sacrifice betokened, as it rose to heaven, the pious feelings of the man who had been so wonderfully distinguished from the rest of his race. And Jehovah said in his heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every living thing as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." The course of the seasons had been interrupted during the melancholy year of the deluge, but the Divine Ruler decided that there should be no such interruption in any future age of the world. From that period to the present, the seasons have run their course, vivifying the earth, and ripening its fruits, and producing those supplies, without which, all creatures would pine and die, and the earth become again a scene of desolation.

This striking portion of history excites feelings both of a painful and pleasurable nature in the mind. Melancholy is the contemplation of an act of Almighty justice, so extensive and overwhelming as the deluge! Painful and humbling is the conviction, that the nature we wear has ever been so defiled by wickedness and profligacy as to require an almost universal obliteration. Was there no one but Noah to rescue man from the shame of universal depravity? none but he worthy of life, when the penalty of death was incurred by such vast numbers? Was there no

righteous person, beyond his own family, worthy to shelter with him in the ark? Behold how frail-how liable to sin, is man! how much does he require instruction, and counsel, and guidance, to preserve him in the virtuous path, and to make him the upright being his Maker designed him! Surely the best of men may not boast, though he have attained a high degree of moral excellence, for he owes it to the judicious labors of others, of his parents and instructors, that his mind has been preserved free from impurity; he owes it to the Being who observes and promotes the welfare of the upright, that he has been able to preserve his resolutions unbroken, and to flee from all unrighteousness." Be ye clothed with humility," is an apostolic injunction, which it is prudent and wise to observe. The pharasaical pride that would lead us to say, "Stand off, I am holier than thou," should never find a place in the breast of him who, if he surpass his fellows in moral and religious attainments, is still of like passions with them and liable to err. The good may rejoice that they have profited by the means of virtue which are granted to every one; but they will be humbled by the thought that, in every age of the world, many of their brethren have been wicked, and that, in one era, the world itself was defiled by universal impurity. The bad can never be proud,-for to the remorse of conscience for sin committed, will be added sorrow for having despised the counsel and reproof of those, who were anxious for their welfare.

Yet mingled with the melancholy which the view of God's just judgments on the wicked induces, there is consolation

and joy from the certainty that the upright are his delight. The preservation of the righteous Noah is a grand and animating proof that human goodness is observed and loved by the Almighty. This man walked with God. He made his laws the rule of his life; he engraved them on the tablets of his heart; he moulded his disposition and habits to their dictates. His was not that unwilling and tardy obedience which fear induces. He did not presume to render to God an eye-service; but a wise and expanded zeal in the cause of his Maker, filled his soul-impelled him forward in his excellent career-and gave purity and inexpressible value to his actions. Soaring far above the grovelling train of evil men, he would not stain himself with their impurities; and if he sought their presence, it was to admonish and to warn. Such a man the Divine Being regarded with complacency. Such a man he preserved as a deserving object of favor and an example to posterity, and as a pledge that the righteous are had by him in everlasting remembrance.

Let this be the firm conviction of our minds; and may it be equally our resolution, that sin shall not triumph over us. We need no incentives to virtue stronger than we already possess. The Scriptures read us one continued lesson of the folly and danger of a wicked life-of the safety and wisdom of one that is virtuous. Every inspired teacher who has been sent by the benevolent Father of our race, to shew the sinner the error of his ways, and one more eminent than all, promised, with the authority of the Most High, that peace and happiness shall be the companions of him who doeth justly, loveth mercy, and walketh