chronologic predictions of Scripture similarly throw their light forward to the close of the different ages to which they respectively belong.

Moved with fear-the fear born of faith-Noah prepared an ark to the saving of his house, and while doing so acted as "a preacher of righteousness" to the evil generation in whose midst his lot was cast. His knowledge of the approaching end of the age in which he lived did not make him idle, impracticable, speculative, or despairing; it roused him rather to preach with power and labour with diligence, and it separated him in spirit from the wickedness, the worldliness, and the unbelief of his age. None of the wicked understood, believed, or heeded his warning words. As decade after decade of the last century of the old world rolled away, its millions remained as full as ever of carnal confidence and unbelieving indifference. They were occupied exclusively with earth and its interests-agricultural, commercial, socialright up to the hour when Noah and his family entered into the ark. The Divine Hand that shut him in, opened at the same time the windows of heaven and broke up the fountains of the great deep; and though its approach had been revealed by God more than a century previously, and though His righteous servant had not failed to proclaim to men the counsel and purpose of the Almighty, "they knew not until the flood came and took them all away."

When Noah and his family emerged into the new world, they were wiser than our first parents in paradise. Adam, gazing around him in Eden, may well have inwardly exclaimed as to God, "He can create"; but Noah, doing the same from Ararat, must surely have added, "He can destroy."

Sorely must the second father of the human race have needed the light of promise and of prophecy at the solemn crisis when he and his stood amid the wreck of the old world-the sole survivors of a perished race. Events had

forced upon them a vivid realization of the solemn fact that the great Creator would actually destroy the works of His own hands, rather than permit the victory of moral evil. It was a terrible revelation, for did not they too belong to the sinful race? What was to be their future and that of their posterity? Must they anticipate a recurrence of the late awful catastrophe? Oh, how they needed the sure word of prophecy as a lamp to shine in the dark place where they stood! The wrath of God seemed to have recalled His gift of the earth to the sons of men. Dared they take possession of this new earth as Adam had done of the old? Evil might and probably would fill the world afresh, and what then was their tenure to be?

Never did trembling mariners launching on a stormy and unknown ocean more need the compass, pilot, and daylight, than did the prisoners of the ark when they first alighted on Ararat need the guidance of Divine promise. And hence, as might be expected, the grace that had saved speedily reassured their fearful hearts: God set His bow of promise in the cloud, and prophecy witnessed the reflection of her beams of light from the retiring waters. A covenant of mercy gave them a new charter of natural blessings, and a new grant of dominion in the earth. A second time was the human family commanded to multiply and replenish all its waste places. The word of promise soothed the fears of the rescued; no recurrence of a deluge was to be apprehended. Seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, were not again to be interrupted in their natural sequence; and four thousand years have proved God's faithfulness to His promise. The Noahic covenant is our present lease of the earth. According to its terms, God legislates for the winds and waves, the sunbeams and the storm clouds, so as to secure to man the indispensable order of the seasons.1

"The great circle of the heavens apparently described by the sun

The promises and predictions that followed the flood were of a cheering and merciful nature, and exactly calculated to restore in the hearts of those who had witnessed the evil effects of the fall, and seen a guilty race whelmed in the darkness and death of the deluge, hope, courage, and confidence in God. No threats, no conditions were attached to the gracious covenant of which the rainbow is the beautiful and abiding token. It should be noted here that the promise of redemption was not renewed in the Noahic covenant, because nothing that had happened had in the slightest degree invalidated it. It stood as before; and Noah and his family evinced their acquaintance with it by offering sacrifice. They doubtless prized it in the new earth as they had ever done in the old, for the dark background of judgment and perdition must have made more precious than ever the hope of redemption and deliverance.

every year (owing to our revolution round that body) is called the ecliptic. . . The plane of the earth's equator, extended towards the stars, marks out the equator of the heavens, the plane of which is inclined to the ecliptic at an angle . . . known as the obliquity of the ecliptic. It is this inclination which gives rise to the vicissitudes of the seasons during our annual journey round the sun.. . . The obliquity of the ecliptic is now slowly decreasing at the rate of about 48′′ in 100 years. 'It will not always, however, be on the decrease; for before it can have altered, the cause which produces this diminution must act in a contrary direction, and thus tend to increase the obliquity. Consequently the change of obliquity is a phenomenon in which we are concerned only as astronomers, since it can never become sufficiently great to produce any sensible alteration of climate on the earth's surface. A consideration of this remarkable astronomical fact cannot but remind us of the promise made to man after the deluge, that "while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." That the perturbation of obliquity consisting merely of an oscillatory motion of the plane of the ecliptic will not permit of its inclination ever becoming very great or very small, is an astronomical discovery in perfect unison with the declaration made to Noah, and explains how effectually the Creator has ordained the means for carrying out His promise, though the way it was to be accomplished remained a hidden secret until the great discoveries of modern science placed it within human comprehension.'"-(Chambers' "Handbook of Descriptive Astronomy," p. 73.)

We must not pause to dwell at any length on these early Noahic predictions, the fulfilment of which has been a matter of experience to the human race for four thousand years. We must pass on rather to those given at a later point in the life of the patriarch Noah, which partake more of the nature of a programme of the world's history.

Just as it was subsequently granted to Jacob and to Moses to foresee and to foretell the future of the different tribes of Israel, so to Noah, the second father of the human race, it was given towards the close of his long life of nine hundred and fifty years, to foresee and foretell the future of the races that should descend from him, by whom the whole earth should in due time be overspread. We have no means of fixing the exact date of the very remarkable prophecy in which he does this.1 Owing to its position as the first recorded incident after the flood, it is often taken for granted that it followed closely upon that event; but there is really no ground for this assumption. It is the only incident mentioned in the subsequent life of the patriarch; indeed, with the exception of the death of Noah, the only incident recorded between the flood and the building of Babel-a period of many centuries. Its place in the narrative is therefore no guide to its actual date, nor to its position in the life of Noah. If it occurred as early as is generally supposed, then Noah's grandson Canaan is mentioned before he was born, or had done good or evil; which is most unlikely. On the other hand, if it shortly preceded the event next following in the record-the death of Noah-then the parallel with the cases of Jacob and Moses is close, and an additional solemnity and importance attaches to the prediction.

Further, this memorable utterance of the great preacher of righteousness must never be regarded as the imprecation of a curse and the bestowal of blessings, much less as if the

1 Gen. ix. 24-29.

words had been prompted by any angry or vindictive feeling on Noah's part against his youngest son. A thoughtless reading of the narrative might produce such an impression on the mind, but reflection will show it to be an unworthy and wholly groundless one. The words were, as their fulfilment proves, an inspired prophecy, not an imprecation; the future of each race is not so much assigned as foretold, and the good or bad destiny in each case is connected not so much with the moral character of Shem, Ham, and Japhet personally, as with that of their descendants in distant ages, all whose deeds lay even then naked and open before the eyes of the revealing Spirit of God. The incident in connection with which the prophecy was given was not in any sense the cause of the destinies declared, though it gave occasion to the utterance of the prediction. The prophet speaks of races, not of individuals, as Isaac spoke of the future of Jacob's and Esau's descendants, rather than of their own personal experience. The portion foreseen for each was not merited by the parents' conduct only or mainly, but by the character and conduct of their unborn posterity. Such oracles are far removed from the nature of private fortune-telling; they are utterances given by inspiration of God. As Bishop Newton well observes on this passage: "Noah was not prompted by wine or by resentment, for neither the one nor the other could infuse the knowledge of futurity or inspire him with the prescience of events which happened hundreds, nay thousands, of years afterwards. But God, willing to manifest His superintendence and government of the world, endued Noah with the spirit of prophecy, and enabled him in some measure to disclose the purposes of His providence towards the future races of mankind."

The points emphasized in Noah's foreview of human history are few but important. The predictions are brief and clearly expressed. There is no indistinctness about them, no vague wording which might apply equally well to