that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

I had not read far in my infallible historical guide, before I found these awful facts recorded, and searching further, I found that mankind had acted with all this outrageous violence, notwithstanding the Great King had admonished and warned them. "Enoch, the seventh from Adam," reproved these ungodly sinners for all their ungodly deeds which they ungodly committed; and Noah, a preacher of righteousness," foretold the flood which God would bring upon the world of the ungodly; but they heeded them not. At length, the Most High thought right to stop their violent and ungodly proceedings. "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both, man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” And this, after one hundred and twenty years' space for repentance, was done; for repenting not, the flood came and swept those giants of wickedness all away. "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord," and he and his family were saved in the ark, which floated safely over that shoreless sea, strewed with the wrecks of an ungodly world.

The deluge, at the Almighty's call
In what impetuous streams it fell!
Swallow'd the mountains in its rage,
And swept a guilty world to hell.

How dire the wreck! how loud the roar!
How shrill the universal cry
Of millions, in their last despair,
Re-echo'd from the low'ring sky.

Yet Noah, humble, happy saint,
Surrounded with the chosen few,

Sat in his ark, secure from fear,

And sang the grace that steered him through.

So may I sing, in Jesus safe,

While fiery storms around me fall;
Conscious how high my hopes are fix'd,
Beyond what shakes this earthly ball.

Men multiplied again in the earth, and again they proved themselves to be destitute of righteousness and true holiness. Soon we find them engaged in an impious attempt to build a city and a tower whose top should reach unto heaven; but God came down and confounded their language, and scattered them abroad on the face of all the earth. Then we read of their being engaged in mortal conflict with each other, dealing deathblows on their fellows on every hand. And then we read of the inhabitants of two cities, whose

D

unnatural and worse than brutal crimes called for signal punishment. The ancient historian says: -"Then the Lord rained upon Sodoin and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground."

"The wind blows chill across those gloomy waves;
Oh! how unlike the green and dancing main!
The surge is foul as if it rolled o'er graves;
Stranger, here lie the cities of the plain.

Yes, on that plain, by wild waves covered now,
Rose palace once, and sparkling pinnacle;
On pomp and spectacle beamed morning's glow,
On pomp and festival the twilight fell.

Lovely and splendid all,—but Sodom's soul

Was stained with blood, and pride, and perjury; Long warned, long spared, till her whole heart was foul, And fiery vengeance on its clouds came nigh.

And still she mocked, and danced, and taunting, spoke
Her sportive blasphemies against the Throne :

It came!-The thunder on her slumber broke :-
God spake the word of wrath!-Her dream was done.

Yet, in the final night, amid her stood

Immortal messengers, and pausing Heaven Pleaded with man, but she was quite imbued,

Her last hour waned-she scorned to be forgiven !

'Twas done!-Down poured at once the sulphurous shower. Down stooped, in flame, the heaven's red canopy.

Oh! for the arm of God, in that fierce hour!
'Twas vain, nor help of God or man was nigh.

They rush, they bound, they howl, the men of sin ;-
Still stooped the cloud, still burst the thicker blaze;
The earthquake heaved!-Then sank the hideous din!-
Yon wave of darkness o'er their ashes strays."*

And all this came of men having put off the Beautiful Garment of "Righteousness and True Holiness," they neither feared God or regarded man, and hence their crimes and their punishment.

But I must go no further with my details, for I should weary you in recording all the dark deeds which have been done by violent and ungodly men from the times I have quoted to the

present day. Suffice it to say, that every page of

the history of the human race until this hour is defaced and stained with the black marks of oppression and the deep dye of blood. Alas, for poor wretched guilty man! ever since he lost the image of Him who created him, he has borne the image of him who deceived him, and has become "earthly, sensual, and devilish."

Here I may be permitted again to quote a few sentences from a man of discernment and

* Croly.

piety,* of the sad effects which have followed upon the unrighteousness and ungodliness of man.

"In our bodies, what seeds of weakness, distress, and decay! The first proofs that we possess of life are the cries of pain and suffering, inarticulately uttered by the infant, just entered into the world. How often does even that infant agonize and expire in the cradle! If he passes into childhood, how many pains does he undergo! how many fears, how many sorrows! How frequently is he carried, while a child, to the grave! Should he arrive at youth, what a train of new evils is he obliged to encounter; and in how many instances does the canker-worm or the frost nip the blossom, and wither it beneath the fond eye of paternal love! Should he become a man, sickness, pain, and sorrow, still follow him through every course of life, and not unfrequently infix their fangs in his heart-strings; while death, always watching for his prey, descends when he is least aware, and seizes and bears away the miserable victim. Should he live to old age, his strength declines, his face is furrowed with wrinkles, and his head whitened with hoary locks. His body bends towards the earth, from which it

* Dwight.