hout
possibility of help? Let us remember that Noah and his sons were also
flesh and blood; that is, they were men who, as that person in the
comedy (Terence, Heaut. 1: 1, 25) says, thought nothing human was
foreign to themselves. They were in the ark for forty days before it
was lifted off the earth. In those days were destroyed all the human
beings and animals living upon the earth. This calamity they saw with
their own eyes; who would doubt that they were violently stirred by
the sight?

59. Furthermore, the ark floated upon the waters for one hundred and
fifty days, buffeted on all sides by the waves and winds. There was no
hope for any harbor, or for any meeting with men. As exiles,
therefore, as vanished from the earth, as it were, they were driven
here and there by currents and winds. Is it not a miracle that those
eight human beings did not die from grief and fear? Truly, we are made
of stone if we can read this story with dry eyes.

60. What outcry, sorrow and wailing if from the shore we see a small
boat overturned, and human beings miserably perishing! Here, however,
not one boat-load, but the entire world of men perish in the waters; a
world composed not only of grown persons, but also babes; not only of
criminal and wicked ones, but also simple-hearted matrons and virgins.
They all perished. Let us believe that Moses told the tale of this
calamity with such redundancy of words in order that we might be
impelled to give earnest attention to this important event. Noah's
faith was truly of a rare kind, since he consoled himself and his
family with the hope of promised seed and dwelt more upon this promise
than the destruction of all the rest of the world.

Vs. 16-24. _And Jehovah shut him in. And the flood was forty days upon
the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was
lifted up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and increased
greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high
mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen
cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both birds, and cattle,
and beasts, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and
every man: all, in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of
life, of all that was on the dry land, died. And every living thing
was des