the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth." Then the doors of the ark are thrown open, and what a joyous bursting forth there is! I seem to see the strong eagle spread his wings and soar upward from the place of his long captivity until he is lost as a speck in the blue sky; the lordly tiger who has crouched in tameness and quiet through those long months bounds with a sudden roar into a thicket among the hills, and creeps to seek afar some newgrown forest; the stately elephant moves out with slow and careful tread, raising his trunk to draw in the fresh air, and "trumpeting" for delight; and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air follow, each in its own way, and all eager to seek again their natural home. They went in two and two, and seven by seven,* orderly enough I dare say, as when you were little children you used to arrange them when playing with your favourite toy, "the Noah's ark;" but I fancy them coming out in a very different manner-swift, eager, delighted all: leaving Noah and his family, who understood the reason of what had been done, to be not only glad but thankful. * Once more it was seen, as it had been seen when Adam was created,† that man was made * Chap. vii. 2, 3, 9. + See Chapter I. of this book. for God. The first things, therefore, that Noah did when he came forth again into the fair world were to offer sacrifice and to speak his joy, we may be sure, in words of praise. And God answers in words of promise. Never shall there be another flood to destroy the earth. Never while the earth remains shall seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night cease. Dear young friends, this promise was spoken more than four thousand years ago. And it has been kept. There are its words in God's holy book; and all the history of the world tells of its fulfilment. Many of you have been at "Harvest homes." Did you think, as you joined in the rejoicings, of that terrible year without a harvest, when the world lay in its watery grave, and of the goodness of Him who has told us that never shall such a year be passed again? for he cares for the world. which he has made. But if we want something to remind us of this beyond the joy of harvest home-something, not once in the year only, but often in spring and summer, and in the winter too; see there is the RAINBOW in the sky. Now, most likely, my young reader can tell all about the rainbow; how it is formed by the sun shining upon the falling rain-drops, which break up every ray of light into seven colours, and so paint upon the opposite sky the arch of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Perhaps you have made a rainbow yourself, not with the rain-drops, but with a glass prism upon the parlour wall. The seven colours, too, you have seen, not only in that glorious arch, but upon the spray of a waterfall, or even in the dew upon the grass. It may be, too, that some of you have seen that rare and striking sight, a lunar rainbow, when the moonshine falling upon rain has caused a pale glimmering arch to appear in the sky, like the ghost of a real rainbow. You know, too, that country people judge of the weather partly by the appearance of rainbows. If one is seen in the morning, it will be a wet day; if in the evening, to-morrow will be fine. According to the old rhyme "A rainbow in the morning Is the shepherd's warning; Is the shepherd's delight." And Only We may find in books why all this is so. And it is very likely that the rainbow was often seen in the heavens before the days of Noah. If it rained, and if the sun shone when it was raining, we know that there must have been one. the Bible does not say that there was not. now for the first time God sets his bow in the cloud—that is, marks it, points it out as a sign of his promise to men. He puts into this sight, which Noah had often seen before, a new and glorious meaning. When the company from the ark were safe landed-kneeling, perhaps, round their altar-a shower begins to fall. For the moment they are seized with alarm. Is, then, the rain once more coming? They think of the storms of a year ago, when the clouds poured down their waters, and the fountains of the great deep were broken up. Will this ever be again? Oh, no; for God has so ordered it that the very shower paints a lovely sign upon the sky, which he makes the pledge of his own promise so long as the world shall last. "Look upon the rainbow," says an old book, "and praise Him that made it: very beautiful is it in the brightness thereof. It compasseth the heaven about with a glorious circle, and the hands of the Most High have bended it."* I do not know, dear young readers, whether when you "behold a rainbow in the sky" you have any other thought than "How beautiful it is!" This is a thought which even little children have when they clap their hands and shout for joy at the glorious sight. But may it not remind us too of the sunshine which there always is behind the storm? The storm passes away, the sunshine remains; and the sunshine uses the parting storm as the very means of inscribing in the heavens the sign of its own brightness. And may not the clouds and the rain be to us a sign of the sorrows we sometimes feel, while the bow * Ecclesiasticus xliii. II, 12. in the cloud speaks to us of our heavenly Father's love? That love is like sunshine to our souls. And we never understand how glorious that sunshine is until the sorrow comes. "For HOPE, like the rainbow, a creature of light, Is born, like the rainbow, in tears." In what other passages of Scripture do we read of the rainbow? Two, perhaps, you will remember. The former is in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, the first chapter. That prophet had a wondrous vision of God upon his throne, with the cherubim round about him. And in the 28th verse we read, "As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD." The other passage is in the book of Revelation, the fourth chapter, where the apostle John describes a sight more wondrous still. For, "a door was opened in heaven," and there" a throne was set, and One sat on the throne, and he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." These last words mean, I suppose, that the green of the rainbow, the central colour, was so bright that it seemed to overpower all the rest. But the bow seen by Ezekiel and by John was like that which gladdened Noah's eyes, only as much more beautiful as heaven is F |