how to work out the details. These instructions do not enable us to define the form of the vessel, or to have more than a very obscure notion of its arrangements. This is because we lack the previous knowledge which Noah and those who wrought with him possessed, and which enabled them with these instructions to produce the intended fabric.

It is remarkable that the Phoenician annals ascribe the origin of the ark to the fifth generation-just in the middle period between the Creation and the Deluge. According to that account, the discovery took place in this manner: 'Usous having taken a fallen tree and broken off its boughs, was the first who dared to venture on the sea.'

Let us look to the description: 'Make thee an ark of gopherwood.' This is generally understood of the cypress-tree. 'Chambers shalt thou make in the ark:' these chambers were doubtless cells or stalls for the different kinds of animals; and it appears from what ensues that these cells were arranged in three stories. And pitch it within and without with pitch '— probably bitumen, the substance of all others best adapted to exclude the water. 'And thus shalt thou make it the length of the ark three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.' These dimensions will presently be noticed. A transparency shalt thou make to the ark;' not 'a window,' but what should serve as the means of admitting light, and at the same time excluding the water. Had the antediluvians the knowledge of glass? The word may, however, mean translucency merely, and not necessarily transparency. It does, however, indicate something shining. The words of the next sentence but one, defining that the doorway was in the side of the ark, indicate that the translucency, or series of windows, was at the top; and it was indeed needful that it should be very high, to prevent the waves from breaking in. And to a cubit shalt thou reduce it at the top,' is a difficult phrase. We are not sure that we understand it; but it seems to mean that the roof, in which the translucency was set, sloped to a ridge of about a cubit wide. 'And the doorway of the ark shalt thou place in the side thereof.'

This clearly shows

that it was not a decked vessel. The door must have been of some size to admit the larger animals, for whose ingress it was mainly intended. The door was no doubt above the highest draught-mark of the ark, and the animals ascended to it probably by a sloping embankment. A door in the side is not more difficult to understand than the port-holes in the sides of our vessels. Yet the sacred writer is aware of the apparent danger of a large door in the side, and therefore satisfactorily relieves our anxiety, by informing us that the Lord shut him in' and in all ages, he whom the Lord shuts in is safe indeed. 'With lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it;' which shows that no space in this vast fabric was wasted; but every cubit of its enormous area, from floor to ceiling, was laid out in receptacles for the various animals. In all probability, the larger animals were kept in the lower floor, and the birds in

the upper.

Such is the description of the ark. Of its shape nothing is said. But we have the dimensions. Taking the cubit at the usual estimate,1 these give it the length of five hundred and forty-seven feet two inches; the width of ninety-one feet two inches; and the height of fifty-four feet eight inches. This is nearly three times the size of the largest British man-of-war; and to make a vessel of these colossal proportions-a floating world -must clearly have required no small amount of practical as well as scientific knowledge.

The proportions simply as stated suggest the idea of an immense oblong box or chest, and many have thought that this was its actual shape. They consider, it seems to us rightly, that the ark was not framed for any other purpose than to float safely, and to keep steady upon the waters. It had not necessarily to make any progress from point to point; it may be doubtful if it had even to contend with strong winds or heavy waves; and if, at the worst, it were at times driven before the wind, acting upon the vast surface it presented, no great harm

That is, 21.888 inches. We adopt it merely to avoid the incidental discussion of a large subject; but we think the reader may very safely, in his current computations of Scripture measures, regard the cubit as half a yard.

could come of this, as by striking against shores or rocks, seeing that all the world was under the water.

The form, therefore, usually given to the ark by painters, who have in view its progress through the waters, is probably erroneous, and is framed to meet conditions which did not actually exist. That figure is, indeed, in itself preposterous, and contrary to all the rules of naval architecture. We see nothing to prevent us from conceiving that the ark was shaped something like a house, secured upon a strong raft-like floor. It is right, however, to observe, that the ark of the covenant,' which was certainly a chest, affords no ideas which can aid our apprehension of the structure of Noah's ark. The words are altogether different in the original; the one being TEBAH, and the other ARUN.

Whatever be our ideas as to the form of the ark, there is no question that its dimensions were well adapted to the object in view. There were formerly some experiments made in Holland and Denmark, with vessels having the same proportions of parts. About 250 years ago, in particular, a Dutch merchant, named Peter Jansen, caused a vessel to be built for him in the same proportions as (but of smaller dimensions than) Noah's ark. It was a hundred and twenty feet long, twenty broad, and twelve deep. Jansen happened to be a Mennonite; and while his work was in progress, it was regarded as the enterprise of a fanatical visionary, and he was exposed to quite as much sport and derision as Noah himself could have encountered. But it was afterwards found that a vessel like this was well suited to commerce in times of peace, as it would take in a third part more lading than any other vessel, without requiring a greater number of hands. Accordingly, the name of Navis Noachica was by some given to this kind of vessel. The account of this matter is preserved in a letter written to Petrus Reinerus, who married the daughter of the person who built this vessel, on the supposed model of Noah's ark, for Jansen, which is to be found in one or two old books on Noah's ark. In one of these works, the author, Reyher,1

1 In his Mathesis Mosaica.

states that the like experiment had been made in his own country; and affirms that the kind of vessels called Fleuten, or 'Floats,' have almost the very same proportions as those of the ark.

Fifth Week-Sixth Day.

THE DELUGE.-GENESIS VII.

GOD, who in the midst of judgment remembers mercy, gave the old world ample space for repentance. A hundred and twenty years was the time during which the appointed judgment was suspended. And here we may point out the incidental corroboration this affords to the duration which the record ascribes to human life before the Flood. All other circumstances which do transpire are proportioned to that fact. A hundred and twenty years would have been too long, according to the present duration of life: for many who were not born when the judgment was first denounced, would have died before it was accomplished; and so long a delay of judgment would have weakened the force of the denunciation, and would have allowed most people to view it as a thing not to happen in their time, which, therefore, they would but lightly regard. But a hundred and twenty years were little more than the eighth of the average duration of antediluvian life; and, in respect of warning, were not more to that generation than nine years would be to us. It was therefore an interval just long enough for effective warning, without being so long as to allow any man that lived to deem that he might neglect that warning without danger.

Noah himself seems to have been the instrument of making this warning known, and of preaching repentance. St Peter calls him a preacher of righteousness ;'1 from which, as well as from the probability of the case, we gather that he laboured diligently to make known the purpose of God, and to exhort 2 Pet. ii. 5.

1

But

that untoward generation to flee from the wrath to come. the construction of the ark was in itself a warning the most impressive. It evinced the sincerity of Noah's conviction that the judgment he declared really impended over mankind; and as its vast proportions slowly rose before the eyes of men, the rumour of this immense and strange undertaking must have spread far and wide, not unaccompanied with the report of the reasons which the builder gave for its construction. Thus the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing." Did it wait in vain? We cannot wholly say that. In the interval of a hundred and twenty years many must have died, among whom there may have been some who were suitably impressed by the threatened judgments of an offended God.

12

But we know that of those that were alive just before the flood came, there were none that took these things to heart. Our Saviour himself, in a few awful words, describes their condition: In the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not-UNTIL THE FLOOD CAME AND TOOK THEM ALL AWAY." We see too much around us to be greatly astonished at this. We see at this day how few there are in the world, on whom the prospect of a judgment to come makes any serious impression; and we are assured by our Lord himself, that as it was in the days before the flood, so shall it be in the day when the Son of man cometh.

There was a pause of seven days after Noah had entered the ark, before the flood of waters came. How awful that pause! Were there any who were then smitten with fear-any on whom the striking spectacle of the animals passing into the ark, and the Noachic family last of all entering, and all being then shut securely in, made any salutary impression? Our Saviour says that they were obdurate until the day that Noah entered into the ark; were they all obdurate the day afterthe seven days after! We cannot know. If any one then be2 Matt. xxiv. 38, 39.

1 1 Pet. iii. 20.