LOOK for a moment on the catastrophe of the Deluge.① And let not our attention be so engrossed by its dread and awful character, as to overlook all that preceded it, and see nothing but the flood and its devouring waters.
The waters rise till rivers swell into lakes, and lakes become seas, and the sea stretches out her arms along fertile plains to seize their flying population. Still the waters rise; and now, mingled with beasts that terror has tamed, men climb to the mountain-tops, with the flood roaring at their heels. Still the waters rise; and now each summit stands above them like a separate and sea-girt isle.
Still the waters rise; and, crowding closer on the narrowspaces of lessening hill-tops, men and beasts fight for standing- room. Still the thunders roar, and the lightnings flash, and the rains descend, and the waters rise, till the last survivor of the shrieking crowd is washed off, and the head of the highest Alp goes down beneath the wave.
Now the waters rise no more. God"s servant has done his work. He rests from his labours; and, all land drowned, all life destroyed, an awful silence reigning and a shoreless ocean rolling, Death for once has nothing to do but ride in triumph on the top of some giant billow, which, meeting no coast, no continent, no Alp, no Andes against which to break, sweeps round and round the world.
We stand aghast at the scene; and as the corpses of gentle children and sweet infants float by, we exclaim, Hath God forgotten to te gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?② No; assuredly not. Where, then, is his mercy?
Look here; behold this Ark, as, steered by an invisible hand, she comes dimly through the gloom. Lonely ship on ashoreless ocean, she carries mercy on board. She holds the costliest freight that ever sailed the sea. The germs of the Church are there-the children of the old world, and the fathers of the new.
Suddenly, amid the awful gloom, as she drifts over that dead and silent sea, a grating noise is heard. Her keel has grounded on the top of Ararat.③ The door is opened; and, beneath the sign of the olive branch, her tenants come forth from their baptismal burial, like life from the dead, or like souls which have passed from a state of nature into the light and the liberty of grace, or like the saints when they shall rise at the summons of the trumpet to behold a new heaven and a new earth, and see the sign which these "gray fathers"④ hailed encircling a head that was crowned with thorns.
- THOMAS GUTHRIE
WORDS
assuredly, certainly. baptismal, consecrating. catastrophe, calamity. corpses, dead bodies. costliest, richest. destroyed, annihilated. encircling, surrounding. engrossed, absorbed. exclaim, cry out.
freight, cargo. invisible, unseen. lessening, diminishing. preceded, went before. shrieking, screaming. summit, peak.
survivor, one who outlives others.
tenants, occupants.
NOTES
① The Deluge.-See Gen . vi. vii. viii.
② Hath God forgotten to be gracious, & c.-See Ps . lxxvii. 9.
③ Ararat.-A province in Armenia, on the mountains of which the ark rested.(Gen. viii. 4.) The summit of Mount Ararat is upwards of 17,000 feet above the lever of the sea. In 1829, Professor Parrot, a German, reached the summit after several unsuccessful attempts.
④ "Gray fathers."-From Campbell"s poem on The Rainbow :- "When o"er the green undeluged earthHeaven"s covenant thou didst shine, How came the world"s gray fathers forth To watch thy sacred sign!"⑤ Thomas Guthrie.-An eloquent preacher and a well-known philanthropist. Born 1803;died 1873.