12 BATTLES OF THE BIBLE.

fell on her, and crusted over her body, so that she be-
came like a pillar of salt.

“ There was not very much harm in only looking
back, grandfather,” I said, “ why was she punished so
very much ?”

“In looking back she disobeyed a positive command
of God, and in looking back from behind Lot she shewed
that she had more regard to her husband’s approbation
than to the approbation of God. She did not wish Lot
to know that she was doing wrong; she did not care
though God knew it. The fate which befel her teaches
us to fear God rather than man.

“Then the Lord rained fire and brimstone upon
Sodom and upon Gomorrah, so that fertile plain, where
many people and many cattle had dwelt, was changed
into a place where nothing could live.”

“ What like is the place now, grandfather?” George
asked. |

“ It is a lake called the Dead Sea, a large lake about
forty miles in length and eighteen in breadth. The
waters of it are very salt, as some one says they taste
like fire. Nothing that lives or breathes is to be found in
them, and they are the only waters in the world of which
that can be said. Travellers have told that they could
see pillars and fragments of buildings under the clear
waters, but that is not necessary to prove the truth of
the story I have told you. Some have supposed that
the soil of the fertile plain of Sodom was partly com-
posed of a very combustible material; that it rested on