The Story of the Rainbow. 51

 

“But in the midst of all those wicked
people there lived one good man, whose
name was Noah. The Lord God saw that,
in spite of all the dreadful things that were
going on around him, Noah lived a good,
quiet life, and did all he could to serve God,
and teach his sons to be good men. He had
three sons, whose names were Shem, Ham,
and Japhet. Now in those days people used
to live for a very great number of years,
and when Noah was more than four hundred
years old, it pleased the Lord God to speak
to him, and tell him that an end was coming
to all the terrible wickedness that was filling
the earth. Every one was going on boldly
with his bad deeds, just as if there was no one
to punish them ; but all the time the end was
coming nearer and nearer. And the Lord
God said to Noah that a great danger was
hanging over all the world, and that he was
to begin at once and build for himself a great
ship, called an ‘ark ;’ it was rather more like
a house than a ship perhaps, but it was all to
be made of wood, that it might float upon the
waters. It was to have a window and a door,
and to be three storiés high; and it was to
be very large. ‘And,’ the Lord God said,
‘behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters