(see The Fifteen Dispensations, Volume VI, page 136).

There are many of the Lord's gifts to us as His creatures that we accept as a matter of

course, yet without which life would be impossible. Nothing is so free as air and

sunlight, yet nothing so vital. The regular sequence of day and night, the recurrence of

seed-time and harvest, the continued rotation of summer and winter we think of as though

no interference with their regularity and order could be possible. The flood, which we

were considering in our last paper, was the most violent interference with "nature" that

had occurred since the fall of man, and it was after the waters of the flood had dried up,

and Noah had offered his burnt offerings, that we read:--

There is a parallel with this in 9: 8-17 where God establishes His covenant with

Noah and his seed and with every living creature that there should never be sent a flood

again to destroy all flesh.

Gen. 8: 21. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground

any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more

every thing living, as I have done.

22. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night

shall not cease.

9: 1. And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

2. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air,

upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

4. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

5. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of

man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

6. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

7. And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

8. And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,

9. And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

10. And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you;

from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

11. And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood;

neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

12. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that

is with you, for perpetual generations:

13. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

14. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

15. And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the

waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between

God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

17. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh

that is upon the earth.