From that frail fabric, the ark, which proved the second cradle of the race, Shem had beheld a world submerged,—­a race swept off by the floods of Almighty wrath.  He had heard the shrieks of the drowning, the vain prayer of those who had scoffed the threatened vengeance, the fruitless appeal of those who had long rejected mercy.  As the waves bore up his frail vessel, he had seen the black and sullen waters settle over temples, cities and palaces; and he had gazed until he could behold but one dark expanse of water, in whose turbid depths were buried all the families of the earth—­save one.

Those he had loved and honoured, and much which, perhaps, he had envied and coveted—­the pride, the glory, the beauty of earth—­all had passed away.  And after the waters subsided, and the ark had found a resting-place, what a deep and sad solemnity must have mingled with the joy for their preservation.

How strange the aspect the world presented!  How must the survivors have recalled past scenes and faces, to be seen no more!  How much they must have longed to recognise old familiar places,—­the Eden of Adam and Eve,—­the graves in which they had been laid!  For doubtless Seth and his descendants still remained with their first parents, while Cain went out from their presence and built a city in some place remote.  The earth which Noah and his descendants repeopled was one vast grave; and what wonder that those who built above a race entombed, should mingle fancy with tradition, and imagine that the buried cities and habitations were yet inhabited by the accursed and unholy.  Such have been the fancies of those who darkly remembered the flood; and as the wind swept through the caverns of the earth, the superstitious might still imagine that they heard the voices or the shrieks of the spirits imprisoned within.

Shem seems to have far exceeded his brothers in true piety, and the knowledge of Jehovah was for many generations preserved among his descendants, while few or none of them ever sank into those deep superstitions which debased the children of Ham.  And it is beautiful to remark, that the filial piety which so pre-eminently marked him has ever been a prominent trait among all nations descended from him.  Thus receiving his impressions of the power, the truth, the awful justice of Jehovah, from one well fitted to convey them,—­and taught the certain fulfilment of promises and of threats,—­Abraham was early inspired with that deep reverential and yet filial love, that entire confidence, which led to the trusting obedience which distinguished his character.

Yet, from his very piety, sad must it have been when the command came to leave the plains of Mesopotamia, and go out a stranger and a pilgrim into distant lands, to become a dweller among those who were fast apostatizing from the true faith.  “But by faith he obeyed,” and by his obedience he has given us an example and illustration of faith, which has been held forth through all succeeding ages.  To be the child of Abraham, to walk as he walked, is, after the lapse of thousands of years, the characteristic of the true worshipper of God.