[Illustration: RETURN OF THE DOVE WITH THE OLIVE BRANCH.--Gen. 8:11.]
He waited a week, and then he let out a dove. Now doves like trees to sit and nestle in, and they eat grains and seeds; so the poor dove found no place to rest in, and flew back to the Ark; and Noah took her back, and kept her a week, then let her fly again. She flew away but still she came back to the Ark, and this time she brought in her beak a sprig of olive branch.
It was the first green thing that Noah had seen for a year! Noah's children have loved the olive leaf everywhere, and called it the sign of peace and good news ever since.
For now Noah knew that the waters had gone down, and that trees must be able to put forth leaves again. Once more, after another week, he let out the dove, and she did not come back, for she had found a tree where she could make her home, and seeds to eat; and then Noah knew the sad time of the flood--a whole year--was over, and the earth had been washed from all her stains.
1. What was the Flood? 2. What was the Ark? 3. Who was in it? 4. What had Noah with him in the Ark? 5. What became of everyone else? 6. Why? 7. Why was Noah saved? 8. How long did the Flood last? 9. What birds did Noah send out of the Ark? 10. Which came back? 11. Why did not the raven come back? 12. What did the dove bring? 13. What was Noah sure of then? 14. What had the earth been washed from?
"I do set my Bow in the Cloud."--_Genesis 9:13._
THE sin that came into the world when Eve listened to the tempter had grown as men multiplied and made each other worse. The wicked people had been drowned in the Flood, and Noah, his sons and their wives, had alone been saved in the Ark. After a whole year of being shut up there, watching the earth, first drowned and then coming out of the water, they had just come out on the fresh green earth, with all the animals saved with them, when God spoke to them.
Then God made a promise to Noah. It was that no flood of water shall ever drown all the world again, but spring, summer, autumn, and winter, day and night, will go on to the end of the world, when it shall be burnt up by fire, not drowned by water.
That Noah, and all of his after him, might feel sure that God in His mercy will go on preserving us, and giving us days and nights, seed-time and harvest, He gave us something to look at as a sign of His promise. He so ordered the rays of light, that when they shine upon drops of water in the air they cause beautiful colors, making part of a circle, so as to form a bow. So when the sun shines on a cloud, as it rains, the fair bright rainbow is seen, as a pledge to us of God's merciful care and love to us.