the history of God speaking to the hearts of one man after another,
teaching them each more and more about Himself, and the history also
of these men listening to the voice of God in their hearts, and
BELIEVING that voice, and acting faithfully upon it, into whatever
strange circumstances or deeds it might lead them. "By faith," we
read in this same chapter,--"by faith Noah, being warned of God,
prepared an ark to the saving of his house, and became heir of the
righteousness which is by faith."

Now, to understand this last sentence, you must remember that Noah
was not under the law of Moses. St. Paul has a whole chapter (the
third chapter of Galatians) to shew that these old saints had
nothing to do with Moses' law any more than we have, that it was
given to the Jews many hundred years afterwards. So these histories
of the Old-Testament saints are, in fact, histories of men who
conquered by faith--histories of the power which faith in God has to
conquer temptation, and doubt, and false appearances, and fear, and
danger, and all which besets us and keeps us down from being free
and holy, and children of the day, walking cheerfully forward on our
heavenward road in the light of our Father's loving smile.

Noah, we read, "was a just man, and perfect in his generations;" and
why? Because he was a faithful man--faithful to God, as it is
written, "The just shall live by his faith;" not by trusting in what
he does himself, in his own works or deservings, but trusting in God
who made him, believing that God is perfectly righteous, perfectly
wise, perfectly loving; and that, because He is perfectly loving, He
will accept and save sinful man when He sees in sinful man the
earnest wish to be His faithful, obedient servant, and to give
himself up to the rule and guidance of God. This, then, was Noah's