IT must have been a sad sight for Noah and his wife and their sons, as the rain went on and on, and the water grew deeper and deeper, and everybody and everything was drowned. Then came a time when nothing was to be seen but water. Wherever they looked all was sky and water; but it had done raining, the sky was blue again, the sun shone by day, the stars by night, and they must have been very glad. And still the water got lower, till the Ark did not float about, but stopped, resting on a peak of a mountain, a very high mountain, and a few bare tops of other hills began to peep out. By-and-by, Noah opened the window of the Ark and let out a raven. He never saw the raven again, for a raven eats dead things, and there were so many dead bodies floating about that it got plenty of food, and never came back to the Ark that had saved it. [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. QUESTIONS. 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? [Illustration] Third Sunday. _THE RAINBOW._ FIRST READING. "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.