THE KING’S BUSINESS
602
the scoffs and the jeers of that day. But if he was, he had an ear to hear1God.- He communed, with God, and when God spoke to him, he could hear and he obeyed. Well, a hundred years passes away. There is no sign of a coming storm, and these men are increasing in their infidelity and in their unbelief. They go on scoffing and mock ing and ridiculing. And the men that helped Noah, his carpenters whom he hired, undoubtedly if they went into a saloon and began to drink or play cards, men made fun of them. “Ah, you are helping that old lunatic there to make the a rk !” But I can imagine they would say, “Noah’s money is as good as any. We don’t believe in his old ark ; we don’t believe in the delusion, but we are after his money, that is all.” SCOFFERS STILL There are a good many men today that talk in the same way about the ark that God has provided. The day of scoffing is not passed. The day of mocking, and the day of ridicule is not passed. Many a man is kept put of the Kingdom of God be cause he cannot stand the ridicule of some scoffing, sneering, contemptible wretch, who would trample his' mother’s prayers, and feelings, and her Bible, and all her precepts under his feet, and mock at the idea of his mother’s God. Time passes on. The hundred and twenty years have expired. The merriment increases. Noah has got his ark done. All the contracts are closed. During the past one hundred and twenty years many a time has he stopped the work on the ark, per haps, and gone out and warned his coun trymen. He told them of the coming judgment. But they mocked the old man. They didn’t believe him. But now the ark is finished. I don’t know what time of year it was finished; perhaps it was in the spring. In that spring Noah did not plant any thing. “Now, surely he will come to want. Every year he has planted, like others, he has provided for the future, but now he has not planted any thing. He is prepar-
alone. They laughed at the idea. They mocked at the idea. They ridiculed the idea. Why, the strongest thing against you, Noah, is that no one believes with ■you’ the great-men, and all the leading minds of -the present day differ with you. They don’t believe there is going to be a flood—that there is going to be a deluge and a judgment; there are no signs of it in the heavens. The astronomer looks up in the heavens and 'says, “We see no sign of a coming storm or a coming judg ment. It is all a delusion, God is not going to destroy the world. I don’t- believe it. And we have a majority with us. They all agree with us, you stand alone.” But the old man toiled on. Day after day I can see him there at the ark. He must have known when t he received the 'com mission to build the ark, how much-sport they would make of it—how he would become the butt of ridicule, how he would become the song of the drunkard, and how he would become the laughing stock of that day. If they had theaters in those days, I haven’t any doubt but that they would have had Noah’s Ark on the stage, and made all manner of sport .of it. Lec turers went up and down the country warning these antediluvians against fanat icism, and telling them to be careful about being carried away with that delusion. If they had had newspapers in those days, once in a while there would have been a reporter coming around to see how he was getting along, and he would write up an article on “Noah’s Delusion,” or “Noah’s Ark.” If they had had the telegraph in those days, every once in a while there would have been a telegraphic dispatch sent around the world about Noah’s Ark and about the deluded man spending all his money and all his time upon that ark. And then there was that gray-haired old man and his family, his three sons and I their wives, only eight in all, and yet he is building an ark large enough to accom modate hundreds and thousands. Deluded man! Gone clean mad! Some one has suggested the idea that Noah must have been deaf or he could not have withstood
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