Pilgrim. A singular happiness indeed!

Noah. Well mayest thou say so; but to God alone is the praise due.

Pilgrim. You seem, father, to have reached a very uncommon age!

Noah. Yes; my name is Noah; and I am now in my nine hundred and fiftieth year. I can remember several of the patriarchs of the first world, as Enos, Kenan, Mahalaleel, and Jared. I knew every one of them and particularly Methusaleh, who, for length of days, never had his equal, and very probably never will; for though am within twenty years of him, I don't suppose I shall live so long.

Pilgrim. You surprise me! old age generally brings infirmities, and you seem pretty hale and vigorous. You have still a brisk eye, and your hearing, I perceive, does not fail you. Adam, I suppose, you could not know.

Noah. Adam had been dead a hundred and twenty years before I was born; but Lamech my father knew him very well, for he was fifty-six years old at the time of Adam's death, and a great many good things he used to tell us of him.

Pilgrim. So it is; let a man live thousands of years, at last, I see, he must die.

Noah. Die! say rather, he removes to a better life, of which we had an instance in the blessed Enoch, who, after persevering three hundred years in a divine life, God was pleased miraculously to take him up into the heavenly mansions, whilst living.

Pilgrim. How, father!

Noah. I tell you no more than the truth; for my father knew Enoch as well as he knew me, and was about a hundred and thirty years old, at the time of that remarkable event: besides I have spoken with several who were eye-witnesses of it.

Pilgrim. That must have been a wonderful sight. Noah. Were I to relate to you all the great things

which have been told me, as well-known truths, of that man, the sanctity of his life, his faith in God, his concern for man's welfare, his indefatigable ardour in promoting it, and his miraculous departure from earth; how some stood gazing after him; some who would not believe it, went seeking him over hills and dales; some lamented the loss of his company; others thought it a good riddance, for he was the salt of the world; others set up a mark on the spot where he was last seen, and it has been shown to me; the different talk of people on his being taken up; some confirming it; others denying it; I say, were I to go about relating these things, from first to last, not only time would fail me, but I should be quite spent before I had got half through.

Pilgrim. I am far from desiring you to tire yourself, father; the truth of the fact is no question with me. But what comfort can Enoch's being taken up to heaven be to you? His case is singular; for all the other patriarchs have been removed out of the world in the natural way of death.

Hence

Noah. It is of exceeding comfort to me. we see, that there is a place in heaven for the godly: this Enoch himself taught, as a principal point.---Again, it shows the power of faith, which can overcome death; for our general father Adam, though, according to the body, he died, yet had he a strong sense of an eternal life. God having given him a soul, being eternal, he expected eternal things; and a powerful solacement this was to him, amidst all the reverses of his life. That great truth which he inculcated, being confirmed by Enoch's translation, we the more firmly believed a fruition of the heavenly glory, notwithstanding the return of our body to the earth; for it is entirely in the will of God to glorify us, either with or without it. Enoch is a proof that he can do it, if he pleases; and from his righteousness and bounty, we, as children of the same father, expect that he will give an equal portion to all who love him. Farther, we feel in our hearts the com

mencement of a divine life; and this the more strongly, as the lusts and enticements of the world decay in us. Therefore, say I still, that the putting off this perishable body, is only a transition to a better state; of which God, in his time, will make a clearer manifestation.

Pilgrim. What I am very desirous of hearing is, the transactions of past times, and your own particular adventures; for having lived so many hundred years, as you say, and all things being perpetually changing, you must be acquainted with abundance of strange and wonderful things.

Noah. To give you an account of every thing which I have heard and seen, would require the addition of another hundred years to my life; for besides my very uncommon longevity, I have lived in different worlds, and the particular recollection of some passages, I know, would overwhelm me with grief, so that I should not be able to proceed. Therefore it will be best not to say much of those things.

Pilgrim. All I desire, father, that I may not be troublesome, is just a general account, whence I may reap instruction.

Noah. Indeed, did I not believe that to be your view, you would not draw a word from me; but now, as time permits, I will give you a succinct account of some occurrences well worth your notice.

Pilgrim. Before you proceed in your narrative, pray, who is that well-looking man yonder, with a youth, whom he seems to be instructing?

Noah. That is my son Sem, now in the four hundred and forty-sixth year of his age. The youth's name is Abraham; and though but fifty-six years | old, he has an eager thirst after useful knowledge. He is very fond of being with my son, and sometimes comes to me. Then I relate to him the transactions, of past times, with which he is so exceedingly delighted, that he says he could listen to me for ever. You see how attentive he is.

Pilgrim. Father, you inflame my desire; they must, sure, be wonderful things.

Noah. Well, some of them you shall soon hear. At my birth, my father Lamech was in his hundred and eighty-second year; and as he had been much concerned for the death of Seth, which was fourteen years before, he soon conceived great hopes of me, that I should be a comfort to him and all the children of God. Accordingly he gave me the name of Noah, (Consolation.) And, indeed, he seemed to stand in need of comfort, being much dejected, not only on account of the perpetual toil and labour which the earth required, but rather for the lamentable growth of wickedness, owing to the race of Cain, who at that time were called the sons of men, as minding nothing but the increase of their numbers by any intermarriages, and procuring to themselves the things of this world; whereas the others, who adhered to the divine life, were called the children of God, and were mostly of Seth's lineage, as I am. These, in their successive generations, asserted the cause of God and piety, admonishing each other against the profane and sensual life of the children of men, the wretched descendants of Cain, who made it their chief employment to people and cultivate the earth.

Pilgrim. With submission, did not God himself say, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth?" And without tillage, how are mankind to subsist?

Noah. What you say is unquestionably right.But God having given to man a soul, cultivation, and the chief cultivation, is due to it; for our other part becomes a prey to death, as we see in beasts. Now nothing, from which more strength goes out than it receives, can remain in a state of vigour; and this is the case of the soul, when its sublime essence is neglected, for the gratification of the senses. These draw out the very pith of the soul,

that it withers away; but this great injury done to the precious soul, in reality obstructs that very com mand of increase and multiply, even according to the flesh; and the more of sensual pleasure, the less of happiness; for the powers of the understanding fall thereby into a state of disorder, and all the inclinations being engrossed by the flesh, a man is driven to and fro by blasts of opposite desires, like a ship without a rudder, and becomes licentious and insatiate. Hence adulteries, fornications, murders, gluttonies, drunkenness, wrath, revenge, envy, jealousy, and the like passions, all hurtful to the bodies of men, all pernicious to society, and all contrary to God's design in the creation; for God created man that he should walk before him holy and unblameable in love, in order to live for ever; and not like beasts, to live and die in his earthly nature: Therefore they who live in a total carelessness of the divine life, and pursue those things in which naturally men take too much delight, are called children of men; the others, children of God.

Pilgrim. And cannot these children of God, by cordial admonitions, by nervous reasonings, gain over and convert those profligates?

Noah. Convert others! they, alas! they themselves---

Pilgrim. Your concern, father, interrupts your speech.

Noah. They themselves were perverted in course of time, especially when the old patriarchs began to die off.

Pilgrim. Compose yourself, father.

Noah. Oh! those worthies, those mighty ones, how are they fallen!

Pilgrim. I perceive by your discourse, that there has been a sad degeneracy.

Noah. I have known many men, shining patterns, fit, in all appearance, to be at the head of religious communities; withal men of parts and sagacity, and