[Illustration: ENTERING THE ARK.]




THE TOWER OF BABEL.


Babel means confusion. Was it not a strange name to give a tower? How
did it get this?

After Noah left the ark, God made a promise to him that He would no
more destroy the earth by a flood, and blessed him and his sons. In
course of time many little children were born, baby boys and girls,
who grew up to be fathers and mothers having children also. In this
manner a great many people dwelt again on the earth. For more than one
hundred years they all spoke the same language, and as, in course of
time, they journeyed onward, they came to a large plain in the land of
Shinar, near to where Babylon was afterwards built. Here they said
they would remain and build a great city, with a high tower ascending
to heaven.

Now God, when he blessed Noah, had said to him, "Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth;" meaning that the people were to
scatter abroad, so that the world might become inhabited again. But
these men wanted to keep together, and found one great empire, the
centre of which should be the great city with the lofty tower. So they
made bricks and burnt them, and took a kind of pitch for mortar, and
began to build. Some learned men say they took three years in getting
the materials, and were twenty-two years building the tower. It was