"Besides the awful picture of the apostasy of men before the flood presented us in Gen. vi, we have the description of their state connected with the prophecy of Enoch in the epistle of Jude, and another tradition concerning them, recorded by divine inspiration, in the book of Job. The moral picture of the antidiluvian world is thus strikingly presented to Job in the way of question:-

" Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden? Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood:Which said unto God, ' Depart from us!' and what can the Almighty do for them ? Yet He filled their houses with good things." (Job 22:15-18.)

And this bounty of God to " the unthankful and the evil," "filling their houses with good things," is expressly pointed out in the words of Christ concerning that period:"In the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, . . . even thus shall it be in the days of the Son of Man."

Thus it is plain that the last hour of this present world is to answer both in its restless activity and its moral character to the last hour of the world before the flood. There is, however, a promise of the Church's preservation from the world's last temptation and judgment (Rev. 3:10 with i Thess. 4:16-18) by the taking up of its last members into heaven before the final current of human iniquity and the divine wrath that follows it shall set in upon the earth (2 Thess. 1:7-12). And in what state was the old world before the awful close?

It was a world in the full enjoyment of the gifts of God's providence, yet "murmurers and complainers" (Jude 14-16); a world suffering from human violence, yet " having men's persons in admiration;" a world which heard the "preacher of righteousness," yet continued " walking after their own lusts;" a world which was told of the Lord's coming, yet persisted in their "ungodly deeds" and "hard speeches." It was a world that had its fair women and its mighty men; its architects, its musicians, and its artificers, as well as its shepherds and its husbandmen, men dwelling in cities and men dwelling in tents, men of renown and men of violence. But their renown, where has it placed their names? They are not remembered in heaven or earth; they lie deep in the records of hell. Their might, what was it when the flood "came and took them all away"? Waters gushing from beneath, waters rushing from above! Deep called unto deep. " The triumphing of the wicked is short."