It is of divine authority that Noah sent out of the ark a dove, which returned to him finding “no rest for the sole of her foot,” “for the waters were on the face of the whole earth” (Gen. viii., 9); yet seven days later the same dove returned from a second excursion with “an olive leaf pluckt off,” “in her mouth” (v., 11). It is, therefore, blasphemy to deny that an olive tree stood firm beneath the crushing weight of the tons of water which covered every high hill, and was so little injured by its submersion of eleven months that it promptly budded out as the water left uncovered its topmost boughs.
It is of divine authority that “every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth after their kinds, went forth out of the ark” (Gen. viii., 19), and that Noah, lest his god should not have had his appetite for slaughter satiated by the putrifying masses of the drowned dead, scattered over the face of the whole earth, took “of every clean beast and of every clean fowl” (v. 20), and offered up his puny sacrifice by fire from the few living things left from the huge sacrifice by water. It is blasphemy to deny that as the fumes of the roasting animals went up “the Lord smelled a sweet savor” (v. 21), and gratefully declared: “neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done” (v. 21). So that god appears to have made man, then to have repented that he made him, then to have destroyed him, and then to have been half sorry once more, declaring that he would not do it again. And this is the god in “whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James i., 17). It certainly required a revelation to tell us so.
It is of divine authority that the “fear” and “dread” of man is on every “beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea” (Gen. ix., 2). This fear is not very evident in the tiger as he tears a man in pieces, in the vulture who picks out the eyes of the dying traveller, in the shark who snaps in twain the swimming sailor; yet it is consoling to know that they are all trembling with dread of their prey as they swallow the toothsome morsel. The “covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh” (Gen. ix., 15) is rather funny; if it were not blasphemy to deny it I should scarcely have conceived of god entering into a covenant with, say, a black-beetle. The covenant is not of much use to individuals apparently, though entered into with “every” one of them, for though god promises that he will not again drown them all _en masse_, he gives no pledge as to drowning in detail, and this is quite as unpleasant to the victims.