Stories from the olden time: Teacher's text book, course IV, part I

by Josephine L. Baldwin

LESSON PRESENTATION

Introduction

One summer day Alice and Kate and Robert were playing out under the trees on the lawn and having a fine time, when it seemed to them as if the sun had been put out as suddenly as an electric light is turned off. They looked up and saw that there were heavy black clouds all over the sky. “Run,” said Robert, “it is going to rain.” They hurried as fast as they could, but had barely time to pick up their toys and rush to the veranda before the rain came down in torrents. They found a sheltered place where the rain did not beat in and settled themselves to play, but they had hardly started a new game before the sun shone out as suddenly as it had disappeared a few minutes before. “It has stopped raining,” said Alice. “Yes,” said Kate, “but look at those dark clouds.” Robert ran to the steps that he might see the clouds better, and exclaimed, “O, come quick and look! It goes all the way across the sky.” What do you suppose he saw? Have you ever seen a rainbow? What is the first thing you do when you see one? Probably we all want to do as Robert did and call every one within calling distance to come and see it, for it is so beautiful. In the long, long ago I suppose children did that same thing when they saw a rainbow, but I am sure they did something else too. I think they ran to their mothers or fathers and said, “Won’t you please tell us the story of the rainbow?” The story of which those fathers and mothers always thought when they saw the rainbow and the one which they told to their children is the one that I am going to tell to you to-day. Perhaps they called it just what it is called in our books—the Story of the Flood and the Rainbow. It is another story about the man who built the ark. What was his name? (Review briefly.) What is the verse which tells us how Noah obeyed God?

The Lesson Story

Finally there came a day when God told Noah to take into the ark his wife, his three sons and their wives, together with “every beast after its kind and all the cattle after their kind and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two, of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.” When all were safely in the door was shut. Then the rain came and the waters rose high and higher until all the mountains were covered. Upon the waste of waters the ark floated. Days and weeks and months went by, still the waters were over everything. Then God caused a high wind to pass over the earth and the waters began to go down. One day Noah opened the window of the ark and sent a raven out and the raven did not come back. Then Noah sent out a dove, but the dove found no rest for her foot and came back to the ark, and Noah took her in. After waiting seven days more, Noah sent the dove out again and at evening time of that day she came back and in her bill she brought an olive leaf. The olive trees grow only in valleys, so Noah knew that the water must have dried off the earth. He waited seven days more and sent the dove out again, but this time she did not return. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold the face of the ground was dry. And God spake to Noah saying, “Go forth from the ark, thou and thy wife, and thy sons and thy sons’ wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing, both birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

So Noah and his family once more stood in God’s sunshine upon the dry land. The first thing that Noah did after leaving the ark was to build an altar to the Lord and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving. God was pleased with Noah’s sacrifice and gave him a promise that never again should the earth be destroyed by flood, and he said: “While the earth remains, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.” Just then the sun shone brightly against a dark cloud, and a brilliant rainbow spanned the sky. God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for endless generations. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a token of a covenant between me and the earth.”

So with the bow shining against the cloud mothers and fathers told this story to their children. To them the rainbow was the sign of God’s covenant—his promise to bless the earth and all who live upon it. They remembered something else when they saw it and that is that they had a part in the covenant. God’s part was to bless; theirs to obey. The rainbow will remind us, too, of God’s promise. When we see it stretching across the heavens, in our hearts we will praise the heavenly Father for his loving kindness, and ask him to help us to be his obedient children. How glad we are that he has said, “for endless generations,” because that means that his blessing will be for always and always.

THE PUPIL’S BOOK FOR WORK AND STUDY

Show the picture for this lesson and have the children repeat the memory text as they see the rainbow in the picture.

Note.—If you have not already done so, read about the Rainbow Bookmark, on page 24. You will need one to use in teaching next Sunday’s Correlated Lesson.