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It is a significant thing that Scripture so distinctly affirms a double beginning for the human race, and sets before us two great human fathers. It is usual to speak of our "father Adam," but it would be at least as truthful to speak of our "father Noah." The period from Adam to Noah is given us very briefly, and it is scarcely more than a record of names. The one fact that comes out so prominently is that the first descendants of Adam lived lives that were so prolonged as to be almost inconceivable to us. And it is equally evident that the new race born of Noah was a race of short-livers, their allotted time on earth not being greatly in excess of our own. Here are facts so important as to be a fitting subject for consideration.

I. THE HEAD OF THE LONG-LIVERS. Adam was himself a long-lived man. We know that physical death was not the judgment on his sin, though the embittering of death by a smiting conscience, and by the sufferings of disease engendered by sin, undoubtedly was. How long men's earthly lives might have been if they had preserved the purity of Eden, we may only imagine, but some hint of it is given in the experiment God made of permitting even the banished ones to live for a thousand years. Can we conceive the Divine thought in permitting for a time these prolonged lives?

1. The earth was to be won by the human race; its stores were to be discovered, and their uses shown. This beginning of the arts of civilized life would make more rapid progress if one man could carry his experience over several generations, getting full time for the outworking of his thoughts and plans. We know too often now how sadly invention and discovery are stopped by the early death of the workers.

2. It might be expected that man would have a fuller and fairer moral trial if his time on earth were thus prolonged, and it might reasonably be hoped that the continuous experience of God's goodness would lead him to repentance and restored relations with God. This expectation, however, was not fulfilled, but man's self-will took advantage of the security of life, and grew into an awful majesty and pride of power, that necessitated the Divine interference in an overwhelming judgment. And it became declared for all the ages that too prolonged life is not the best thing for sinful and self-willed human creatures. It is a trust too great. It is better for man's highest welfare that upon him should constantly rest the sense of the brevity of life. He only perverted to his uttermost ruin the longer trust. So Adam is the father of a race that is passed and done with. We are not his children in the sense of being placed under the same time-conditions.

II. THE HEAD OF THE SHORT-LIVERS. This is the first and chief distinction between the races before and after the Flood. Noah had a cleansed earth to possess, but he carried over into it some relics of the older evil in his family, and so commenced the new trial under disability. Before, the race had kept in one stream; under the new condition it divided into three great streams, represented by Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and it is found by scholars now that this is stilt the substantial division of the human race. But everywhere we find the condition of the shortened life. "Brief life is here our portion." And this is made one of the most important influences in the moral training of mankind. Show how it fills each day with importance; prevents any man reaching extreme degrees of crime; solemnizes with the shadow of coming judgment, etc. Now, he only "liveth long who liveth well;" and we need to pray with Moses, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Impress the duty of seeking at once salvation, and at once to be found faithful, in view of the brevity of our life. Compare Jacob's confession, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been," etc. - R.T.

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KJV: Adam, Sheth, Enosh,

WEB: Adam, Seth, Enosh,