THE RAINBOW. 
249 
Plutarch cites it as an index of the knowledge prevalent 
in his time. 
Whatever may have been the thoughts of Adam, when 
the sunshine first resolved into prismatic colours, in an 
arch expanding over the region of the happy garden, 
those of Noah might well be more profound, for the 
rainbow became a part of his life, and through him a 
pledge of Divine mercy to the end of the world. “I do 
set my bow in the clouds”—marvellous utterance of 
a Father considerate of His children's fears. Those 
words possess me, as I look out over the gray sky where 
the rainbow glowed a few minutes since, and they seem 
to me to have all the force of an authority for research 
into the mind of God, the mind of man, and the ways of 
nature. The cause of the awful devastation of the globe 
is for ever rendered beautiful; the descending shower, 
which for forty days continued to submerge the offenders 
against Divine justice, seems to be woven into a robe of 
divers colours, and made pre-eminently beautiful, that 
they may henceforth cease to inspire dread. The fleecy 
clouds that held me in listless reverie half-an-hour since, 
and that are now dimming into ashy hues, seem to 
be impressed with similar evanescence and unsubstan¬ 
tiality, that man may look upon them henceforth as his 
friends that once were the destroyers of his race. And 
how deep a hold has that post-diluvian rainbow taken of 
the mind of man. It must be records of that fact we 
find cropping out in the old mythologies, as in the 
carrying of the rainbow-coloured fans in the procession 
of Apis; and the combination of the rainbow and the 
dove in Hieroglyphics and mythological rites. Bryant 
