Page:History of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob.pdf/5

5 Lot and his Two Daughters.



The angel having warned Lot of his danger of remaining among the Sodomites, hastened him to depart from the city with his wife and two daughters that they might not be consumed. They laid hold of him by the hand, ordering him to escape, and not to look behind him. Lot requested leave of the angels to retire to Zoar; and he had no sooner entered Zoar, than the Lord rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah from heaven. Lot's wife, alarmed at a sudden noise, looking back became a pillar of salt. Lot, affrighted, went up and dwelt in a mountain, his two daughters imagining that they and their father were the only remains of the inhabitants of the earth, thought it their duty not to suffer the generation of men to perish, made their father drink wine, and did not stop to commit incest in hopes of being mothers; and though we cannot think on that action without horror, yet there innocence did much lesson the guilt of it.