I2 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



glorious plan of grace. The kingdom of heaven, which 

 was first small as a grain of mustard seed, has become 

 a great tree filling the earth with its shadow, and satis- 

 fying mankind with its fruit; and from first to last it 

 is but the evolution of one great idea. And He has 

 assured us that the things of the new heavens and 

 the new earth will be the things of the old, only 

 purified, and ennobled, and removed for ever beyond 

 all risk of change and death. 



Of all the green leaves of the earth it was most fitting 

 that the olive leaf should have been selected as the first 

 product of the new restored world. The olive tree 

 spreads over a large area of the earth ; it combines in 

 itself the flora of the hills and the plains. It clothes 

 with shade and beauty arid slopes where no other 

 vegetation would grow. It extracts by a vegetable 

 miracle nourishment and fatness from the driest air 

 and the barest rock ; on it may be seen at the same 

 time opening and full-blown blossoms, and green and 

 perfectly ripe fruit. Each bough is laden with a wealth 

 of promise and fulfilment ; beauty for the eye and 

 bounty for the palate. No tree displays such a rich 

 profusion and succession of flowers and fruits. It is 

 the very picture of prosperity and abundance. Its 

 very gleanings are more plentiful than the whole 

 harvest of other trees. It strikingly illustrates, there- 

 fore, the overflowing goodness of the Lord to whom 

 belong the earth and the fulness thereof. While the 

 twisted and distorted passion of its trunk and branches, 

 like a vegetable Laocoon writhing in agony, strikingly 



