THE OLIVE LEAF. 



pictures the labour and the groaning, and travailing 

 together in pain of the earth, through which all its 

 fair births and bright promises of abundance are pro- 

 duced, it has also been universally regarded as an 

 emblem of peace ; and when the dove was divinely 

 guided to come with it in its bill to Noah when the 

 waters were subsiding, God wished it to be understood 

 as a token of peace and goodwill on earth. 



What the olive leaf began in Noah's case, was 

 consummated under the olive trees of Gethsemane. 

 He who destroyed the antediluvian sinners by the 

 flood, endured the contradiction of greater and more 

 aggravated sinners against Himself. He who sent the 

 flood as a punishment of sin, now suffered it Him- 

 self in a more terrible form as an atonement for sin. 

 The olive leaf of Noah's dove showed that God's 

 strange work was done, and that He had returned 

 to the essential element of His nature, and love shone 

 forth again. The olive leaves of Gethsemane that 

 thrilled with the fear of the great agony that took 

 place beneath them, tell us that God so loved the 

 world that He gave His only begotten Son, that who- 

 soever believeth in Him should not perish but have 

 everlasting life. What sweeter message, what dearer 

 hope could come to us in our sins and sorrows than this ! 



We read in classic authors that men used to study 

 the flight of birds across the sky, and draw good or 

 bad omens from the manner of their flight ; hence one 

 of our English words, auspicious, means literally, be- 

 holding the favourable flight of a bird. And another 



