6 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



agency of the leaf has been slowly recovering combus- 

 tible materials from the wrecks of the first conflagration 

 that should enter anew into the great vortex of life and 

 use and beauty. The quiet sunbeams, working by 

 means of the most delicate of all structures, the cellu- 

 lar tissue of the green leaf, and by a process the most 

 subtle and wonderful in the whole range of chemistry, 

 have partly undone the work of the fire ; and whatever 

 now exists on the earth unburnt wood, coal, animal 

 and vegetable tissue, the wondrous body of man him- 

 self we owe to that simple agent, the green leaf. 

 There is a mighty conflagration still going on con- 

 tinually all over the earth, not with the roar and fury 

 of a great fire consuming an extensive building, in 

 which the elements rush into combination with an 

 appalling force which no human power can resist ; 

 but unseen, unheard, unknown to us, except when in 

 the end we see the dreary results, reducing all things 

 to decay, corruption, dust and ashes, burning every- 

 thing that can be burnt, and converting the earth into 

 a uniform lifeless desert. But there is a mightier force 

 ceaselessly at work undoing all the destruction, giving 

 beauty for ashes, and the rich variety of life for the 

 dreary uniformity of death ; working not amid the con- 

 vulsions of nature and the crash of the elements, but 

 quietly, unseen, unknown, except when in the end we 

 see the results of its beneficent labours ; and that force 

 is the green leaf. Methinks the little leaf is the most 

 wonderful thing in nature. I am not surprised that 

 God should have chosen it in the burning bush as 



