THE OLIVE LEAF. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE OLIVE LEAR 



" And lo ! in her mouth an olive leaf pluckt off." GENESIS viii. n. 



OWING to the wickedness of man, God brought 

 back the earth to its primeval condition, when 

 it was without form and void. The changes of the 

 climates and zones, the order of the seasons, the 

 varieties of the landscape, were all obliterated by the 

 dreary uniformity of the flood. When the flood sub- 

 sided, the original work of creation was, therefore, 

 representatively, enacted over again in the growth of 

 plants upon the new soil, in the descent of the 

 animals from the ark, in the appearance of the rain- 

 bow in the clouds, and in the establishment of the 

 great world covenant, that seed-time and harvest, cold 

 and heat, summer and winter, day and night, should 

 never cease. At the first creation, the Spirit of God 

 brooded over the face of the waters, like a dove with 

 expanded wings, preparing the world to be the abode 



