9 o THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP, 



conferred by a careless hand at a distance, which binds 

 us to our fellow-creatures, but the little loving services 

 of daily life which imply that the giver and receiver 

 meet in personal contact ; so it is not the great truths 

 of our salvation, nor the great bounties of God's natural 

 providence, which impress us with a sense of His near- 

 ness and fill our hearts with love to Him : but the 

 intimate details and familiar scenes of our Saviour's 

 sojourn on earth, and the little happinesses that God 

 confers upon us in the common by-paths of life. When 

 we study the wonderful arrangements in the seed-vessel 

 of the unheeded moss, whereby its safety is cared for, 

 and its humble ministry in the world is carried on, we 

 have a proof before our eyes how infinitely God can 

 condescend, and with what confidence we may cry, 

 "Abba, Father," and feel that all things under His 

 wise and loving care will work together for our good. 

 We hear the meek and lowly Jesus, who took the little 

 children in His arms and blessed them, saying to us 

 in regard to the little moss too, " Take heed that ye 

 despise not one of these little ones." For if he who 

 humbleth himself as a little child is greatest in the 

 kingdom of heaven, he who regardeth the little moss 

 will find that it has more than the wisdom of Solomon 

 to teach him. 



4. Mosses, as a rule, grow in very exposed situations 

 and amid the most primitive conditions. They come 

 into contact directly with the severe forces of the 

 inorganic world, having often no mediator between 

 them and the naked hardness of the rock and the rigid 



