I 2 8 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



to a glorious issue. There the true business of life is 

 transacted. We need the things of the world, the sense 

 of human fellowship in our daily life, that through them 

 we may know God and ourselves in the light of God. 

 But we need higher things than these, and a grander 

 association. 



2. The swallow, aerial as is its flight, transient as 

 is its stay, graceful and ethereal as is its form, never- 

 theless builds its nest of the common clay of the 

 ground ; but compensates for the seeming degradation 

 by attaching that nest to the home of man and the very 

 altar of God. And so God has made our bodies of the 

 dust of the earth, and closely connected our life with it. 

 We must make our nest of clay. But while by our 

 bodies we belong to one set of circumstances, we 

 belong by our souls to another and higher. Parts of 

 a passing material world, so far as our corporeal nature 

 is concerned, we have a personality that has nothing in 

 common with the dust of the earth, with its decay and 

 death. We are immortal guests dwelling within a 

 transient house of clay that must one day crumble 

 and fall and be resolved into the elements out of 

 which it was built. And we, too, must build our 

 clay-nest against the house of God, near the very altar 

 of heaven, if its vanity and insignificance are to be 

 redeemed, if we are to learn most richly the meaning 

 of our discipline, and find strength to endure unto 

 the end, and lay up provision in a storehouse which 

 death cannot rifle. 



The swallow, as we have seen, has changed its 



