harsh crab, with the richest and choicest of our apples. The cultivated olive-tree is of a moderate height, its trunk knotty, its bark smooth and ashcoloured: the wood is solid and yellowish; the leaves are oblong, almost like those of the willow, of a green colour, dark on the upper side, and white beneath. In the month of June it puts forth white flowers, that grow in bunches; each flower is of one piece, widening upwards, and dividing into four parts: the fruit is oblong and plump, not so large as a walnut; it is first green, then pale, and, when quite ripe, black. In the flesh of the fruit is enclosed a hard stone, full of an oblong seed. The fruit, when gathered, is laid in heaps to ferment; after which, on being pressed, it yields excellent oil.

Olive-trees of the most excellent kinds abound in Judea; there are many fine vales planted with those trees, and a mount to which they have given name, Mount Olivet, or the mount of Olives. Much of the wealth of Canaan consisted in this production; and it is given as one of its high characteristics, that it is a land of oil-olives, Deut. viii. 8. The sweet fresh oil was commonly used as an article of food, much in the manner of butter among us, 1 Kings xvii. 12. 2 Kings iv. 1-7. In those hot climates, too, it is found exceedingly refreshing to anoint the body with oil; which was accordingly commonly practised, and reckoned an almost indispensable luxury: hence the devout psalmist, gratefully enumerating the wise and beneficent works of the great Creator, includes among

them, Psalm civ. 15. "wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart;" a connexion which plainly shews in how high estimation the article was held. To anoint the head with oil (generally perfumed with a mixture of some spice, or other aromatic production,) was considered an expression of cheerfulness, prosperity, and triumph: Eccles. ix. 8. Psalm xxiii. 5. xcii. 10. Prov. xxvii. 9.; to have it so anointed by an equal or a superior, one of the greatest marks of honour that could be conferred, Luke vii. 46; and to abstain from such anointing, was uniformly regarded as an expression of grief and destitution, Matt. vi. 17. 2 Sam. xii. 16, 20.

Many beautiful allusions are made both to the olive-tree and its fruit; a few of the principal shall be enumerated. The greenness of the olive-tree is sometimes referred to in such a way, as would lead one, at first view, to expect that it should excel most other trees in the beauty of its verdure: this, however, is by no means the case; these expressions therefore probably allude to some other property, as freshness, vigour, prosperity, a flourishing state, a fragrant smell: hence, when the word green is applied to a person, we do not suppose that either his person or his clothing is green, but that he is in a flourishing state, similar to that which a vegetable discovers by its freshness and greenness. In such a sense, David, having described the short-lived prosperity of the wicked, which would soon wither and disappear,

adds, concerning himself, "but I am like a green. olive-tree in the house of my God. I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever." Ps. lii. 8. He felt confident that his sap was derived from a plentiful perennial root: all things earthly might fail, but the mercy of his God could never fail; and while his confidence rested on that, he felt assured that he should flourish like a vigorous young olive-tree. In other parts of Scripture, the wide and vigorous spread of its branches, rather than its colour, is made emblematical of growing or returning prosperity; thus Hos. xiv. 6. "His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree." The wood of the olive-tree was used in the building of the temple, in some of its most decorative parts, 1 Kings vi. 23, 33. and is still esteemed valuable as a fancy wood in the East.

The olives were sometimes beaten off the trees, and at other times shaken down, but it should rather appear that the former was the method employed by the proprietor for gathering the main crop, and that the latter was the manner in which the poor collected the few berries that were left, and which by the law they were permitted to take, Deut. xxiv. 20. The scanty gleanings thus left are often made an emblem of the small remnant of God's people, preserved by Him in times of general defection, Isa. xvii. 6. xxiv. 13. The olive branch has from the earliest ages been.considered a symbol of peace, reconciliation, and returning, prosperity; this may have originated two ways: