cently had the amplest testimony, in the special liberality of the saints in the Netherlands, who, though strangers to us, were yet dear brethren, and tenderly sympathised with our affections and sorrows. For when the small remnant of us that survived the sword were beset with every extremity, and in danger of perishing in a few days by famine, they plentifully relieved us in the very crisis. Not only did they strengthen our hearts, by suitable encouragements and exhortations, to walk humbly with God, and wait for deliverance on Him, who hides his face from the house of Jacob only for a season, but also refreshed us largely by a rich supply of victuals, and other things necessary for relief and comfort in our present straits. Such munificence we humbly beseech the Lord to repay sevenfold into their bosom; and you we earnestly and repeatedly entreat to join with us in grateful acknowledgment to the Netherland Churches for so much kindThus far they. If we were awanting, indeed, in this duty, we would offend against ourselves as well as them.

ness."

We acknowledge, then, such singular beneficence on the part of the High and Mighty, and other the Estates of Holland, Zealand, and the rest of the Netherlands, through whose non-connivance and permission simply, which would even have been held no common kindness, but through whose direct influence, both in prescribing the way and means, and setting the example, the contributions were made in the Churches, in aid of our Irish brethren, and speedily conveyed to them. We acknowledge so much prompt affection and liberality on the part of the faithful in the Netherland Church. We acknowledge such kindness as conferred, not more upon our brethren, than upon ourselves in their person. And you, reverend brethren, we earnestly entreat that, as we shall always be forward with every expression of a thankful heart, so, in our name, you would return our grateful acknowledgments to the High and Mighty Estates; and that to the Christian people committed to your care, you would announce, both publicly in their assemblies, and privately to individuals, as you have occasion, how honourably we esteem them, and how high we hold their eminent benevolence and charity, whereby they have refreshed our bowels in the consolation of the Irish Churches. As to your part and influence, dear brethren, with what pious zeal and labour, with what assiduous diligence you both fostered the seed of so much charity, and at length reaped the mature harvest, we gladly acknowledge, and, besides, the matter speaks for itself, and the rich fruit abundantly testifies. Above all, however, which is our chief duty, we, along with the Irish Churches, praise and magnify the bountiful Author and bestower of so great grace, and pray that upon you all, upon the Churches committed to you by the Lord, and upon the High Estates of the Netherlands, he would richly shed abroad his Spirit. Hitherto, in the defence of your republic against a most powerful enemy, and in its daily enlargement amid such a pressure of war, as well as in the maintenance in your Churches, and in the wider spread of the pure light and truth of the Gospel, against the gates of hell, the boundless power of God, who watches over you, his manifold wisdom, and marvellous loving-kindness, have been magnified throughout the world. In like manner, may the same source of goodness continue, in future, to load you with every blessing; so that, however the enemies of your religion and liberty may rage, your allied republic may be daily more eminent in the glory of wisdom and highest endowments, as well as in arms and triumphs; your Church may shine forth conspicuous in the purity of its worship, and the brightness of heavenly truth; and it may go well with your prudent | and salutary counsels, whereby you make it manifest, that you take the shortest and the surest path to public

prosperity, and do not consult your own interest exclu sively, but, anxious about neighbouring Churches also, are eager, by active endeavours, and counsel, and supplies, to comfort and relieve them all; withal vigilantly warning them, as if from some watch-tower, of impend ing danger, and arming them, in order to prevent their ruin, to speedy precautions against the wiles and machinations of the enemy.

In your letter from Zealand of last year, you announced, as if by a warning signal, to all the Reformed Churches, that, as those impostors (the Jesuits) who have shame. lessly belied the name of Jesus, and the other retainers of Antichrist, the more securely to assail the people fascinated with Popish errors, and extirpate utterly the purer Churches of Christ, have, in the closest conspiracy, formed themselves into a society for compassing their impious ends, so the Reformed Churches should unite, without delay, in common counsels, and join, heart and hand, in hurling back upon their enemies' heads, the destruction aimed at them all; and if they fail to do so, you add, they will, with posterity be destitute of excuse for such ignoble supineness. This counsel we then acknowledged as no less wise and faithful than auspicious and salutary, and now also approve of in its results.

First of all, however, for the attainment of this, it seems requisite for us all, to fly, without delay, to our most merciful God, who, after enduring with longsuffering for many years, the ill-informed manners of the Reformed Churches, first threatened the rod, then brandished the sword, and at length has now carried it, for a long time, over many a land ruddy and reeking in the blood of its sons. Against ourselves, too, who had been left, He now, at last, directs it, unless we speedily repent, and resolve, with the people of God under Nehemiah, Josiah, and other pious rulers, to make a solemn covenant, to purify His house more fully, to value more the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to observe more religiously God's worship and ordinances, to sanctify his Sabbath, from which we have too much turned away our eyes, and more seriously to conform our manners to the standard of godliness. By this covenant being directed to God by the strongest obligations, we shall unite more closely against our enemies, that God may turn away his anger, now smoking and impending over our heads, which our great and manifold sins have provoked and kindled against us.

For ourselves we have not such regard; neither from the renewal of our covenant and from our prayers, have we yielded such valuable fruit, that we would wish to set before you our example; what we have experienced, however, of the grace of God towards us, what gratitude towards God and his glory demand from us, we dare not conceal. Whatever were our ill deserts in the sight of God and men, certainly from the day we meditated the formation of a solemn covenant with God and among ourselves, we have been brought back from the gates of hell; and all our affairs, necessarily cast upon our God, began to wear a brighter aspect, and have proceeded hitherto with a more prosperous issue. But if, to your wisdom it should seem meet to deliberate upon entering into the solemn fellowship of such a covenant, (and it may be of advantage to your interest, and to the purification and establishment of religion in Britain, according to the recently formed covenant) if you should resolve upon it, with the advice of those interested therein, and treat with the other Reformed Churches, according to the measure of your influence with them all, to embark on the same procedure, the issue would not be doubtful. For, through the grace of Jesus Christ, our most merciful Lord and God, unto his heritage, not only would the Reformed Churches be united in a closer bond of alliance, and invigorated to break the enemy's assaults and wiles, which will be the surest refuge from the imminent perils your letter men

tioned, but also the scattered stones of the house of God throughout Germany will be collected anew from the rubbish and ashes, and the glorious temple of our Lord restored; while in those Churches the professors of a purer faith, returning by repentance unto Him who has chastised them, and united unto the Lord with us in a covenant not to wax old in the circle of ages, will, at length, be relieved from the calamities, under the pressure of which they have groaned so many years. If this day, so much desired and longed for, shall ever dawn in the grace of God, measures may be concerted, through means of letters and commissions, for establishing a common cause and enterprise among the Reformed Churches, whereby their enemies may be restrained, and heresies crushed, schisms may be repaired, and peace with God and among the Churches maintained unbroken, and God's glorious work promoted of spreading the Gospel through the world, and abolishing the reign of Antichrist. This object, so much to be desired and hoped for, we commit, as good seed in a fertile soil, to your pious and prudent meditations.

THE OLIVE.

BY THE REV. DAVID MITCHELL.

MANY varieties of the olive have been described by naturalists. Tournefort mentions eighteen, but the great distinction lies between the wild and the cultivated; the former is commonly neglected, dwarfish, and useless; the latter highly esteemed, eagerly cultivated, and valuable. The disparity betwixt the fruit of the two is perhaps as great as the difference between the sour crab and the choice apple, or the sloe on the thorn and the luxuriant plum by the garden-wall. The olive is an evergreen, and rarely exceeds thirty feet in height; "its trunk is knotty, its bark is smooth and of an ash colour; its wood is solid and yellowish, its leaves are oblong, of a dark green colour" above and whitish beneath. In the month of June it puts forth its blossoms, which are small, white, delicate, and beautiful. Slenderly attached to the tree, they fall off in showers by the gentle breeze. "The wicked man shall shake his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive." Job xv. 33. The fruit which succeeds the blossom is of an oval form, first green in colour, then pale, and ultimately black. This tree seems to have been originally found in Asia, and thence to have been transplanted into the southern dominions of Europe, where it has been highly productive for many centuries. It is cultivated with great advantage in several islands of the Mediterranean Sea, and is viewed as an important source of wealth. In the newly-formed kingdom of Greece it flourishes, and contributes not a little to the riches of the infant state. It grows readily in our own land, especially in the south of Britain, where it brings forth fruit by the wall when protected during frost. The olive, in former times, constituted a very considerable proportion of the wealth of Canaan. When the Hebrews were on their journey to the expected inheritance, God promised them "a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil-olive, and honey." Olive trees still abound in countries of the East, especially in Syria and Palestine. They spring up with their original freshness in the valleys of the Holy Land. They form groves around Ashdod, and skirt the path that leads from thence to Gaza. They crest the barren mountains of Judea,

where no other object of vegetation attracts the eye. They shoot forth by Lebanon, they enrich the land of ancient Nephthalim, and they shade the brow of Olivet. The traveller may take his station on this mount of renown, look west over Kidron, and see Jerusalem denuded of her glory, sitting like a dejected widow in the midst of the nations, with a few scattered habitations partially covering her wonted site. The palaces of the kings no longer bestud Zion. On Moriah the golden turrets of the temple have ceased to shine; they are no more the boast of the Jew, nor the admiration of the Gentile. Zion has yielded to the ploughshare; the high places of Jacob have been trodden down; and the votaries of superstition have erected a shrine to the false prophet on the very spot over which the pillar of cloud rested. But the olives continue to mantle the sides of the opposite hill; there they spring forth as a spontaneous production. At the bottom of the mount, where Jesus sorrowed, they spread out their verdant shades. In the gardens of Gethsemane they extend their branches; their leaves quiver in the breeze over the place where the Saviour trembled. Dr Clarke records, “as a curious and interesting fact, that during a period of little more than two thousand years, Hebrews, Assyrians, Romans, Moslems, and Christians, have been successively in possession of the rocky mountains of Palestine; yet the olive vindicates its paternal soil, and is found at this day upon the same spot which was called by the Hebrew writers Mount Olivet and the Mount of Olives eleven centuries before the Christian era."

These trees do not grow up in the same spontaneous manner in the south of Europe and in Africa as they do in Asia; they require great attention and diligent cultivation. It appears that Mehemet Ali, the viceroy of Egypt, with all his zeal to increase the resources of his dominions, has failed in a great measure to rear the olive. Some years ago his son, Ibrahim Pacha, distributed many thousands of olive plants gratuitously to the people, but owing to the indolent and sluggish habits of the Egyptians, scarcely one has survived. They are frequently propagated by truncheons, that is, by cutting the trunk of the tree, or some of the most substantial branches, into short pieces, and placing them in the ground, where they soon form separate roots, and send forth goodly stems. They are also. multiplied by grafts. Paul makes an allusion to this method of propagation in his Epistle to the Romans. When speaking of the necessity of humble confidence, and the sin of vain high-mindedness, he compares the workmanship of God in his visible Church to the proceedings of the keeper of an olive plantation; declaring that the Gentiles had no right to triumph over the Jews, and no reason to glory in themselves; that they were the produce of the wild olive, incapable of bearing fruit, vile, and worthless; that if God had taken the branches of the degenerate tree, the idolatrous heathen, and ingrafted them by faith upon the good stem, whereby they might partake of the sap and bring forth abundantly, an action opposed to the common constitution of things, how much more might we not expect that the Jews, who were rejected through unbelief, should again be united to their living head by a lively faith,

For if thou wert cut out of the olive-tree, which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive-tree; how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olivetree?" Rom. xi. 24.

The wood of the olive-tree was highly valued in Israel in the days of Solomon, and, under divine direction, was used in the temple in the most sacred places. "And for the entering of the oracle he made doors of olive-tree: the lintel and sideposts were a fifth part of the wall. The two doors also were of olive-tree; and he carved upon them carvings of cherubims, and palm

trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold, | and spread gold upon the cherubims, and upon the palm-trees. So also he made for the door posts of olive-tree, a fourth part of the wall." 1 Kings vi. 31-33.

This tree was formerly contemplated in Palestine as an emblem of prosperity and excellence. To people accustomed, as we are, to behold the rising shoots of the plain rapidly extending their verdant shade, and the lofty trees of the forest widely outstretching their branches, clothed with gorgeous foliage, the olive possesses little to excite the idea of grandeur; but to the eye of an oriental it becomes an apt similitude of beauty❘ and other delights. When the prophet Hosea foretells the return of the Israelites unto the Lord, and their productiveness on the day of their renewal, he compares them to the flourishing olive extending its boughs. Then the effects of divine love would bud and bring forth; then the graces of the Spirit would make Jacob appear as a tree pleasant to the sight, and producing fruit abundantly; then he would grow up as the green olive, delighting the eye with his comeliness, and shedding a salutary influence around: His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon." Hosea xiv. 6. From the period at which the dove returned to Noah into the ark with | an olive leaf in its mouth, as a token that God had been again pleased to smile upon the earth, the olive branch has been used by many nations as a symbol of peace and reconciliation. The tender boughs have been viewed as sacred by numerous tribes, and used only for particular purposes. They were highly valued by the ancient Greeks, and on memorable occasions were selected for ornament. They were brought forward in great profusion at the nuptial feast, and the various apartments of the dwelling of the bridegroom were adorned with them on the marriage-day. They formed wreaths to crown the successful competitors at the Olympic games; and the modern Grecians, anxious to emulate the feats of former times, have instituted similar pastimes, while the fortunate rivals are proud to receive the verdant chaplet from the hands of the amiable Otho, their youthful king.

At an early period the fruit of the olive was manufactured into oil by pounding it in a mortar; "And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil-olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always." Exod. xxvii. 20. From the writings of the Prophet Micah, it appears that oil was also prepared by treading on the olive with the feet, as men laboured in the wine-press; "Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil." Micah vi. 15. Means of a more efficient kind are now employed for this purpose. Chandler mentions that mills are erected in the vicinity of Athens, for extracting the juice from the product of the olive. The fruit is collected and thrown into store-houses in large quantities, in order to be bruised by a mill, which is sometimes nothing more than a large stone supported upon edge, with a long pole for an axle, which is moved round by a horse, making the stone describe a circle. A person is employed at the same time to place a quantity of fruit in this tract; after a few rounds some boiling water is poured in, and the movement is then continued until the fruit be formed into a kind of paste, which is put into a jar, carried to the olive press, wrought into a thinner consistency, bound up in regular portions in coarse pieces of cloth, and piled in the press, which is no sooner put in operation than the water and oil run down the piles of cloth into a wessel below; the latter being lighter than the former the oil floats upon the top, and is separated from the water by a very simple proThe oil is put into a large jar beside the press and there allowed to filter for a short time, then poured

cess.

into leathern bags with the hair inside, which are carried away to the dwelling of the owner, and emptied into large earthen jars, placed in the ground to the neck, where the oil remains until all the impurities be deposited. The wealth of several islands in the Mediterranean depends, in a great measure, upon the prosperity of the olive. The produce of the small island of Cortu in 1835, amounted to nearly an hundred thousand barrels of oil, and was valued at about two millions of dollars. The success of the olive crop materially affected the temporal condition of the Hebrews, so that a failure was reckoned a trying calamity. The Prophet Habakkuk, in pourtraying his resignation to the will of God, under the most perplexing vicissitudes, and under bereaving dispensations, places the blighting of the olive amongst the severest privations to which a man could be exposed; Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” Hab. iii. 17, 18.

Oil is much esteemed in the Levant and in Greece as an ingredient of cookery, entering almost into every dish. To the Hebrews we read of it being equally precious, greatly valued for its nutritive qualities, and highly prized for ornament. The Jew used it for his daily food, and also for the ornamenting of his body, "wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine." This commodity is often coupled with wine in Scripture, and on every occasion introduced as a fit concomitant to it; and it is remarkable that while we continue to entertain a fond partiality for the one, as a strengthening cordial, we cherish a strong prejudice against the use of the other at table. The fruit of the vine is reckoned the most delicious repast that nature can afford, whereas the juice of the olive is rejected as nauseous and loathsome. Perhaps this may arise, in some degree, from viewing it rather as the fat of an animal than a vegetable production. Competent judges assert that olive oil may be used with benefit to the constitution, especially along with vegetables, in preference to artificial sauces which are delicious to the taste but pernicious to health.

There was a costly perfume prepared for anointing the sacred orders of the priesthood under the ceremonial law, which was composed partly of the juice of the olive. This precious compound was made up of myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, cassia, and olive oil. Maimonides declares that "each of these four spices was pounded separately; then they were all mixed together, and a strong decoction of them made with water, which being strained from the ingredients, was boiled up with oil till the water was all evaporated." This ointment was used for sacred purposes and holy ends, for anointing the body as a sign of the adornment of the Spirit. The outward act of consecration was emblematical the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the believer, filling the heart with joy, clothing the soul with the garments of light, and causing men to dwell together in the bonds of love. This is like the precious ointment on the head, that runs down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments." The consecration of the priests and those in authority, by this precious perfume, was also typical of the sacred anointing of the Lord Jesus, when the Holy Ghost descended upon him above measure to prepare him for his mediatorial work. "Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad." Ps, xlv. 7, 8. And again, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me;