OUR lesson this morning is on the olive-tree. You have never seen one in England. They grow in Syria, Palestine, and other hot countries.

Our text takes the olive-tree as an emblem of moral beauty, and before we study the tree we must agree about the nature of beauty. When is a thing beautiful?

We say a thing is beautiful if it pleases the eye, or the ear, or the taste. But all these senses require to be cultivated and educated to understand the beautiful.

I have heard the organist play the sweetest tunes and the most charming music. It pleased your ear. You said, "It is beautiful!" Then I have seen a child put its hands on the keys and make the most horrid discord. You put your fingers in your ears to shut out the sound. The melody was pleasing because it was true. The discord was unpleasant because it was false. So we conclude that the beautiful is true, and the true is beautiful.

I have seen a picture of the miraculous draught of fishes. The Saviour is represented as sitting at one end of the boat, and His disciples are piling the fishes in heaps at His feet. The figures were all well drawn, but the boat was so small that one man would be heavy enough to sink it. The

greatest miracle to my mind is not where the fishes came from, but how the boat is kept from sinking. The painter was not true to nature in the drawing of that boat, and however well finished it might be, it could not be beautiful because it is not true.

You see from these illustrations that "the beautiful is the true."

We have, then, to talk about moral beauty-loveliness of character. We need not expect fine clothes, or pretty faces, or nice features to make us beautiful. The true beauty is a clean heart, a right spirit, a holy life. If we want moral beauty, we must be true-true to ourselves, true to our neighbours, true to God. We must love the truth, and speak the truth, and act the truth, and live the truth, if we would be beautiful.

The first thing I want you to remember about moral beauty is:

I.—It is not a natural beauty.

The olive-tree in its wild state has no beauty about it. It bears very few berries, and they are so small and dry that they are useless. It cumbers the ground, and neither bears fruit itself nor makes room for other trees. It is cut to pieces, or dug up by the roots and burned when the farmer wishes to cultivate his land.

If the olive-tree is to be either beautiful or useful, it must be cut from the wild olive and planted in good soil, cultivated and cared for; or it must be grafted into a good olive-tree. By nature it has no beauty. All its beauty is acquired by grafting, and wise pruning, and careful attention.

In this respect it is an emblem of moral beauty. By nature we are not beautiful. We have lost the Divine image in which our first parents were created, and we are deformed and made ugly by sin. Even little children are not beautiful by nature.

A little boy came to school one day for the first time. He was very amiable and good for a while, because I told him to do things that please d him. At length I told him to do something that displeased him. He put on a very ugly look, shrugged his shoulders, and did not do as I told

him. I said no more to him till school was over. He had disobeyed me, and thought I had forgotten all about it. The school closed, and he was marching out with the rest when I stopped him and said, "You did not obey me when I spoke to you. Sit down there and do it now." He began to cry and make a great noise, but I left him to think about it. Presently a friend of his who knew me better than he did went to him and said, "The master will make you do it if you stay all night." When he saw there was no escape for him, he dried up his tears and finished his work.

Disobedience is a very ugly sin. It spoils the fairest child, and yet we are all disobedient by nature. We disobey our parents, our teachers, our friends, and even God Himself. There are many more sins to make us ugly. Sometimes we are passionate, and our wickedness flashes from our eyes and leaps from our tongues. Sometimes we are selfish, and thrust every one from us who has a claim on our love and sympathy. Sometimes we are rude and unkind to our neighbours, and thoughtless and heedless of God's claims.

All these sins prevent us from being beautiful. We are false to ourselves, to our neighbours, and to God,

Just

as the olive-tree becomes Some of you know what

How are we to become beautiful? beautiful. We must be grafted into Christ. grafting fruit-trees means. You cut a branch from one tree and cut the end of it in the shape of a wedge to fit another cutting in the tree to which you join it. All the sap and life of the tree pass into the new branch, and it becomes part of the tree-it partakes of its nature. When we become God's children and are converted, we are joined to Christ, and partake of His spirit. We lose our sinful habits. We throw off the evil of our natural state, and we become obedient and true to God. The Lord Jesus Christ can make us holy. He can give us a new heart and a right spirit. He will make us true and honest, and upright, and good. And then our playmates will love us. Our parents and friends will love us. We shall attract all about us as flowers attract the bees, and as honey-pots attract the flies. People