several years it begins to grow berries about the size of a wild plum, or a small grape. These berries contain olive oil. When the tree is about fifteen years old it produces immense quantities of fruit, and continues to bear till it is nearly a hundred years old. It is so prodigal about its fruit-bearing that it scatters on the ground a very great deal more than it ripens.

Olive-trees are planted in fields or gardens, a great number together, and these enclosures are called olive-yards. Sometimes these yards are owned by one person, and sometimes many different persons share the trees among them.

The fruit is gathered and pressed to squeeze out the oil. This oil is used for food and cooking just as we use butter. The dregs of the oil are made into soap. No part of the fruit is wasted. The olive-trees are so valuable that the man who owns a large number of them will gain enough from the fruit to keep him as long as he lives.

We are to be useful as well as beautiful, and if we are kind and true to those about us we shall be admired and loved. 'Handsome is that handsome does."

God has put us into this busy world where we may always find something to do if we will. We never need be idle or empty-handed. And those people are the happiest and safest who are the busiest. A carpenter came into school one day to work. He put down his bag of tools where a little girl could reach them. She took the plane and the chisel in her hand and wondered how it was they were all so bright. She thought the man must spend some time every day in cleaning them. The man smiled when she asked him what kind of polish he used to keep them bright. What do you think was the reason the man's tools were never rusty? He was always using them. That is the secret I want you to learn. Keep your tools bright by using them. Employ every talent you have in God's service, and you will never be at a loss for tools. The more you do for the Lord Jesus Christ, the better able you will be to do more.

Work hard. Remember you are not sent into the world to be treated like pictures-hung up and looked at. You are sent to be useful. Fling

yourselves into the best work you can find. Try to make all about you better. Aim at leaving the world better than you found it. Have this useful beauty. When I was a little boy I had a Sunday-school teacher who was very kind to me. He thought a great deal about us, and prayed for us. If we were sick he visited us, and took a great interest in our welfare. Sometimes he would invite every boy in his class to meet him at his house during the week, and there he would give us an extra lesson. He was so patient, and kind, and loving to us that every one of us loved him. We would have done anything to please him. We talked about him at home, and we were always pleased to meet him. He was happy in our company, and we were happy with him. But time separated us. We grew to be men, and wandered from place to place, but we never forgot him. He is now a rich man and has prospered in business. But since he became rich he has left the Sundayschool, and does very little work for God, who has done so much for him. People treat him with very great respect, and touch their hats when they meet him. I wonder if he has forgotten the humble, happy meetings we used to have with him. I wonder if he has forgotten putting his hand on my burning brow when I had the fever, and whispering words of comfort to my sorrowing friends. I wonder if he is as happy now, with all his wealth, and doing little for God, as he was when he was poor and served God with all his heart. What do you think about God's service? Is it better than the service of self or sin? Try it. You will find more peace of conscience and true happiness in the service of God than in all the world beside.

And then how pleasant it is to be loved! Who does not like to be met with a smile and a kindly welcome? We all want to be loved. Then we must all try to do all the good we can to everybody about us. We must be walking, living, active comforters and friends. We must go about among our neighbours with a smile on our faces and cheerfulness in our mouths. We must let people feel that we love them if we want to be loved. Money cannot keep love. Love cannot be bought, it must be exchanged for love. In this way you may be beautiful and useful. You may go through life cheering and blessing everybody, and being blessed and loved in return.

I have shown you that moral beauty is not ours by nature, it is the gift of God. He will give it to each of you if you ask Him. Pray every day the Psalmist's prayer, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

I have shown you that trials will not spoil moral beauty, but increase it, and I have shown you that if you get this beauty it will be a permanent thing, and it will make you useful. You will not only be beautiful yourself, but you will try to make everybody about you more beautiful.

Now there are one or two reasons why I want you to be beautiful. And the first reason is:

I. The world needs you. It is deformed by sin, and needs your example and effort to make it better. Perhaps you wonder what you can do to make men and women better, and the world more beautiful. Well, you can do something. You can set a good example.

In a very dirty house, in a very dirty court, in one of the large towns of Lancashire, there lived a boy who worked half a day at the mill, and went the other half day to school. He was very badly clothed, and gave his teacher a great deal of trouble by his dirty, disorderly habits. Very few. of the boys in school took much notice of him. They seemed to think themselves too respectable for Jim's company. He had only one suit of clothes, and he wore it Sundays and week-days alike.

Among the boys in his class was one who took a fancy to Jim, for beneath the dirt there was sterling honesty and a desire to improve. This friend of his said to him one day, "Jim, if you will come to our house on Saturday afternoon when you have done your work, I will find you some blacking to clean your clogs with, and my mother will mend your jacket and give you a necktie, so that you can go with me to the Sundayschool."

Jim accepted the kind offer, and went with his friend to the Sundayschool. He continued that habit, in spite of his poor clothes and clogs, till he was better off, and able to clothe himself more respectably.

But the good that friend of his did in taking Jim to clean his clogs will.

never be known till that day when the secrets of the world are revealed. Jim went home that Saturday night with a pair of clean clogs and a clean face, two articles he had not had for a long time. Sunday morning found him cleaning and brushing his clothes to make them as respectable as his clogs and his face. He spent that day in cleanliness, and it was such a wonderful thing that all the family repeatedly expressed surprise. The next Sunday one or two of his brothers and sisters were tidier and cleaner than usual. The following Sunday his influence and example had influenced every member of the family. For the first time for months they actually washed themselves before dinner-time. Before long the continued good example Jim set them caused them to discover that the house was dirty, and it got a whitewashing and cleaning. Their neighbours were shamed into an effort to imitate them, and where the example of Jim's clean clogs ended no one can tell.

You see the power of example. A pair of clean clogs led to a clean skin and clean clothes, and a clean house, and clean neighbours, and, perhaps, to a clean heart, for I believe Jim is now a pious young man.

It was a little thing to offer blacking enough to clean a pair of clogs, but that little thing was blessed by God to the improvement of several families.

Set a good example. Use your influence. Try to make the world better. It needs you.

The second reason why I want you to be beautiful is :

2. The Church needs you. Good men and women who are members of the Church of Christ have done a great deal for you. Your Sunday-school teachers, your ministers, and your day-school teachers have taught you, and advised you, and helped you. You can never repay them for what they have done, but you can imitate their example. You can give your example and help to all who need them.

The members of Christ's Church taught and helped us when we were young, and they are gone to heaven. We are working now for your good,

and soon our work will be done, and we shall go to heaven. You must take

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