OBJECTS: A Collection of Colored Eggs= The Indian, years before he was told by the white missionary that when a man dies he shall live again, believed in the life beyond. When the chieftain was buried they placed his weapons of stone and bronze in the grave with his body, in order that he might pursue his life in the Happy Hunting-grounds. He lived on and was a hunter still. Our tombstones were first placed on our graves that the departed spirit, if he should return, might find his body and learn also that he had not been forgotten. The egg was used to tell the story in the earliest ages. In fact, the egg has found a place in the earliest traditions. A fable tells us the earth was hatched from a monstrous golden goose egg. Tradition tells us how the egg broke in two, and one-half became the firmament, and the other, half, the earth. This is the way the earliest people explained the making of this old world. To their minds the golden egg seemed to be the prison from which this world was released. Here exhibit a gilded egg. This is the strangest story ever told in which the egg played so important a part, containing the great world which was released as a living chick from the dead egg. Here in remote history the egg taught that life sprang from the egg prison. The practise of giving eggs to friends is a very old one. It commenced way back with the Persians. It was also a custom among the Egyptians, Jews, and Hindus. When it was first used among Christians it symbolized the resurrection, or life from the tomb. It was always colored red to remind the people of the blood of Christ shed for sinners. The red egg stood for the blood of Calvary, and the grave in Joseph's Garden. This egg contains a germ of life; under proper conditions the life of the chicken will break the shell and come forth. At this point hold up the red-colored egg. The people of long ago often placed eggs on the graves of their friends which told forth the fact that they believed in immortality. They just _thought_ so. Now we know so, for Jesus said, "I shall be raised the third day." That is the reason that on Easter Day the people rejoice because Christ came up from the grave, and so shall we. This the ancients only thought, but now we know it as a fact. That makes Easter such a glad day. We call the place where we bury the dead "cemeteries," which means "sleeping-places." It is a beautiful thought to think of the little graves as little cradles where rest the bodies of little children, but only our bodies sleep there, for the soul has gone to the God who made it. So the egg at Eastertime is a symbol of immortality, and we should all be glad we have seen the red egg which stands for the resurrection of Christ because he has told us the story of heaven and how to get there. The origin of the old English word "heaven" is a curious one. It means "to cast up"': so the sky is a place "cast up" or "heaved up" or "heaven" as we speak of it today.