The green flag is waving from the foot of the Cross. All is clear from that point to go. Go straight ahead. Ride over obstacles in the road. Keep going, and you will find God with your pardon all prepared for you and ready for your taking. He will also dispatch a guard of angels to go with you who will bear the green flag. They know the way of God; follow them and the green flag. At last, my dear reader, when the sunset comes and the day of mortal life is ending, and you are looking out over the sea of eternity, may you see the green flag flying there. Then you will know "All is clear--go ahead." It may give a good setting to this lesson if you should ask a boy or girl to come to the platform, and hold the flags as you present them one by one. Hold a grand review of the four flags and ask questions as to their meaning. This will help you to plant these flags in the hall of memory of old and young. =21 THE DEVIL'S GOAT OBJECTS: A Number of Wooden Blocks and a Piece of Stove Coal= It is good and proper to have real friends; friends that play straight and stick to the end. Evil companions are Satan's road-agents to hold us up, and rob us of the best we have. It is easy to sin with the crowd. Sin masses men together until they think they are strong and often declare themselves right because "They all do it." This is a hard lesson to learn, and few there are who learn it early in life. A daughter asked her father's permission one day to visit a gay young friend of the world. Her father said, "I cannot allow it." Then she replied, "Then you must think me uncommonly weak." The father picked up a piece of coal [you do likewise] from the hearth and handed it to his daughter, but she hesitated to accept it. "Take it, my child," said he, "it will not burn you." The daughter obeyed, and the milky whiteness of her hand had instantly gone. The father said, "We must be careful how we handle coal, if it doesn't burn it may blacken." No boy or girl can spend an hour with an evil companion and be one with them without coming away with a stain inside. If we continue with them, it is a direct route, fast express line, to fall with them. To illustrate this fact, set up the blocks endwise in a straight line a short distance apart. Knock down the first block, and all the others will fall with it. Now raise the last block, and see if they will all rise with it. But no, if once down they must all be raised one by one. How easy it is to fall with a crowd, but when we want to return we must come back one by one. Don't walk in the sinner's way or stand in the way of the transgressor, for together they will all fall into the pit. Be on your guard. Don't handle the black coal of evil companionship. If it does not burn, it will soil.