=35 THE GOSPEL BY RIBBONS OBJECTS: A Number of Colored Ribbons= In this chapter the story of salvation will be told by different colored ribbons. This will be attractive to the eye as the bright colors appear, and the colors will not only teach the truth of the lesson but will fasten the truth in the mind for years to come. Color makes a deep impression on the mind. It is like a foot-print in the clay. It comes to stay as time hardens the mental clay. Some years ago I was asked by an old friend to be a witness to the transfer of a large tract of land into his possession. The document was drawn up in full legal form, and deposited by the housewife in a secure and secret place. About a year afterward my friend informed me that the document could not be found. The wife had forgotten where she had placed it, and believed it to be lost. I was asked if I could remember anything about it. At first my mind seemed to be a blank, and then I remembered all about it, and this was the how of it. On the day of the transfer I remembered the wife took the document and tied around it a piece of red ribbon. I remembered she put it in a small closet back behind the old-fashioned fireplace. In closing the door a portion of the red ribbon was left exposed on the outside. I noticed that _red_ ribbon in that position which I thought it might direct attention to the document and thus expose it to a thief and so endanger its safety. I remembered the wife arose and opened the door, put the ribbon inside, and I let the matter pass from my mind, and it would have passed out of my mind forever, had it not been that that _red ribbon_ had fastened itself down in my memory. The red ribbon located the lost document. A color is a tack which holds down the truth in the human mind. May the colors of the lesson have the same ministry. Secure a number of ribbons of the colors about to be mentioned. They can be about one inch wide and each one six inches long. Sew them together at the ends. Place them in a box, and draw out six inches at a time in the following order. First produce the _white_, holding it in the hand as if considering it, and say: "Thus was man created--in white. He was placed in the White Garden where all was purity and spotless. But the Tempter entered this White Garden and tempted the white soul to sin, and so man sinned and the _black_ of sin took the place of the _white_ of righteousness." As thus you speak you draw out from the box the black ribbon; as you hold this in your hand, you remark that the black is the sign of death, for "the wages of sin is death."