ye of the ribbon, and you do not see them. The ribbon, as it
were, drinks in all these colours, but it cannot drink in the green. And
reflecting the green of the spectrum, you see that ribbon green because
the ribbon is incapable of absorbing the green of the white light. Why
is this ribbon red? For the same reason. It can absorb the green which
the previous piece of ribbon could not absorb, but it cannot absorb the
red. The fact is, colour is not an inherent property of a body. If you
ask me why that ribbon is green, and why this ribbon is red, the real
answer is, that the red ribbon has absorbed every colour except the red,
and the green ribbon every colour except the green, not because they are
of themselves red and green but because they have the power of
reflecting those colours from their surfaces.

This then is the consummated work of our tinder-box. Our tinder-box set
fire to the match, and the match set fire to the candle, whilst the heat
and the light of the candle are the finished work of the candle that the
tinder-box lighted.

The clock warns me that I must bring to an end my story of a tinder-box.
To be sure, the tinder-box is a thing of the past, but I hope its story
has not been altogether without teaching. Let me assure you that the
failure, if failure there be, is not the fault of the story, but of the
story-teller. If some day, my young friends, you desire to be great
philosophers--and such desire is a high and holy ambition--be content in
the first instance to listen to the familiar stories told you by the
commonest of common things. There is nothing, depend upon it, too
little to learn from. In time you will rise to higher efforts of thought
and intellectual activity, but you will be primed for those efforts by
the grasp you have secured in your studies of every-day phenomena.

"Great things are made of little things,
And little things go lessening, till at last
Comes God behind them."

THE END.

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON & BUNGAY.

PUBLICATIONS
OF THE
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

NATURAL HISTORY RAMBLES.
_Fcap. 8vo., with numerous Woodcuts, Cloth boards, 2s. 6d. each._

* * * * *

IN SEARCH OF MINERALS.
By the late D. T. ANSTEAD, M.A., F.R.S.

LAKES AND RIVERS.