If you are near any school that has even a small assortment of physical apparatus, the instrument for the following illustration may be obtained ready made. Otherwise, paint a circular disk of cardboard, one-third blue, one-third red, and one-third yellow. Fasten this to a block of wood in such a way that it can be revolved rapidly.
Cover all but the blue, and ask the children what it means to have the blues. What gives them the blues? Yes, there are bad things in life, cross words, and hard lessons, and tasks to do, and rainy days, and headaches. And when we look at those things alone, life looks all blue, just like this piece of cardboard.
But look! Here is something else that ought to be in every life, to drive the blues out. You see, one-third of the disk is bright red. What is the color of your blood? Red. So we’ll let this beautiful scarlet stand for your own hearty work, that you do with your hands and your feet and your brains. Work is a great thing to drive out the blues.
But that isn’t all. I turn the disk, and you see that the last third of it is yellow. What does that stand for? It stands for the beautiful, golden sunshine of God’s love. Set that into your life, and it will drive out the blues better than anything else in the world,—better even than work, fine as that is.
And now I suppose you want to see how all this is going to work, and you want me to prove to you that, if you mix with your blue feelings a lot of scarlet work and of golden love, the blue will all go away. I will mix all these colors by turning them rapidly, and I want you to watch. The disk is white now, you see, and it has the blues no longer.