THE ELK COLORS.

OLORS were once an evidence of tradition, the written language
of the people, the signs of the times. Light was before color
in creation.* The history of symboHc colors shows the unity
of their triple origin. Divine, Consecrated and Profane, and
classified in Europe the three states of Society—the Clergy, the
Nobles, the People. Under the Justinian Code at Rome, the
penalty of death was incurred by selling or being clothed in a
purple stuff. In China to-day, any one who wears or buys •
clothes with the prohibited designs of the Dragon or Phoenix
incurs three hundred stripes and three years' imprisonment.
Symbolism explains this severity of laws and customs; to each
color in each pattern appertained a religious or political idea;
to change or to alter it was a crime of apostasy or rebellion.
White is absolute truth. It reflects all the luminous rays. In all cosmogenies,
divine wisdom, eternal light, subdued primitive darkness, and makes the world
issue from the bosom of chaos. In all religions, the sovereign pontiff >had white
vestments, symbols of uncreated light. When Joseph took the body of the Lord,
he wrapped it in a white linen cloth.

Heraldry copied custom and followed tradition. Its coat of arms ordained
that argent should donate whiteness, purity, truth, hope and innocence. Ermine,
which was at first all white, was the emblem of purity and of immaculate chastity.
The Bible presents the type ,of the language of colors in all its purity. Jesus
says, in the Apocalypse, ir-17: "I will give to the victorious a white stone, on
which shall be written a name which no one pan know but he who received it."
White is the symbol of divinity, wisdom; purity, justice and hope after death.
In the Testament, white is symbolic of innocence, i^the raiment of angels and of
glorified saints of joy and of victory.

Purple is a compound hue, a red azure, and signifies in the popular language
of colors the love of truth. Purple was the principal color in the symbolic vest¬
ment of the Hebrew Priests, and predominated in the ornaments of the High
Priests. Paganism, acquired these symbolic traditions, and the ancients perceived
in colors different degrees of virtue and vice.

Philostratus gives to Love wings of purple and azure. In antiquity purple
was a red color graduated with blue, and according to blazonry purple is~ com¬
pound of azure and gules. The purple toga was the garb of the Emperor alone.
It was the badge of kingship.** Purple fabrics were very costly. Both kinds of
purple were used for the carpets and curtains of the Jewish Tabernacle, for the
High Priest's dress, and for the curtain of the Holy of Holies in the Temple.
The threads of the tassels on every Israelite's outer garments had to be made of
bluish purple.. At the Babylonian Court the bestowal of reddish purple raiment
was a work of the highest favor.

*W. S. Inman's translation from the French of Baron Frederic Portal
**F. S. Eankin.

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