While the Algonkins with one voice
called those of their tribes living nearest the rising sun _Abnakis_,
our ancestors at the east, or at the dawn; literally our _white_
ancestors.[174-1] I designedly emphasize this literal rendering. It
reminds one of the white twin of Iroquois legend, and illustrates how
the color white came to be intimately associated with the morning light
and its beneficent effects. Moreover color has a specific effect on the
mind; there is a music to the eye as well as to the ear; and white,
which holds all hues in itself, disposes the soul to all pleasant and
elevating emotions.[174-2] Not fashion alone bids the bride wreathe her
brow with orange flowers, nor was it a mere figure of speech that led
the inspired poet to call his love "fairest among women," and to
prophecy a Messiah "fairer than the children of men," fulfilled in that
day when He appeared "in garments so white as no fuller on earth could
white them." No nation is free from the power of this law.
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