of tbe TKHint>. 153 



peculiarity of these storms which everybody is sure 

 to notice at some time or other. Who has not ob- 

 served how the stormy day falls week after week 

 upon a Friday, or a Sunday, or a Monday ? The 

 weather often rolls along in a succession of rhythmic 

 movements as regular as the surges of the sea. So 

 we have come to talk familiarly of " warm waves " 

 and "cold waves." The rise and fall of the mercury 

 in barometer and thermometer are visible signs of 

 what goes on in the atmosphere. Our storms are 

 literally waves of the air, disturbances which throb 

 with a rhythm like that of the waves of the sea. 

 The laws of these winds are as fixed as those which 

 govern the ebb and flow of the tides, the revolutions 

 of the seasons. First a wave of clear skies and dry 

 winds ; then one of damp breezes and rain and 

 clouds. There is a throb to the atmosphere like that 

 of the sea, the seasons, your heart or mine. 



It is a phenomenon which is part of a great 

 universal law, that all motion, all life, moves in 

 rhythm, in undulations, in throbs, waves, periods. 

 It is shown in every one of our bodies. Beat of 

 heart, inhalation of lungs, stomach-hungers, sleep 

 and work, pains and pleasures, all show the inevit- 

 able law of rhythm. Life itself is a succession of 

 periods of joy and sorrow. It moves in waves. 

 Our moral life fluctuates. Bright days follow de- 

 pressed ones ; virtue is now hard, now easy ; hope 

 and despair alternate; no man has a "level best." 

 There are revivals of religion. When men sneer be- 



