DOWN THE TORRENT'S PATHWAY. 293 
stops. This upward swing in Nature begins 
when the first flowers fade, the first nestlings 
are hatched, and the first leaves fall. In sum¬ 
mer we do not always notice the lessening speed 
of Nature’s motions; not until autumn comes 
do we realize that the days are shorter, the sun’s 
rays less warm, the birds fewer, and vegetation 
almost without power of growth. In December 
the pendulum stops and all that Nature has of 
energy is latent, awaiting the turn in the 
world’s rhythm. 
The baby, gurgling and cooing in its basket, 
is full of latent forces. As life goes on, these 
powers are exercised more and more to the flood, 
less and less as the tide ebbs. Yet who is there 
who dares to say that when old age is reached 
there is not as much laid by in that soul 
wrapped in its weary body as there was in the 
infant full of latent power? We know not 
where the infant’s forces came from, nor where 
the dying man’s energy goes to, but if Nature 
teaches us anything, it teaches us that forces 
such as these are eternal in the same sense that 
matter is eternal and space endless. 
