But not only so--you seemed to be going backward. Even the ground slipped from under your feet, and where you had heretofore a firm standing-place, you found but a swamp. And have you never considered that Nature too sometimes works backwards? See that withered leaf which flutters in the breeze, maintaining yet an uncertain hold upon the branch which nurtured its younger growth. A fresh gust of wind loosens its hold, and it is blown in circling eddies to the earth. There it rests till the elements of decay in its bosom have finished their work, and it mixes with the dust. "What is this? Can a mother forget her child? Does Nature destroy her own productions?" Ah, look again. In that fresh-blooming flower, dyed with tints of infinite softness, behold the withered leaf. Nature was as really working to the production of that flower when she decomposed the elements of the leaf, as when she unfolded the germ, and elaborated the juices, and blended the tints of the flower itself. It was but a glorified resurrection. And your spiritual growth is going on as truly and steadily, if not as visibly and delightfully, when you cast aside the slough of some old prejudice, or painfully tear yourself from a cherished delusion as when the dawning of a new truth flashes light and joy upon your soul. For what Coleridge has said of nations, is equally true of individuals. "The progress of the species neither is nor can be, like that of a Roman road, in a right line. It may be more justly compared to that of a river, which, both in its smaller reaches and larger turnings, is frequently forced back towards its fountains, by objects which cannot otherwise be eluded or overcome; yet with an accompanying impulse that will ensure its advancement hereafter, it is either gaining strength every hour or conquering in secret some difficulty, by a labor that contributes as effectually to further its course, as when it moves forward in an uninterrupted line." I might go on to illustrate the application of this truth to self-knowledge, but it is one easily made, by each for himself. Its bearing upon our moral growth must not be so lightly passed over.