Think of the perfect power for rest in all animals.  Lift a cat when she is quiet, and see how perfectly relaxed she is in every muscle.  That is not only the way she sleeps, but the way she rests; and no matter how great or how rapid the activity, she drops all tension at once when she stops.  So it is with all animals, except in rare cases where man has tampered with them in a way to interfere with the true order of their lives.

Watch a healthy baby sleeping; lift its arm, its leg, or its head carefully, and you will find each perfectly relaxed and free.  You can even hold it on your outspread hands, and the whole little weight, full of life and gaining new power through the perfect rest, will give itself entirely to your hands, without one particle of tension.  The sleep that we get in babyhood is the saving health of many.  But, alas! at a very early age useless tension begins, and goes on increasing; and if it does not steadily lead to acute “Americanitis,” it prevents the perfect use of all our powers.  Mothers, watch your children with a care which will be all the more effective because they will be unconscious of it; for a child’s attention should seldom be drawn to its own body.  Lead them toward the laws of Nature, that they may grow in harmony with them, and so be saved the useless suffering, strain, and trouble that comes to us Americans.  If we do not take care, the children will more and more inherit this fearful misuse of the nervous force, and the inheritance will be so strong that at best we can have only little invalids.  How great the necessity seems for the effort to get back into Nature’s ways when we reflect upon the possibilities of a continued disobedience!

To be sure, Nature has Repose itself and does not have to work for it.  Man is left free to take it or not as he chooses.  But before he is able to receive it he has personal tendencies to restlessness to overcome.  And more than that, there are the inherited nervous habits of generations of ancestors to be recognized and shunned.  But repose is an inmost law of our being, and the quiet of Nature is at our command much sooner than we realize, if we want it enough to work for it steadily day by day.  Nothing will increase our realization of the need more than a little daily thought of the quiet in the workings of Nature and the consequent appreciation of our own lack.  Ruskin tells the story with his own expressive power when he says, “Are not the elements of ease on the face of all the greatest works of creation?  Do they not say, not there has been a great effort here, but there has been a great power here?”

The greatest act, the only action which we know to be power in itself, is the act of Creation.  Behind that action there lies a great Repose.  We are part of Creation, we should be moved by its laws.  Let us shun everything we see to be in the way of our own best power of action in muscle, nerve, senses, mind, and heart.  Who knows the new perception and strength, the increased power for use that is open to us if we will but cease to be an obstruction?