Beauty fadeth; Health dieth; Talents--yea, and Graces--go to bloom in
other spheres--but when Benevolence would bless, and bless for ages,
his blessing is vain, but for money--when Wisdom would teach, and teach
for ages, the teacher must be fed, and the school built, and the scholar
helped upon his way by money--righteous money. There is a righteous
money as there is unrighteous mammon; but both have their ministrations
here limited to earth and time; the one, a fruit of heaven--the other, a
fungus from below: yet the fruit will bring no blessing, if the Grower
be forgotten; neither shall the fungus yield a poison, if warmed awhile
beneath the better sun. Like all other gifts, given to us sweet, but
spoilt in the using, gold may turn to good or ill: Health may kick, like
fat Jeshurun in his wantonness; Power may change from beneficence to
tyranny; Learning may grow critical in motes until it overlooks the
sunbeam; Love may be degraded to an instinct; Zaccheus may turn
Pharisee; Religion may cant into the hypocrite, or dogmatize to
theologic hate.
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