creature in this nether world of higher name than Money.

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. Even so it is with money: its power of doing good has no
other equivalent in this world than its power of doing evil: it is like
fire--used for hospitable warmth, or wide-wasting ravages; like air--the
gentle zephyr, or the destroying hurricane. Nevertheless, all is for
this world--this world only; a matter extraneous to the spirit, always
foreign, often-times adversary: let a man beware of lading himself with
that thick clay.

I see a cygnet on the broad Pactolus, stemming the waters with its downy
breast; and anon, it would rise upon the wing, and soar to other skies;
so, taking down that snow-white sail, it seeks for a moment to rest its
foot on shore, and thence take flight: alas, poor bird! thou art sinking
in those golden sands, the heavy morsels clog thy flapping wing--in