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 vain—­in vain thou triest to rise—­Pactolus chains thee down.

Even such is wealth unto the wisest; wealth at its purest source, exponent of labour and of mind.  But, to the frequent fool, heaped with foulest dross—­for the cygnet of Pactolus and those golden sands, read—­the hippopotamus wallowing in the Niger, and smothered in a bay of mud.

CHAPTER L.

THE CROCK A BLESSING.

THERE was no will found:  it is likely Mrs. Quarles had never made one; she feared death too much, and all that put her in mind of it.  So the next of kin, the only one to have the crock of gold, was Susan Scott, a good, honest, hard-working woman, whom Jennings, by many arts, had kept away from Hurstley:  her husband, a poor thatcher, sadly out of work except in ricking time, and crippled in both legs by having fallen from a hay-stack:  and as to the family, it was already as long a flight of steps as would reach to an ordinary first floor, with a prospect (so the gossips said) of more in the distance.  Susan was a Wesleyan Methodist—­many may think, more the pity:  but she neither disliked church, nor called it steeple-house:  only, forasmuch as Hagglesfield was blessed with a sporting parson, the chief reminders of whose presence in the parish were strifes perpetual about dues and tithes, it is little blame or wonder, if the starving sheep went anywhither else for pasturage and water.  So, then, Susan was a good mother, a kind neighbour, a religious, humble-minded Christian:  is it not a comfort now to know that the gold was poured into her lap, and that she hallowed her good luck by prayers and praises?

I judge it worth while stepping over to Hagglesfield for a couple of minutes, to find out how she used that gold, and made the crock a blessing.  Susan first thought of her debts:  so, to every village shop around, I fear they were not a few, which had kindly given her credit, some for weeks, some for months, and more than one for a year, the happy house-wife went to pay in full; and not this only, but with many thanks, to press a little present upon each, for well-timed help in her adversity.