circulation, we would
change it for lighter, and as we think, more precious metal. We deem
this the age of gold.

There is a great deal said about our progress toward mental and moral
perfection. Some seem to think that education is all we need to make us
perfect moral beings. 'Ignorance is the cause of all evil;' all things
are as they should be; our minds are as the _camera obscura_, a darkened
chamber which a few rays enter, and every thing only _appears_ upside
down. All we need is more light, to see to set every thing straight. It
is true that we see things in an inverted position; but in this
prison-house, we shall never have light enough to see them as they are.
There is a lens that corrects these false impressions, and the light
that enters through it shows us many things upside down that we before
saw right side up, and _vice versa_.

Intoxicated with conceit, we fancy that we have but to eat of the tree
of knowledge to become gods. Some go so far as to say that we are even
now a part of divinity. 'The universe--it is God;' therefore we, as a
part of the universe, are a part of God. The universe God? If it is a
part of God, (which it is not,) it is so small a fraction that in all
mathematical calculations, it would be called nothing. Were all the
minds in the universe mingled into one, that one would be but as a drop
to the ocean that girdles Infinity--God.

You will think me too earnest. The O'Mollys were ever an earnest race
and an orthodox race. With what earnestness did they, in the good old
times, from those peculiarly Irish goblets, that wouldn't stand, drink
Irish whisky, till they partook of the nature of the goblets and came to
the floor with them--the goblets with a crash, but the O'Mollys got up
as sound as a bell, and next morning were ready to attend mass, into
which they entered with as much earnestness as into their revelry. No
people equal the Irish in earnestness in _spiritual_ matters. It is
perhaps not for a female O'Molly to record these roysterings; but I am
the last of my race, I only am left to chronicle the glorious doings of
my ancestors. Then, too, on our escutcheon is one of these same goblets.
The origin of this escutcheon it has been a family task to trace, with
but little success, however, till the present generation, I had a cousin
who inherited all the family pride. He became a martyr to his devotion
to the 'time-honored custom;' for alas! good old Irish whisky is as
certainly