THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS.
VII.
The Chinese thief, they say, greases himself and sticks knives in his queue, so that it is nest to impossible to catch him. Old Time is about as slippery a fellow as a Chinese thief. I don't know that he has a queue, and have fancied that when queues were worn, and Time was in the fashion, some old fogy, too slow to keep up with him, caught him by his queue. Time, who never yet was detained by mortal grasp, pressed on and left it behind. Since then he has cultivated only that ungraspable forelock. Fleet of foot as he is, it is thought that Young America, with his telegraphs, will, in the long run—that is, in the race round the world—come out 'a leetle ahead' of him. Indeed, Young America talks of annihilating Time. But, though he may have 'one foot on land and one on sea,' he has no commission to 'swear that time shall be no more.'
We are a fast people—no mistake. Perhaps a little too fast. Did we only anticipate Time, and pull down only what, with those sure sappers and miners of his, the years, he is certain to overthrow, it would be well enough. But we wish to destroy what he has left untouched, or would remodel it, would modernize it.
The dear old creed of our fathers; old creed, did I say? Ever new creed; for what Time passes by, never grows old. This we would change to suit ourselves, fancying we have outgrown it; or thinking it, like the Spartan iron coin, too cumbersome for general 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 among the 'things that were,' as are the Irish kings. Some have shrewdly thought that it was the only real Irish king. Well, then, it is owing to this cousin's loyalty to the usurper, or rather pretender, that I am the family chronicler. He was wonderfully ingenious; could from the slightest hint guess at the whole story; he was equal to those naturalists who from one bone can make out the animal. With the remains of an old family tradition for his clue, he traced the origin of the escutcheon. It was on this wise. One of the Irish kings, traveling incog., stopped at the castle of an O'Molly, who, though he knew not the rank of his guest, entertained him with the utmost hospitality. Freely the goblet circulated, and as they two only drank from it, it was soon broken. The king, next morning, revealed his rank to his host, and dubbed him Knight of the Goblet; hence the goblet on the shield, an emblem of hospitality. And never has there been a stain on the escutcheon of the O'Mollys.
I said they were an orthodox race. Perhaps they were too bigoted in their adherence to the old customs and the old faith. But there is too much latitudinarianism in this nineteenth century. Too many think it matters but little what a man's belief is, if he is only sincere in it; as if the consequences of any thing could be averted by not believing in it. The hands of your clock may be so turned around that they will point to the wrong figures; does that change the time? Or, what amounts to the same thing, it may be so ill-regulated, the machinery may be so out of gear, that you are deceived. But morning, noon, and night do not regulate their face by your clock. There is a dial that unerringly marks 'the stately stoppings' of the sun of suns—let us regulate our belief by it.
Truth is not like the clouds that, it is said, take the form of the country over which they pass. It does not change to suit your condition or mind, and we can not change it, neither can we dilute it. What is not truth is falsehood, and this, as the acid dissolved the pearl which Cleopatra dropped into it, will dissolve truth and convert it into its own nature.