 W0363 SCHOOL ESSAY BY [DR.] CALVIN MCQUESTEN
Jun 24 1825
To:
From: Bradford Academy, Bradford, Massachusetts, [U.S.A.]Count the day lost, whose low descending sun,
Views from thy hand, no worthy action done.
The improvements of our time is a subject, which demands our first attention. Through all the changing vicifsitudes1 of life, there is a variety of objects which are calculated to divert our attention, and turn us from those which concentrate in our own interests, and in the welfare of others. Man, considered as a social and dependent being, is bound to exert every power of body and mind to alleviate the distrefs, and to enhance the enjoyment of his fellow creatures; as a rational and accountable being, he should consider well the end, and design, of his existence and the part that he is to act.
Disinterested benevolence should be the moving principle of his soul. That person, who is actuated wholly by selfish motives, may sit down every evening of his life, and reflect on the transactions of the day, and he will be compelled to count it lost. But he who is actuated by a spirit of true benevolence, who considers his own happinefs, inseparably connected with that of his afsociates, who uses his talents and influence, for the good of society, will have the pleasing reflection, at the close of life, that he has not lived in vain.
C. McQuesten [Calvin]
1 Calvin uses the now archaic "fs" for "ss" throughout his early period, which we have retained for authenticity. |
