Glenbuchat Heritage

7 Callam Essay 'Love friendship and Hatred.'

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John Callam of Newton’s presentation to the Glenbucket Mutual Improvement Class c 1850.

Love Friendship and Hatred

It is very difficult to form an opinion of the passions that attack and govern the human mind but we are all aware that there are passions which at all times we cannot account for - the passion of love which resides more or less in the breast of every person actuates with a vigour more or less according to the persons humour as to the object so loved. Now there are different kinds of love and different objects to be loved some of which I shall mention there is a love for money and wealth which is planted in almost every breast but so long as it is governed and kept moderately it is praiseworthy but when it takes fast hold of the person and pushes them forward as it were to try every means in their power both harmful and unlawful to accumulate riches then it is what I won’t call greed or avarice now you all know that these are injurious to society - Again you may love a person for some good quality you may see or hear belongs to them they are in possession Now you may have this love whither you know the person so loved or not there are many other kinds of love such as love of one’s country and kindred the love of ones neighbours and such like all of which are so much work to the human mind.

Friendship is a term used to denote ones friends from their companions for although friend and companion be used together there is a great difference between them a person may have a great many companions and yet not a friend among them friendship lies in very narrow bounds and many are the travels through this pilgrimage of life without meeting a friend there are different causes which it requires to constitute a friend unless there be a conformity of inclinations a likeness of manners to bear company as it were with (out) constancy and fidelity there can be no real friendship and unless they go hand in hand there can be no true friendship as they are the foundations up[n which the superstructure of friendship is built there are some occasions that the greatest blessing a person can possess on this earth is to have a friend that he can reveal the sorrows and pleasures he feels
Hatred is another passion of the human mind a passion that is fraught with much evil and actuates the person to commit some things repulsive to human nature I may hate a person without being able to assign a cause at all event a just cause for so doing I may satisfy my own mind for the time but let me consider and I may possible find that the hatred that I an nourishing is get up without cause and so long as takes is kept under so that it does not reach to that height which makes a person injure his neighbours or his neighbours effects it may be termed hatred but if it goes on to push me to injure my neighbour then I would say that it left of from hatred and assumed the power and form of other passions such as malice and revenge

End