fraid.

PATRIOTISM AND PROVINCIALISM.

In that memorable parliamentary battle between Webster and Hayne, the
broad nationalism of the former stands out in splendid contrast with the
narrow provincialism of the latter. Hayne's theme was small and
sectional--it wanted bulk; hence, he continually intrudes himself in his
subject: the subject is half, and Hayne and Webster the other and more
important half. Webster, on the contrary, is completely absorbed in the
magnitude of his subject; he forgets the very existence of such facts as
Webster and Hayne, and considers only that the destinies of millions
hang upon the great principles he is enunciating. Hayne is burdened with
an inferior sense of personality, and never gets beyond the clouds;
Webster's massive intellect shines out calm and bright as a fixed
star--far beyond the gross atmosphere of personal strife or sectional
antagonism. Hayne looks through a glass dimly, and sees only South
Carolina--a part; Webster, with his grand _coup d'oeil_ sweeps the
horizon, and his eagle glance takes in the entire Union as one perfect,
organic whole. Hayne's logic, granting the premises, was a finished and
splendid piece of mechanism; Webster started from a deeper and broader
vantage-ground of universal principle and intuitive truth, and by one
terrible wrench, of his giant intellect, Hayne's premises fell from
under, and the labored superstructure of his logic went down in one
confused mass of ruin with its foundations.

General Banks, in his late order, welcoming the return of our brave
soldiers from their two years' captivity in Texas, after recounting
their heroic history, gives utterance to the following noble sentiment:
'They refused to substitute the misguided ambition of a vulgar, low-bred
provincialism, for the hallowed hopes of a national patriotism.'

A great truth, like 'a thing of beauty, is a joy forever.' We feel it as
the wine of life in our spiritual organisms, quickening thought,
ennobling our aims, fortifying virtue, and expanding our immortal
statures. Such a truth is contained in that pointed antithesis: 'A
vulgar, low-bred provincialism, and the hallowed hopes of a national
patriotism.'

The human soul, in its process of development, grows from the centre to
the circumference, from a part to the whole, from a unit to the
universe. Its first conception is that of self-consciousness, and its
first emotion that of self-love. As it expands its immortal ge