9 great shout we hear may mean nothing more than this. Its component parts may be national pride, sectional prejudice, kindred sympathy, and warlike feeling. Joy that our enemies have been defeated, — that the boasting Southron, who has scouted at Northern valor, has been stricken by it. It may be a shout no grander in its character than that which greets the plundering Arab on his return with booty to his camp ; or that which of yore greeted the Highlander, as he hied him homeward from a successful foray against a hated clan ; or the Indian, as he returns to his village with scalps of a hostile tribe dangling at his belt. It may be but the expression of selfish, savage human nature. The social impulses which lead forth men’s active sympathies in behalf of kindred, neighborhood, and nation, are valuable as constituting the foundation upon which the higher social and moral fabric is built; but upon the development of the intellectual and moral nature, are to be subordinated to them. The degradation of man is in his voluntary subjection of that higher part of his nature which allies him to God, to his lower nature which allies him to the animal creation. Yielding to that animal nature, men have strong sympathies with the most debasing conflicts. The crowd around the cock-pit exult as wildly over the varied fortunes of the combat, as at the spectacle of national conflict. In the casual canine conflicts of the streets, men choose sides, and feel a keen sympathy with the yelp of a defeated cur, or the growl of his victorious antagonist. When the conflict is waged by the animal which has welcomed him home with kindly wag, and is the playmate of his children, he thrills with every struggle and exults with every advantage gained, and is rarely so just as to act upon the merits of the fight. When our brothers,’ neighbors, and 2
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