There are great differences in men. Some are so narrow and meager of soul as scarcely to have a thought or sympathy beyond the little circle in which they are born, in which they live, and out of which they go utterly when they die. There are lives so localized that men out of their sphere they cannot understand, and that men out of their sphere cannot understand them. For every limited dialect in human speech there are limited thoughts and lives back of it. What do we mean by “provincialism” as applied to a man, or to the people of a State or country? It means limitation. Illustrations are every-where. Take a Scotch Highlander, an Irishman of some seldom-visited farming region, or, in our own country, a New Englander born and bred, never from home; or a village Georgian, a thorough-going old time Southerner. These men are provincial. They may have admirable and indeed noble qualities, but they are limited in their views, narrow in their sympathies, and by so much they are cut off from the sympathies of their fellow-men of other conditions in life. Savage people show us the extremes of provincialism. But let us take now our illustration from the loftiest ranges of life. Among the ancients take Plato--broad-minded as any. What is he? Grecian to the core. There was no greater Roman than Julius Cæsar. But he was essentially Roman; he was localized by race and country; there was much in him that only a Roman could understand, and therefore much that limited him in his knowledge of the men of other nations. Come to more modern times. Only a few years ago the Protestant world celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther. There was enough in Luther to perpetuate his influence through many generations. In every nation where the effect of the Lutheran reformation is felt there was real interest in the celebration of the anniversary of the great German’s birth. There was sympathy with Luther; moreover, more or less understanding of him. There was enough forceful life in Luther to overflow Germany and enrich other lands; yet he was a German, and so not a universal, but a limited, character. And so it is that he means more to Germany than to England, or France, or America. It is not simply that Germans are more interested in him as a patriotic sentiment growing out of national pride in their greatest man; they understand him better than other people can. If he could come back to the world he would understand Germans better than he would other people. Among great men in civil life take American Washington. Great man though he was, and having in him qualities that all true men recognize and approve, he was yet essentially American. He was also essentially Virginian, and plantation-aristocratic Virginian of his time, and no other.