5 he went in a state of great excitement to AI. Armand Bertin, at that time editor-in-chief of the Journal des Debats, and on meeting him exclaimed : “ Congratulate me, I have to-day put my hand on a great man.” And such was the enthusiasm with which he spoke of his new discovery, that M. Bertin begged him to make his “great man ” at once known to France. AL Laboulaye, without delay, set to work, and in a few days there appeared, in successive numbers of the Journal des Debats, three masterly articles. The first was “ on the works of Dr. Wm. Ellebt Channing,” for it was a stray volume of his sermons that M. Laboulaye had purchased on the Quai Voltaire, and he was the “great man ” upon whom he “ put his hand ” that day. The second article was entitled, “The Progress of Religious Ideas in New England,” and the last, “The- Present Condition and Probable Future of the Great Republic.” The stray seed of the New England Puritan Reformer took deep root, and from that day to this AT. Laboulaye has been an earnest student of American ideas and institutions, and on all occasions, and before all men, the unswerving friend and courageous advocate of the people and government of the Union. A previous article of AI. Laboulaye, originally published in the Journal des Debats, entitled “ A View of the Causes and Aims of the Rebellion,” had a wide circulation in this country through the columns of the Evening Post and other public journals, and exerted no 'little influence upon the formation of a just public opinion, here as well as abroad, as to the true character of the slave-masters’ conspiracy to overthrow democratic institutions on this continent. These latest pregnant words of the distinguished publicist reach us at the very moment of their greatest need. At a moment when the public patience seems well nigh exhausted ; when here at the north, even the most loyal seem to lose heart and to doubt, and the disloyal, under the guise of conservatism
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