istics, and a slender
pamphlet address, in which the author concerns himself rather with the
results than the events of our recent war. This is always Mr. Smith's
manner of dealing with the past; but in considering a period known in
all its particulars to his audience, he has been able to philosophize
history more purely and thoroughly than usual. He arrives directly and
clearly at the moral of the Ilias Americana, and sees that Christianity
is the life of our political system, and that this principle, without
which democracy is a passing dream, and equality an idle fallacy,
triumphed forever in the downfall of slavery. He has been the first of
our commentators to discern that the heroism displayed in the war could
only come from that principle which made our social life decent and
orderly, built the school-house and the church, and filled city and
country with prosperous and religious homes. He has seen this principle
at work under changing names and passing creeds, and has recognized that
here, for the first time in the history of the world, a whole nation
strives to govern itself according to the Example and the Word that
govern good men everywhere.

In the Introduction to his book, M. Laugel declares as the reasons for
his admiration of the United States, that they "have shown that men can
found a government on reason, where equality does not stifle liberty,
and democracy does not yield to despotism; they have shown that a people
can be religious when the State neither pays the Church nor regulates
belief; they have given to woman the place that is her due in a
Christian and civilized society." It is this Introduction, indeed, that
will most interest the American reader, for here also the author
presents the result of his study of our national character in a sketch
that the nation may well glass itself in when low-spirited. The truth
is, that we looked our very best to the friendly eyes of M. Laugel, and
we cannot but be gratified with the portrait he has made of us. An
American would hardly have ventured to draw so flattering a picture, but
he cannot help exulting that an alien should see us poetic in our
realism, curious of truth and wisdom as well as of the stranger's
personal history, cordial in our friendships, and not ignoble even in
our pursuit of wealth, but having the Republic's greatness at heart as
well as our own gain.

In the chapters which succeed this Introduction, M. Laugel discusses, in
a spirit o