380 



LABORDE, LEON E. S. J. 



Hallock, of Plainfield ; graduated at Williams 

 College in 1816, and at Andover Seminary in 

 1819. Receiving ordination at the close of his 

 seminary course, he was employed some months 

 as a missionary in South Carolina. In 1821, at 

 the founding of Amherst College, he was named 

 Professor of Oriental Languages and Literature ; 

 and to prepare himself for this office he re- 

 paired to Paris, his expenses being paid by 

 private friends. While sojourning in that city 

 he received, by letter, an urgent invitation from 

 Rev. Pliny Fisk, of the Palestine mission, to go 

 to his aid in establishing the mission at Jeru- 

 salem. Relinquishing his connection with the 

 college at Amherst, Mr. King offered his ser- 

 vices to the American Board for three years, 

 and, through the liberality of friends, started 

 without loss of time for Malta, and reached 

 Jerusalem in April, 1823. Having completed 

 his three years, he left Beirut on the 26th of 

 September, homeward-bound, going overland 

 to Smyrna. Remaining several months at 

 Smyrna, he improved the time by studying the 

 modern Greek language. After reaching Bos- 

 ton, early in the autumn of 1827, he was for a 

 time employed in promoting the missionary 

 cause in the Northern and Middle States. 

 Meanwhile Greece had been desolated by Turk- 

 ish and Egyptian armies ; and the Philhellenes 

 of this country were sending supplies to the 

 starving inhabitants. Mr. King was invited, 

 by a committee of ladies, to go out in one of 

 the vessels loaded with supplies, and assist in 

 their distribution. He did so, and arrived at 

 Paros in July, 1828. On the 22d of July, 1829, 

 he married, on the island of Tenos, a young 

 Greek lady of a respectable family in Smyrna. 

 Mr. King was reappointed a missionary of 

 the Board in December, 1829. He had pre- 

 viously visited Athens, and made arrangements 

 for residing there ; and removing thither early 



in 1831, after the Turks had vacated the place, 

 he became one of the earliest settlers. Soon 

 after this, he received the degree of Doctor of 

 Divinity from the college at Princeton, N. J. 

 Before leaving Syria, he had addressed a 

 " Farewell Letter" to his friends in that coun- 

 try, stating the reasons why he did not become 

 a Roman Catholic. This letter, translated, with 

 some additions by Mr. Goodell, into the Arme- 

 nian language, found its way to Constantinople, 

 where it attracted the attention and awakened 

 the interest of influential Armenians, who at 

 once assembled a national council, in which 

 the abuses there exposed were discussed and 

 severely censured, and measures were adopted 

 for their removal. This farewell letter was 

 circulated, in modern Greek, by Dr. King ; and 

 it became, with others of his publications, in 

 1852, the basis of a prosecution against him in 

 the criminal court at Athens ; where, under 

 the pressure of great popular excitement, he 

 was condemned, against law and justice, to 

 confinement for fifteen days in a loathsome 

 prison, and, after that, to expulsion from the 

 kingdom of Greece. Owing to the vigorous 

 protests of our Government and the efforts of 

 American citizens when in Europe, his confine- 

 ment was but for a single day, and the sentence 

 of banishment was not carried into effect. Dr. 

 King was a man of indomitable energy and equal 

 to the noblest of the reformers. In a single year 

 he distributed more than seven hundred copies 

 of the Scriptures in Greece. Prior to 1857, he 

 had translated into modern Greek, and printed, 

 five volumes of the American Tract Society's 

 publications, making a total of two thousand 

 five hundred pages. At his private expense, 

 he also published four volumes of his own works 

 in that language. As an Oriental scholar he 

 was of the first rank, and as a missionary his 

 zeal and devotion were unsurpassed. 



LABORDE, LEON EMMANUEL SIMON JOSEPH, 

 Comte de, a distinguished French archaeologist 

 and traveller, born in Paris, June 12, 1807; 

 died there, March 21, 1869. He was the son 

 of Alexandre de Laborde, known for his devo- 

 tion to the arts. After studying at the Univer- 

 sity of Gottingen, he visited Egypt at the age 

 of twenty-one, and from thence undertook the 

 exploration of Arabia Petraea in conjunction 

 with M. Linant. Being an expert draughtsman, 

 he filled his portfolio with sketches, and on his 

 return to Europe, in 1830, commenced the pub- 

 lication of his observations, under the title of 

 "Voyage de 1'Arabie Petree." The success 

 of this work induced him to embark in another 

 enterprise, and the "Voyage en Orient" ap- 

 peared in 1838-'55. The history of the fine 

 arts next attracted his attention, and in 1839 

 he commenced a "Histoire de la Gravure en 

 Maniere Noire, et son Application & I'lmpri- 



merie." Subsequently, he published "Re- 

 cherches sur la decouverte de Plmprimerie," 

 1840 ; and "Le Proces de Guttenberg & Stras- 

 bourg," 1841. Upon the death of his father, in 

 1840, he succeeded to all his honors. In 1841 

 he was elected a deputy, and the following 

 year took his place in the Academy of Inscrip- 

 tions and Belles -Lettres. In 1847 he was 

 appointed Curator of the Antiquities in the 

 Louvre, a position which he held until the 

 Revolution of February, 1848, whren he was 

 thrown out of office, but on the 10th of Decem- 

 ber regained it, and had placed under his care 

 the monuments of the Renaissance and modern 

 Sculpture. After a journey into the Nether- 

 lands, he published a catalogue of the artists of 

 that country, and also a work intended to show 

 the state of the arts in France and the Low 

 Countries in the Fifteenth Century, under the 

 Dukes of Burgundy, under the title "LesDucs 



