PUBLIC LIBRARY Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, by RUFUS L. NEVINS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. MEM AOBK HENRY W. REES, STEREOTYPER, W. S. DORR, PRINTER. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER. ONE of the dying requests of Dr. Nevins was, that no extended memoir of him might be attempted. Had no such request been made, yet the great barrenness of incident in all the early part of his life, and the fact that few materials for a biography were ever preserved by himself, would have led to the same result. His letters, too, though of peculiar and often thrilling interest, are yet almost invariably dependant for force and interest on circumstances of which the general reader could not properly be advised. Not one entire and long letter has been found, which it was, on the whole, deemed expedient to give to the public; although many of them have lost none of the interest which they had in the minds of persons to whom they were originally addressed. In the following pages, the reader is presented with only a brief sketch of his short, but useful life, and with selections from his unpublished writings. The Lord bless the reader of this book. |