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NOTICES OF BOOKS.

We venture to devote more space than usual to “Notices of Books,” as we have a large number on our table deserving a word of commendation.  We shall confine ourselves to the class of works of which the topics of consideration come within the scope of this magazine.

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND TRIALS OF A YOUTHFUL CHRISTIAN, in Pursuit of Health, as developed in the Biography of NATHANIEL CHEEVER, M.D.  By Rev. HENRY T. CHEEVER.  With an Introduction by Rev. GEORGE B. CHEEVER, D.D.  New York:  Charles Scribner.

We have laid down this book, after attentive perusal, with the feeling that among the many things to be learned from it, one stands prominently forth,—­the beauty of family affection in a Christian household.  “To our Beloved and Honored MOTHER, these Memorials of her Youngest Son are affectionately Dedicated.”  Here we stand at the foundation stone, and are not surprised afterward to see taking their place in the fair edifice of family love, “stones polished after the similitude of a palace.”

The history presented in this memoir has no startling incidents.  The subject of it, a beautiful and promising boy, full of life and happiness, is suddenly smitten with a disease which hangs like an incubus upon his progress through life, and terminates his course just after he has entered successfully on the practice of the medical profession, in the island of Cuba, led, as he had previously been, on repeated voyages across the ocean, by the hope of permanent benefit from change of climate.  Scattered through the book are descriptions of scenery, observations on men and manners, and pleasant narratives, which give variety to its pages, but its charm rises in the character of uncommon loveliness which it presents; in the unvarying cheerfulness and patience with which the young sufferer met pain, disappointment of cherished plans of life, defeat and delay in his efforts for intellectual improvement, separation from the friends to whom his sensitive spirit clung with a tenacity of affection which is often developed by suffering, but which seems to have been an original element in his nature; years of banishment from the home circle, and at last, death, away from every friend, on the ocean, which he was struggling to cross once more that he might breathe his last sigh on his mother’s bosom.  The conscientiousness, the integrity, the simplicity of this young Christian are as beautiful to contemplate as his elasticity of spirit, his cheerful submission, and his resolute determination to be all that, with the shattered materials, he was capable of making himself.  His patient efforts, retarded by his severe sufferings, to educate himself, and acquire a profession, are touching and instructive, though few, who have not experienced the slow martyrdom of chronic disease, can fully appreciate his energy,