Bruen, Matthias

Bruen, Matthias a Presbyterian minister, was born in Newark, N. J., April 11, 1793. After an excellent religious and academical education, he graduated at Columbia College 1812. In 1816 he was licensed to preach, but, on account of ill health, he went to Europe, where he remained nearly three years, during six months of which he preached at "the American Chapel of the Oratory" in Paris. Returning in 1819, he again visited Europe in 1821. In 1822 he entered on home missionary work in New York, and under his labors a church grew up in Bleecker Street, of which he became pastor in 1825. He died Sept. 6, 1829, after a short illness. He published Essays descriptive of Scenes in Italy and France (Edinburgh), and contributed to various periodicals. A memoir of him by Mrs. Duncan, of Scotland, was published in 1831. — Sprague, Annals, 4, 544.