I believe comparatively few of the ministers of the Gospel in our church are as yet members of her Missionary society, except by their annual subscription; they might all soon be made so for life, by a small exertion among the pious females of their respective charges, and thus much would be done to strengthen the bond of mutual endearment between them and their pastors, and much for the relief of those who have no pastors to love. GEORGE DUBOIS.

TO THE MINISTERS AND CONSISTORIES OF THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH.

BRETHREN,-Much has been done by you to aid the cause of truth, and advance the intrests of our Reformed Zion during the last year Many places by your liberality, that were before destitute, have been made to rejoice In many of our Congregations blessed with temporal prosperity, no auxiliary society has yet been formed. God has placed you in the honourable and distinguished rank of co-workers with him, and the care of souls has been committed to you. We know that it is only necessary to intimate to you that the Board of Managers of the Reformed Dutch Church Missionary Society have need of your co-operation to enable them to answer the pressing calls of the destitute parts of our Church. Let our records swell with the glad news of auxiliaries, new auxiliaries coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Another source from which the parent Institution anticipates, with no small pleasure, to draw succour and strength to aid her in the glorious cause of disseminating truth, is the MAGAZINE published under the auspices and direction of the Synod of the Reformed Dutch Church; its price, One Dollar and Fifty Cents per year, has placed it within the power of every family to become possessed of this record of Evangelical truth. Be up and doing. Has the past year found you active? Look back, and see if there are not seasons on which you can put your finger and say. This might have been more profitably employed? Here I have omitted urging my neighbour to cast in his mite to the furtherance of the Gospeland thus, by a candid review, ascertain in what you may be instrumental this year in advancing the cause of your Master.

Brethren,-You have a great work before you; and the sphere of time allotted for the performance is, in comparison, but an inch.

In conclusion-We earnestly request the pastors and others who procured the subscriptions in the country, to forward what is due for the Magazine. We have hitherto abstained from claiming more than $1 50 cents for each copy. But in every case where we are put to the expense of employing an agent to collect, we must exact the full amount we are entitled to from those who have not paid on delivery of the sixth number—that is, two dollars. We beg leave once more to say, that those who forward their subscription money even now, free of expense, will be charged only one dollarand fifty cents. We hope that this earnest and candid appeal will be listened to by all our friends and readers.

Auxiliary Societies-Those congregations that have formed societies auxiliary to the Reformed Dutch Church Missionary Society, will pe pleased to forward, by the earliest opportunity, the names of each of their societies, its officers, the number of its members, &c. to the office of the Domestic Agent, at the corner of Nassau and Ann streets, New-York.-And we do indulge the hope that every one of our ministers, who loves our Reformed Zion, will, with deep solemnity, lay it as a duty on his conscience, to use every means to have at least one Auxiliary Missionary Society in that Church over which his Lord has made him an overseer.

NOTICE.

Proprietors of magazines, newspapers, &c. with whom we have been in the habit of exchanging, and who have sent them to us at New-Brunswick, will, in future, forward them to New-York; as the office of the Editor of this Magazine has been permanently located at this place; and let all LETTERS to the Editor (post paid) be forwarded as above.

For the Magazine of the Reformed Dutch Church.

PRAYER.

For the Magazine of the Reformed Dutch Church.

HYMN,

Written for the Catechumens of the Reformed Dutch Church, under the pastoral charge of the Rev. G. R. Livingston.

BY THOMAS PORTER.

Religious Communications.

A New-Year's Sermon, by the Rev. Mr. J. Ferris, of Albany.

PRACTICAL SERMONS.

No. XII.

"This year thou shalt die."-JER. xxviii. 16.

ment grieving that their cisterns are lying in broken fragments around them.

And has this distinction marked the dispensations of the past year? Ah! no: it has been a year of alternate joy and grief. Many a one saw its commencement in the midst of congratulations; they were happy in its progress; but at its close, they were clad in sackcloth. Others, with hearts deeply grieving over some re

But has the fleeting year brought nothing but ill? No. It has been a I congratulate you, my dear friends, year of joy to many-of joy where on being permitted to see the first God has made his loving kindness day of a new year. This is an inte- known-of joy to that soul now singresting moment in our lives. A pe-ing, "is not this a brand plucked riod has passed, crowded with events from the fire ?"—to that house where of the most momentous character.— salvation has come-of joy to the During the past year, what fountains souls of our friends, who have wingof grief have been opened! Death, ed their way from this world of sin to busy, restless, cruel death, has been the presence of Jesus. fearfully at work! He has laid low many a venerable head-he has seized as his victims, many a vigorous youth! And the insatiable grave has enclosed in its dreary environs, hearts that beat high with expectation, and hands which "the rod of empire might have swayed." The eye that sparkled with kindness, the cheek of beauty, the voice which warbled so sweet-cent loss, were sickened and pained ly, the tongue on which dwelt the accents of tenderness, where are they? Our grave-yards must answer! The step of the husband, that spoke protection and comfort to the family-the voice of the beloved wife, that cheered the desponding heart, and alleviated the burden of life-the smile of the lovely infant, which stole away hours of pain, have, in many a tenement, ceased forever! Perhaps there are some of my readers at this moVOL. I.-46.

by the bustle and joyous confusion of the last new-year's day-now theirs is the hearty congratulation.

What a

In all these things, you have, my dear friends, borne some part. Look back: through what varied and trying scenes have we come! mighty deliverer has conducted us thus far! I congratulate you. I wish you all a "Happy New-Year."

Ah! I know the eventful character of this infant year; 'tis like the years

that are past! Bearing this in mind, I would not spend your time in idle wishes; but, as a servant of God, endeavour to furnish such instruction as, by divine blessing, will secure you all needful comfort this year. With this view, the passage before cited has been chosen-"This year thou shalt die."

This text stands in a peculiar connexion-we should note it. During the captivity of Judah, false prophets arose in the land, who set themselves against the true servants of God, and by their flatteries and lies endeavoured to confirm the people in their impiety. Among these, and foremost among them, was Hananiah, spoken of in this chapter. His course had been one of glaring impiety, and he did not pass without his reward, Jeremiah was directed to pronounce a fearful sentence upon him, which was fulfilled with equal fearfulness. The words of the text are a part of this

sentence.

"dust

sentence has passed upon us-
thou art, and unto dust thou shalt re-
turn,"-and from its execution no-
thing can procure us a reprieve. In
the spring-time of life, when our
hearts bound high with anticipation
of pleasure, we may esteem the evil
day as far off; but it will most assu-
redly come. All the sorrows we feel,
the pains and the diseases, with the
havock of death around us, are so
many messengers sent to warn us—
so many instruments to take down
this tabernacle.

There is here no exemption in fa-
vour of age, of rank, of preparation,
or the want of it. It is appointed
unto men once to die.
The way
we travel is the way of all flesh. The
house to which we go, is the house
appointed for all living. In the cold
embrace of the earth, rest the great
and the noble; the Alexanders, and

the Caesars of their respective days, with the humblest peasant and the meanest beggar.

And such shall continue to be the

It must be perceptible to every one that we cannot pretend to use this passage with a peremptory applica- case. However men may differ here, tion to any particular individual, but the grave shall be the common recepas suggesting a most important sub-tacle--humbling thought to men who ject of meditation to us all. And this boast of family distinctions and anshall be the plan of treating it. Sup-cestry! pose that you had incidentally opened upon this passage this morning, and, struck with its solemn import, you had made it the subject of serious reflection, how would these reflections have run? Methinks this would have been the train-"I shall certainly die. I may die this year. And what is my duty in the view of this possibility?”Now these will form the topics of this discourse.

I. We shall die. No event can be more certain. God has fixed it by an irreversible decree. While the stream of time flows on in profoundest silence, it is hurrying us to the grave. Decorated with honour's gaudy show, gratified with every reality which this world, after its fashion, can furnish, beloved, caressed, this

How solemn the truth, when brought home to our own hearts-we must die! we may expatiate on the general mortality; but here our speculations must terminate-each of us shall die. These parents, these youth, these relatives, this congregation, their pastor-each shall die-each shall be carried forth a lifeless corpse and confined, in the dark grave, to furnish a banquet for worms-to moulder into dust. After a few years at most, we shall go the way, whence we shall not return. A little time-and a new people shall occupy our seats in the sanctuary-a new pastor shall proclaim salvation to them-a new race shall enter upon the busy scenes in which we are engaged and as for us, where shall we be?

Our years fly as a tale that is told.
All that lives, is but the flower
That lifts its trembling form,
Blooms in the sun's refreshing power,
And withers in the storm.

Do we

the fondly cherished memory of their worth, and a mouldering heap of clay. Has this been the case with some dear parent-some son, some daughWith these facts before us, how aston- ter? Why may not some other paishing is it that most men are heedless rent, or son, or daughter be taken of death! "The young, the gay and this year-some hoary head be laid the busy, with what light and careless low- -some husband and wife separafeet do they move among the pleas- ted for ever? What security have any ures of this world, regardless of the of us? We cannot protract our lives grave which is under them, and the a single moment. Our life is susdangers with which they are surround-pended by a single hair. ed. How many stumble upon the sepulchre in the garden of life, before they have discovered it in their path. Our eyes are willingly turned from it, for we have not learned to look on it, without pain. We plant a thousand objects which hide it from our sight. We twine the flowers of hope, and we bend the vines of pleasure to conceal it from our view--yet death, cruel death -the grave, the insatiable grave are there. "O that men were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end."

this year.
We have commenced a period of
existence, fraught with all that variety
of circumstance which has marked
the past. Its minute detail is kept
behind the curtain of inscrutable mys-
tery. As time advances, the lot of each
will be developed: and that lot may
be death. In the case of Hananiah,
the prophet spoke with infallible cer-
tainty. In our case none but God

can

tell to whom the executioner will be sent, with the charge "cut him down". Nor is it probable that this will be the case of all-yet it is highly probable of some; and one hour then shall sum up the history of a life. At the commencement of the past year, the friends over whom we have dropped the tear of sorrow, were many of them enjoying as good health, were as full of hope as we, and thought as little of death. But they are gone. The band of endearment is sundered, and all that remains is

attempt to calculate-all will be found
against us.

rise to-morrow, because he has never
We may reason that the sun will
yet ceased to rise. But we cannot
reason so here. There is uncertain-
word of God has cut short all such
ty hanging on every moment. The
calculations in the great business of
life and death Its language is, "Be
ye
also ready;" "for he shall come as
a thief in the night"-"Boast not of
to-morrow, for thou knowest not what
a day may bring forth."

There is another consideration
which adds a dread solemnity to the
text, when applied to some among
us. Thirty millions of our race die
annually. This number is made up
from every part of the world, and
for this purpose innumerable causes
are in operation. Up to this day these
have been engaged in their sad office;
and at this moment they are engaged.
And shall they fail in their purpose?
No
Every probability is against us.
doubt it is this day recorded over
against some of us, or ours―This year
thou shalt die!

Of whom can this be said? Of you, giddy youth, who are thinking only of pleasure? You, thoughtless girl, whose great ambition is to shine as the butterfly for a season? You, unrepenting sinner, who are framing endless excuses for your unbelief and profanity? You, man of wealth, who are saying, "Soul, take thine ease?" You, careless professor, who are standing all the day idle? O! of whom