When we pray that the kingdom of God may come, we professedly resign our whole souls to the dominion of God, to have him dispossess from them all his enemies, and destroy every vestige of Satan's kingdom within us. We professedly devote all we are and all we possess to the advancement of the kingdom of grace in the world. And it is utterly inconsistent with the spirit of this petition in the Lord's prayer, for us to withhold our property, our labours, or our prayers in the good work of promoting the universal diffusion of the gospel of the kingdom, and seeking that all our racemay, by grace, be prepared for eternal glory.

In the third petition, "THY WILL BE DONE IN EARTH AS, IT IS IN HEAVEN," we are taught to pray for resignation to the providential will of God, and obedience to his preceptive will.

It is alike a dictate of reason and of revelation, that Jehovah has high and holy purposes by which he rules in the armies of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth. This is called doing his will. And the Apostle Paul declares, that God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. In this sense of the phrase, will of God, as used in the scriptures, submission and resignation are the duty of men. In every purpose of God he has wise and holy ends to be answered. We ought never to distrust the government of God. But unsanctified nature is ever prone to repine at those providences of God which interfere with worldly plans or with self-love. We should pray

eat the providential

will of God may be done towards us and in our world without resistance on the part of creatures; that every heart may respond to the language of pious Eli, when painful visitations were before him: "It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good." And since the carnal mind is enmity against God, not subject to his law, neither indeed can it be, we pray in the third petition that God would take away our evil hearts of unbelief, which incline us to depart from the living God, and give us hearts of holy submission and obedience. when we pray "thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven," we particularly desire that we may be obe

For

dient to the preceptive will of God. This is the rule of duty for creatures. The PURPOSES of God are the rule of HIS Conduct; his commandments are the rule of ours. He is worthy that every precept of his should receive cheerful and perfect obedience; that all on earth should unhesitatingly obey him as the host of Heaven do. There when the high behests of Jehovah are known, every heart and motion are quick as lightning to do his wil!. In this petition we pray that we may be entirely conformed to every one precept of God's law without exception or reserve; and that we may cordially approve that way of salvation which God has provided for fallen men. We then pray that the preceptive will of God may be universally done on earth; that there may be a knowledge of this will diffused throughout the earth, and grace given to produce universal obedience; and to crown all, we should desire that there never may be any interruption to this obedience; that no declension from that will be ever known among those who are the proper subjects of prayer.

[For the Monitor.]

AN INDIAN TALE.

Ir was the fourth hour of the evening. The sun had gone to rest in the great ocean. During that whole day his face had not been hidden by a single cloud. At this the Indians were surprized, for the extreme sultriness of the weather and the bird's prophetic invocation had promised, that the great Spirit was about to remember the parched cornfields of his children. The last gleamings of twilight splendour were still visible, when something dark appeared to rise above the summit of the western mountain. All was silent in the Indian village Mahony. The scream of a sleepless panther had died away on the hills. Struck by the unusual silence, or awed by some instinctive apprehension, the wild beasts were in their coverts. The trees of the forest stood upright. The topmost foliage gave not a sign of motion. Afar off, the waters of the Yalo-Busha were

one

heard gently murmuring over a rocky bed, or gurgling down a little cataract. The storm in all its blackness was now rapidly nearing. The thunder's dread voice, and the terrific blaze of heaven's fire made many an Indian's soul quake within him. But there was in that village through whose bosom went emotions intense-indescribable: the grandeur, the solemnity of the inimitable scene calmed not her agonized spirit. Every howl of the angry tempest,-every glow of the scathed forest-tree threw a deeper gloominess on her anticipations, and told in accents of despair, that her friends-her all were in the extremity of peril. Perhaps, the power of a woman's affections, the yearnings of maternal tenderness are never felt, with such vital warmth as when a child is exposed to the fury of a tempest. Count the horrors of a drear lonesomeness: remember the impassioned love for an only child, the absence of an affectionate husband; remove every lenitive cheering the Christian's heart in the day of rebuke, and then there will be a faint picture of those bitter forebodings experienced by this Indian female. Very soon the rain fell in such unvarying and impetuous streams, that it seemed as if desolation's finger would be left alone to mark the ravages. Convulsed and maddened by fiercely driven winds, the Yalo-Busha's current rose and widened and hastened onward with fearful velocity. Over these disturbed waters and a low prairie ground, which the swellings of the Yalo-Busha very often inundated, lay the path of the Indian and his daughter.

The little girl, a sweet youth of ten years, for twenty moons, had been an inmate of a mission family. There her playful sprightliness had not wasted its strength in roaming the woods, or watching the success of the savage's fish-line There her beautifully coloured eyes had been directed to other objects than the tomahawk's crimson edge, or the bloody mementos of relentless warfare. On that consecrated spot, her young bosom first panted for the delights of civilized society, first reciprocated with the smile of affection, the tenderness of the white lady's instruction. Above all, she was there

of sun

taught, that her soul would live, after the ray light had ceased to play in the waters of her father's land. When told of the kindness of a Saviour, penitential tears stood in her eye-silent evidence, that a child, born in the depths of Mississippi's wilds, would become a sparkling gem in the crown of imperishable glory.

After having given proofs of extraordinary mental ability, and a most winning sweetness of disposition, her father, a chief of considerable rank, arrived at the mission house, for the purpose of taking his daughter home on a visit. She manifested much pleasure at seeing him, gave a feeling adieu to her associates and instructors, and accompanied her father towards the setting

sun.

The greater part of their journey was through a thickly wooded forest, pervious only to the savage.

The awful commingling of light and shade, the lonely ray ever and anon revealing the mouldered leaf or the shadowed evergreen, the pensive echo from the note of the wood-land bird, and the purling streamlet displaying on its surface the fallen beauties of a hundred different trees-all these disclose one source, whence the son of nature has drawn the wildness of his charming descriptions. Here, my Narowna, said the enraptured Indian, was the hunting ground of your fathers. Here was the nimble deer struck by the flying arrows of the red hunter. Under these shades was the bloody hatchet buried, and the smoke of the pipe of peace told the good Spirit, that his children were happy. But the sun has drowned those days in the deep ocean. Never more will these high trees carry up to the land of souls the song of triumph. The white men are driving the Indians far beyond the river of the west. My father, said Narowna, her little eyes kindling into more than mortal brightness, the star of peace is rising on our land. Oh praise the great Spirit, the white men are not all enemies of the Indians. A journey of many moons, through the woods, and over the rivers, the good missionaries are come to teach us the way of life. In their talk to us, they said that Jesus Christ a great many moons ago came down from the country of the blessed to take

away the thorns and briers from the path of the warrior. He brought into this world the book of truth. In that book there is much talk about heaven-a glorious place, where all men, who have repented of their sins and believed in the Saviour, will go as soon as their bodies are cold and dead. Hark! the voice of the great

Father.

The thunder, more and more audible, now seemed to rock the very ground. The darkness, as they emerged from the thick wood to the prairie, was scarcely less appalling, for the cloud was rolling its black front over the whole sky.

Many of the tender affections of our nature are possessed in all their warmth by the Indian. He traverses the lone forest, and as he wraps himself at night with his blanket, he remembers his home, and implores the good Spirit to protect his family. When lifting the bloody tomahawk over the children of his enemy, he thinks of his own little son, and the warm feeling at his heart stays the blow. Though he has been doomed to walk in a path, where the light is as the shadow of death, though ferocity has been his watch-word in the hour of battle, and revenge has lighted within him its raging fires, yet how pleasant is the reflection, that the Indian's heart is no stranger to the sensibilities of our nature. As it respects our hopes for the future, how consoling is the fact, that our western Indians are not at all familiar with that brutality and cannibalism which appear to be the chief delight, of some savage nations, and which have almost withered in their bosom every feeling of humanity.

The Indian chief felt how strong is a father's love, as he clasped his Narowna to his bosom, and pursued his way over the prairie. A darkness, which might be felt, enveloped them, save when the lurid glare of the lightning for a moment revealed the horrors of their situation. The waters were fast rising around them, and roaring before them, yet still the Indian resolutely moved forward, for despair was gathering its energies to assist him. "The thoughts of home rushed on his nerves and called their vigour forth." The dear ob