My ear would know thy voice, though the storm were abroad with all its thunders.

"I have said that I was a king. Yet I came to thee an hungered. And thou gavest me bread. My head was wet with the tempest. Thou badest me to lie down on thy hearth, and thy son for whom thou mournest, covered me.

"I was sad in spirit. And thy little daughter, whom thou seekest with tears, sat on my knee. She smiled when I told her how the beaver buildeth his house in the forest. My heart was comforted, for I saw that she did not hate Indians.

"Turn not on me such a terrible eye. I am no stealer of babes. I have reproved the people who took the children. I have sheltered them for thee. Not a hair of their heads is hurt. Thinkest thou that the red man can forget kindness? They are sleeping in my tent. Had I but a single blanket, it should have been their bed. Take them, and return unto thy people."

He waved his hand to an attendant, and in a moment, the two children were in the arms of their father. The white men were hospitably sheltered for that night, and the twilight of the next day, bore upward from the rejoicing colony, a prayer for the heathen of the forest, and that pure praise which mingles with the music around the Throne.

THE PRAYER ON BUNKER'S HILL.

It was an hour of fear and dread,

High rose the battle cry,

And round in heavy volumes spread
The war-cloud to the sky.

'Twas not, as when in rival strength,
Contending nations meet,
Or love of conquest madly hurls
A monarch from his seat.

But many a warm cemented tie,
Was riven in anguish wild,
Ere with a foe-man's vengeful eye
The parent met the child.

O'er the green hill's beleagur'd breast,
Swept on the conflict high,
And many a gallant leader prest
The trampled turf to die.

Yet one was there unus'd to tread,

The path of mortal strife,

Who but the Saviour's flock had led

Beside the fount of life.

He knelt him where the black smoke wreath'd

His head was bow'd and bare,

While for an infant land, he breath'd

The agony of prayer.

The shafts of death flew thick and fast,

'Mid shrieks of ire and pain,

Wide wav'd his white locks on the blast,
And round him fell the slain.

Yet still with fervency intense

He prest the endanger'd spot,

The selfish thought, the shrinking sense
O'ermaster'd, and forgot.

"Twould seem as if a marble form
Wrought in some quarried height,
Stood fix'd amid that battle storm,
Save that the eye was bright.

Save that the deeply-heaving breast,
The hand uprais'd in air,

The smile, yet moving lips, exprest
That strong life wrestled there.

Then loud upon their native soil,
Peal'd forth their victor's cry,
And thinn'd beneath the desperate toil,
The wearied host swept by.

But 'mid that strange and fierce delight,
A chief of other days,

Gave up your falchions broad and bright, Your own light arms the praise.

Or thought ye still how many a prayer, Amid the deathful fray,

From cottage homes, and heads of care,
Rose up for you that day?

The column red with early morn,
May tower o'er Bunker's height,

And proudly till a race unborn
Their patriot father's might.

But thou, Oh patriot, old and grey,
Thou prophet of the free,*
Who knelt amid the dead, that day,
What fame shall rise to thee?

It is not meet that brass or stone,
Which feel the touch of time,
Should keep the record of a faith
That woke thy deed sublime.

We trace it on a tablet fair

Which glows when stars wax pale,
A promise that the good man's prayer
Shall with his God prevail.

JOTHAM'S PARABLE.

THE trees of Israel once conven'd
In conclave, strange and bold,
To choose a ruler, though the Lord
Had been their king of old.
And first, the homage of their vow
They to the Olive paid,

But she the flattering suit repell'd,
And lov'd the peaceful glade.

* During the battle of Bunker's Hill, a venerable clergyman of Massachusetts, knelt on the field, with hands upraised, and grey head uncovered, and while the bullets whistled around him, prayed for the success of his people.

Next, to the fruitful Fig they turn'd,
On Shechem's shadowy height,
And spread the gilded lures of power
Before her dazzled sight;

But shivering low, in every leaf,
As the light breeze swept by,
Ambition's sinful thought she spurn'd,
And rais'd to Heaven her eye.

So then the lowly vine they sought,
That round her trellis bound,
In sweet contentment humbly dwelt,
Belov'd by all around;

Yet, hiding 'neath her clusters broad,
With unobtrusive smile,

And clinging closer to her prop,
She 'scap'd th' insidious wile.

Then up the thorny Bramble spake
To every lofty tree,-

"Come, put your trust beneath my shade,

And I'll your ruler be."

"The Bramble-shade! the Bramble-shade! Have you forgot the day

When Midian's old oppressive yoke

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Was nobly rent away.

"My glorious sire!-Have ye forgot
How in God's strength he rose ?
And took his dear life in his hand,
And triumph'd o'er your foes?