The Highlander's Prayer.
By Hugh Miller
A Scotch Highlander, who served in the first disastrous war with the American colonies, was brought before the commanding officer one evening charged with the capital offense of being in communication with the enemy. The charge could not well be preferred at a more dangerous time. Only a few weeks had elapsed since Major Andre had been executed, and the indignation of the British, exasperated almost to madness by this event, had not yet cooled down. There was, however, no direct proof against the Highlander. He had been seen in the gray of the twilight stealing out from a clump of underwood that bordered on the forests which at that period covered the greater part of the United Colonies, and which, in the immediate neighborhood of the British, swarmed with the troops of Washington. All the rest was mere inference and conjecture. The poor man's defense was summed up in a very few words. He had stolen away from his fellows, he said, to spend an hour or two in secret prayer. "Have you been in the habit of spending hours in secret prayer?" sternly asked the officer, himself a Scotchman. The Highlander replied in the affirmative. "Then," said the officer, drawing out his watch, "never in all your life had you more need for prayer than now; kneel down, sir, and pray aloud that we may hear you." The Highlander, in expectation of instant death, knelt down. His prayer was that of one long acquainted with the appropriate language in which the Christian addressed his God. It breathed an imminent peril, and earnestly implored the divine interposition in the threatening danger—the help of Him who in times of extremity is strong to deliver. It exhibited, in short, a man who was thoroughly conversant with the scheme of redemption, and fully impressed with the necessity of personal interest in the advantages it secures, had made the business of salvation the work of many a solitary hour, and had in consequence acquired much fluency in expressing all his various wants as they occurred, and his thoughts and wishes as they arose. "You may go, sir," said the officer, when he concluded; "you have, I dare say, not been in correspondence with the enemy to-night." "His statement," he continued, addressing himself to the officers, "is undoubtedly correct. No one could have prayed so without a long apprenticeship; fellows who never attend drill always get ill at review."