ONE can not live in the habit of prayer without acquiring familiarity with the spirit of devotion which indicates to others that he is a praying man. A true Christian can generally infer, both from the language and the manner of nominal prayer, whether the suppliant is in the habit of frequent communion with God. The best illustration of this is given by Hugh Miller, in his great work on the "Headship of Christ:" 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 the execution of Major Andre, and the indignation of the British, exasperated almost to madness by the event, had not yet cooled down. There was, however, no direct proof against the Highlander. He had been seen in the grey of the twilight stealing out from a clump of underwood that bordered on one of the huge forests which at that period covered much the greater part of the United Provinces, 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 few words. He had stolen away from his fellows, he said, to spend an hour in private prayer. "Have you been in the habit of spending hours in private prayer?" sternly asked the officer, himself a Scotchman and a Presbyterian. The Highlander replied in the affirmative. "Theu" said the other, drawing out his watch, "never in all your life had you more need of prayer than now; kneel down, sir, and pray aloud, that we may all hear you." The Highlander, in the expectation of instant death, knelt down. His prayer was that of one long acquainted with the appropriate language in which the Christian addresses his God. It breathed of imminent peril, and earnestly implored the divine interposition in the threatened danger,—the help of Him who, in times of extremity, is strong to deliver. It exhibited in short, a man who, thoroughly conversant with the scheme of redemption, and fully impressed with the necessity of a personal interest in the advantages which 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 as he concluded, "you have, I dare say, not been in correspondence with the enemy to-night." "His statement," he continued, addressing himself to the other officers, is undoubtedly correct. No one could have prayed so without a long apprenticeship; fellows who have never attended drill always get on ill at review."