ROBERT MACLEOD’S PRAYER.

. An Anecdote of Ross-shire. ROBERT MACLEOD was an honest and ardent Christian, and lived in Killearnan, Ross-shire, and was much given to prayer. The story of his first prayer in Donald Macpherson’s family is worthy of repeating. To Robert’s bewilderment, his host abruptly asked him to pray at family worship, during a visit which he paid him. He dare not refuse; so turning on his knees, and addressing his Creator, he said—“Thou knowest that though I have bent my knees to pray to Thee, I am much more under the fear of Donald Macpherson than under the fear of Thyself.” Not, perhaps, a bad beginning. It was at once earnest and honest. A remarkable instance of Robert’s warm love to the brethren, and of his nearness to God in prayer, has been often repeated, and is undoubtedly true. The case of the godly John Grant was pressed closely on his spirit, along with an impression of his being in temporal want. He was strongly moved to plead with God for “daily bread,” for His child, and so constantly was he thinking of him for three days, that at mid-day of the fourth, he resolved to set out for John’s house, and he gave himself little rest till he reached it. Full of the impression that stirred him from home, he arrived at the house, and entering it, went at once to the place where the meal-chest used to be, and to his astonishment, found it nearly full. “This is a strange way, Robert, of coming into a friend’s house,” John said, as he advanced to salute him; “were you afraid I had no food to give you, if you should remain with me to-night?” “No,” was Robert’s answer, “but that meal-chest gave me no small trouble for the last few days; but if I had known it was so far from being empty, as I find it is, you had not seen me here to-day.” “When did you begin to think of it?” John inquired. Robert mentioned the day and the hour when his anxiety about his friend began. “Well, Robert,” John said, “the meal-chest was then as empty as it could be; but how long were you praying that it might be filled?” “For three days and a half I could scarcely think of anything else,” Robert answered. “O what a pity,” his friend said, “you did not complete the prayers of the fourth day; for on the first I got a boll of meal, another on the second, and a third on the following; but, on the fourth day, only half a boll arrived, but now you are come yourself, and I count you better than them all.” Then, rejoicing in each other’s love, and in the love of their Father in heaven, who heareth the cry of the needy, they warmly embraced each other.