Daniel prayed three times a day, and, more than that, he had a particular place for praying, and a particular window at which he prayed, and a specific point on the western horizon towards which his devotions were directed. All of this was quite mechanical and formal ; and yet we remember that Daniel was an exceedingly safe man in an emergency. The movements in the astronomic heavens are all of them along lines of mathematical precision, which at the first look may appear to rob the firmament and the dances of the stars of something of their poetry and song ; and yet the fact, cold and unmelodious though it may be, enables us to compute the right ascension and declination of those stars for any given moment of the day, year, or century, which is something. Daniel was perhaps more methodical than poetic ; but it is some- thing to be able to forecast a man's latitude and longitude. The clock-work element in Daniel's religion was quite conspicuous, and yet it is worth a good deal to have a man in trying times that will tick the minutes as distinctly as he, and strike with so full a ring when the hour comes round. It is good to have men who run so close with the sun that when it is foggy you can tell what time it is by looking in their faces.
Tj The devout, diligent practice of regular and unhurried Secret Prayer is needed if only to protect and develop the freedom
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and the truth of habitual secret communion with God. And the momentary acts, anywhere and everywhere, of inmost heart inter- course with the ever present Lord are needed if only to keep burning the soul's altar-fire, that it may glow both more promptly and more brightly when we shut ourselves in with Him at the stated hour.1
1| It seems needless to say we must have fixed times for prayer; that is obvious, but the difficulty lies in a thorough appreciation of the need for a fixed rule as to its practice and its diligent observance. The whole question of prayer is one of grace, and not unfrequently grace is most specially given where there is the most punctual obedience. Unless we adhere faithfully to our appointed hours of prayer, we are apt to be seeking self rather than God, and there is no slight danger that our time will be lost ; indeed, were there no other benefit in a habit of punctuality, that of constantly giving up self-will would be great. It may be that when the appointed hour for prayer arrives, we are not inclined to pray, or chance circumstances would lead us to postpone the duty, and unless we persevere, we will soon acquire a habit of following our own inclinations, and our prayers will be regulated by mere taste or impulse ; we will fall into the error of mistaking feeling for grace; our devotions will probably be curtailed, for when the right time has been let slip it is not easily replaced, and if we feel at liberty to choose our own times of prayer, we will no doubt also feel free to shorten our devotions. It is but a step further, if we have no definite rule, to give up all regular prayer. Without the help of grace weariness inevitably creeps in, and if we have no imperative rule to obey, we will surely be tempted to throw aside an irksome duty.2
3. The praying-place of Daniel's chamber was in a different quarter from that of all the rest of the world. All the rest of the world looked eastward ; he looked westward. The west was to them the region of death and darkness, while the east was the region of life and light. But to Daniel the west was the region of hope and new life. Salvation was to come not from the sunrise, but from the sunset, from the dark national calamities that were to endure for a night, while joy was to come in the morning, when the discipline of the darkness had purified and prepared his people for the light.
TJ Sun-worship was an abomination to the Jews ; and there-
1 H. C. G. Moule, Secret Prayer, 13. 2 Self-Renunciation, 72.
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fore the arrangements both in the Tabernacle and Temple were such as to cause the worshippers to face not towards the east, but towards the west, in the functions of religion. Such also was the practice of the Jews in the synagogue when the Temple disappeared after the destruction of Jerusalem ; and by setting their faces in an opposite direction to that of the heathen worshippers of the sun, they attested their abhorrence of that worship. And hence the significance of the vision of Ezekiel, in which he saw, with horror-stricken eyes, a number of worshippers standing at the door of the temple of God, between the porch and the altar, with their faces towards the east, worshipping the rising sun in that quarter. This attitude implied that they had turned their back upon the Temple, and all the holy worship that was carried on in it ; that they had forsaken the living and true God, and gone back to the idolatries of the heathen.1
4 The captive Jew of old in Babylon looked to the hills of Palestine. His desire was to them; his hope was from them. All the help that he expected to get in the world was to be derived from them. But the hills to which we are commanded and encouraged to look are higher than any earthly hills, and nearer too. We have to seek help from the highest source ; and the highest source is not farthest off and most inaccessible, but nearest at hand and most easily got at. It is not hills on the remote horizon that are to give us help in our necessity, but hills that are around us, as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, closer, more impregnable, far richer in resources. Our help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. And let us remember that while His Divine presence fills immensity, His Saviour presence is peculiarly with His own.