SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 27 May 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

{T}y the late

REV. A. H. COLLINS

THE WINDOWS OPEN TOWARD JERUSALEM.

“Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; , and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks to his God, as he did aforeUme '' -Daniel, VI., 10. This was a perfectly typical act of a thoroughly typical man. No one who has studied' their national story can fail to see that the Hebrews were devotedly attached to the land and the faith of their fathers. They were not great builders. In music and art they had no leadership. Their commerce lacked volume. Invention and discovery were not their strong points. The only contribution they made to tire literature of the world is that contained in the Sacred Oracles. But, as Ewald says, “They had a genius for religion.” Read the story of their religious faith, as that story is told in the Psalms and the Prophets, if you would ,see to what lofty heights of religious fervour their love of temple and priesthood carried them. Read the story of the Maccabeus if you would know to how great a pitch of sublime heroism this Jewish faith and patriotism lifted some of her sons. No Mohammedan pilgrim ever sought his sacred Itlecca, no Indian devotee ever longed for his sacred river with greater ardour than the Jewish exile desired the day when he should once more join the happy throng of those who kept the holy day in the city and shrine of his fathers. So that when Daniel opened his window and prayed three times a day, looking towards Zion, he did what every devout and patriotic son of Israel would have done under similar circumstances. There was no bravado, no ostentation, no contempt of the King’s Edict. Daniel was no fanatic, no headstrong zealot, but the wisest, the most diplomatic of statesmen, and the fur-thest-sighted of men. Calmly, deliberately, and with no false pride or miscalculation of the danger involved, he went into his house, and, his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he knelt upon his knees three times ’ a day and prayed. He simply performed his daily. religious duty, undaunted and unafraid. It had been his habit to pray, to pray looking towards the city of the Great King, and he kept it up. It was'the self-same spirit which, in after ages, in an hour of equal peril, drew'from two intrepid apostles the gallant avowal: “We ought to obey God rather than men.” There was no balancing of consequences, no thought of weak and wicked compromise. With the swift instinct of loyal hearts, the path of duty was chosen and followed. A Voice which could not be denied said: “Make no change; yield not for a single moment; move not a yard; hold on and hold out.” This detracts nothing from the bravery of Daniel or the Apostles. ! THE SEVEREST TESTS. The severest tests of religious principle are not those that meet us in the great emergencies of life, but such as fall to our lot in the daily round and common task. It is comparatively easy to play the hero amid the excitement of battle; it is the patient, unheralded fidelities that put a strain on the best of us. ! I suppose, if anyone who prided himself on being above sentiment and severely practical, had questioned Daniel on the reason for his look towards Jerusalem, the only answer he could have given would have been scouted as totally inadequate. What difference could it make which way a man turned' when he prayed? God is not a local deity. His dwelling is neither east nor west. “He tents within the lowly heart and shepherds every thought.” If a man must look somewhere, let him look up. Let us get rid of flabby sentimentalism in- religion- Take Dr. Johnson’s advice and “clear our mind of cant.” It sounds all right, but you cannot dismiss the subject in that airy fashion. > Habits both show and make the man. Habits are at once history and prophecy. Habits, are the mirror -of the man as he is, and the mould of the man as he shall be. And the habit of praying with the windows open towards Jerusalem had meaning and use. It helped to keep alive in the heart of the exiles' a national sentiment and a national religion; it helped to make them patriotic, and it helped to keep them pure. MATERIALISM FLOURISHED. Daniel's lot was cast in the midst of a people far-famed for vast material possessions, a people drunk with the wine of battle, a‘people rich, proud, godless. On every hand were the signs of extensive trade, successful war, and delirious pleasure, but of the vital virtues, and simple practical goodness, not a trace or tittle. The material flourished, the spiritual languished to the point of death. What, then, saved this Puritan of "■ Babylon from the deadening influence of, this vast' and obtrusive materialism ? Wtyat kept him, and his fellows in captivity, from becoming mere airy bubbles drifting on the stream of godless pleasure ? What was the power which saved them from being sucked under in the whirling maelstrom of a conquest-loving people, and helped them -so to use the hour of trial and adversity that, when 1 they came out of captivity into their own national possession, it found them for the first time rid of idolatry and devoted to a pure monotheistic faith ? What, I say, effected this national regeneration 1 The answer is plain. It was the habit of daily prayer. It was the fond and faithful recollection of the City of Solemnities. It was reverence for conscience, for truth, for God. Jerusalem was kept sacred to their thoughts and affections, for there stood the Temple, the Law, and the Mercy-seat. Jerusalem stood for the sanctities of life; it stood for the unseen realities of the Soul and religion. The memory of these great things was kept fresh by the daily recall and the fixed hours of devotion, and the constantly revived and refreshed thoughts on these sacred tilings ultimately issued in a regenerated nation and a revived and rebuilt Temple. The daily and oft-repeated look toward Jerusalem ended in their dwelling within its sacred confines. THE FALL OF BABYLON. But Babylon the great has fallen. That wonder of the ancient world, with all its splendors, with its successive dynasties, its deified despots, and its stern, unchanging has been engulfed in the abyss which sooner or later entombs all earthly pomps and pageants. But Babylon has- its counterpart in every age, and is the type of that world which assails our hearts with its subtle and imperious spell. Our presence in this church to-day may, I suppose, be taken to mean that we are not utterly indifferent to the spiritualities of life. We are not atheists, we are not materialists, we are not agnostics, we are at least nominally Christians. We recognise in some degree the Unseen-'and Eternal. We confess that "man shall not live by bread

alone.” We admit that for any man to be obsessed by what Saint Paul calls “the beggarly elements of thip life, is as though a man should build a house minus windows! If we are to be saved from becoming the slaves of materialism, if we are to be something else, and something better than the butterflies of fashion, if eating and drinking and dreaming are not to become the. chief end of life, if we are to have one flash of poetry, one ray of heaven’s P ur ® light, one stave of music in our sordid life, if tire thought of God is not to fade out of the soul, if we are indeed the sons and daughters of the Almighty, and would live as such, then we must do as Daniel and the children of the Captivity did, we must at all cost keep the soul open towards those great, august, spiritual realities of which Jerusalem was the shadow and the type. THE PRESENT DRIFT OF THINGS. There is no need to attempt to institute a comparison between the Babylon of Daniel’s day and ours. There is no need to vilify our brother men or call the world hard and insulting names. But the facts are patent. The drift of things is against an elevated tone of life, against a rich and fruitful religious experience. The set of the current is in the opposite direction. There is no need to cultivate a spirit of hostility to religion, any more than there is need for a boatman, who is going with the tide, to toil at the labouring oar. You have only to omit thought and care for highest things, you have only to neglect to cultivate a spirit of friendliness to religion and religious ordinances, you have only to cease to practise the presence of God, and you will certainly and swiftly drift away from them. To put the same truth another way, you have only to stop using the present and the available helps and hours of a devout life, and you will discover that a devout life is no longer your prized, possession. And is there one of us who does not feel that this is the grave peril, of the hour ? Is there one of us who does not feel, and feel increasingly with growing years, the humiliation of being coarsened and deadened by the things about us? Our ideals are filched from us, our dreams lie scattered, dur efforts are frustrated. We not only fight against foes visible and formidable, but we breathe an atmosphere that relaxes, enervates and chokes the soul. There are times when it seems almost useless to struggle against the present order of tilings, and we are inclined .to let the current have its way and carry us whither it will, while we retain our pious opinions but conform to the evil world. NEGLECT OF THE SOUL. The facts are admitted. Much that is called modem doubt and the decay of faith is simply the result of the neglect of the finer feelings and faculties of the souk It is spiritual malnutrition. It is moral “rickets,” the result of religious starvation. Competition is fierce and cruel, the pace of life is fast, fashion is impervious, we want to be in the swim, the roar and rattle of life’s machinery has drowned the still small voice of God. The very soul of us has the dust and grime of the street on its wings. Meditation is a lost art. We are afr.aid to be alone with our Maker in the cool of the day. Action is glorified, and Society looks askance at the man who waits before God. . A prayer meeting is voted dull. We have forgotten that Bunday is the soul’s parlor day, and that' worship cleanses away the grime of life, sharpens the faculties, and enables the soul to take observation and ■ lay out the voyage towards the distant harbour.. Our religion is too fussy, too mechanical, too external. It lacks calmness and dignity and strength. But the galvanic battery is a poor substitute for the Holy Ghost. Perspiration and inspiration are not the same thing. THE REMEDY. What is the remedy? Is there a rex medy ? I know of none save that of Daniel. This man had a purpose, and this man took counsel with method. Not without meaning is it recorded that “he knelt three times a day,” and kept the windows open toward Jerusalem. Study the devotional literature of the world, and you will find that the men who were strong, living, influential, were men who took serious and constant precautions against the invasion of their best life. They did not drift into goodness. No man becomes a saint in his sleep. These ancients were not fashioned out of different stuff than we are. The tone of their life was not the result of a trick. Their growth in grace was the result of intention, practice, methodThey kept tryst with the means of grace; they cultivated the powers of the world to come. Watch yonder tightrope walker in the travelling show, and you know that behind that ten minutes’ performance in public lie months, and maybe years, of patient, persistent effort Is the pose of the soul easier than the poise of the body ? Ask any of the masters. Ask Ruskin, Stevenson, Paderewski, the secret of their success, and they will tell you they toiled terribly, scorned delights, and lived laborious days. “Seraphs have gazed for milleniums on'the perfection of the Godhead, and they are gazing still.” So he who would behold the beauty, of the Lord must tarry in His presence. Ferns of rarest beauty unfold their graceful fronds in still and sheltered places. Shells of most exquisite form and hue are fashioned in silent depths, and the most beautiful things of the soul grow in secret under the quickening touch of God. His tenderest disclosures are made to those who, John-like, choose exile from the world of noise and haste, and hush their hearts to hear “the StillSmall Voice.” “And when in silent, awe we wait, And word and sign forbear, The hinges of the golden gate „ Move soundless to our prayer.”