r efficacy, it was just the restoration of the Jewish captives to the
land and city of their fathers. And yet, so far from supposing that
there was no place for prayer to occupy, among the various means that
were employed to bring about that event, it was just his firm belief in
the nearness and certainty of it that set Daniel upon fervent and
persevering supplications for its accomplishment.... With regard to the
rank which Daniel's prayer occupied among the various means or agencies
that were to be employed in bringing about the object of it, he had good
reason to believe that it was neither without a definite place, nor in
itself devoid of efficacy.... He had been honored to vindicate the power
and assert the supremacy of the Lord God of Israel; by the wisdom of his
counsels and the weight of his personal character, he had paved the way
for that decision in favor of the people of God to which the King of
Persia was soon to be brought; and the whole business of his active and
most laborious life was made to bear on the interests and the liberation
of his afflicted brethren. And if God had thus assigned to _the outward
actions_ of His servant an important place in carrying into effect His
thoughts of peace towards his penitent people, is it conceivable that He
had no place in that scheme for _the holy and spiritual_ efforts of the
same servant? or that the aspirations of a sanctified spirit, the
travailing of a soul intent upon the accomplishment of the Divine will
and the manifestation of the Divine glory, should be less efficient or
less essential in the execution of the Divine counsels, than the outward
and ordinary agency of human actions? The whole tenor and the most
explicit declarations of Scripture stand opposed to such a supposition;
nor can I understand how a devout mind should have any difficulty in
conceiving that it must be so. The agency of _prayer_ is, indeed, a less
obvious and palpable thing than that outward cooeperation whereby mankind
are rendered subservient to the accomplishment of the Divine purposes.
But is it not an agency of an unspeakably loftier character? Is it not
the cooeperation of an immortal spirit, bearing the impress of the Divine
image, and at the moment acting in unison with the Divine will? Is it
not befitting the character of God to set upon that cooeperation a
special mark of His holy approbation, by assigning to it a more elevated
place among the secondary causes which He is pleas