Friendship is a full, steady stream, not intermittent or spasmodic. It is not something which lasts only when each looks into the other's eyes; for "distance sometimes endears friendship, and absence sweeteneth it." It moves and expands the life even when the mind is busied with matters prosaic and vexatious, even when there is no inward contemplation of the features or character of the absent friend. And yet, although friendship does not consist in face-to-face communication one with another, it is in this that it takes its rise, it is by this that it is fed. Fellowship is not the same as friendship, but there can be no friendship without fellowship. That is to say, there must be certain definite, formal acts, acts not made once for all, but repeated as often as opportunity is given; such form the cradle and nursery of friendship. In themselves they are not much--a grasp of the hand, a smile, a simple gift, a conventional salutation, a familiar talk about familiar things--but they introduce soul to soul, and through them each gives to the other his deepest self. Friendship between man and man is no vague, intangible thing whose only reality is its name. Much less can one think thus of friendship with God. Friendship with God is the friendship of friendships. While it lives on strong and true even when we are not in conscious fellowship with Him, moments of conscious realization and contemplation of His person, character and presence are as essential to friendship with Him as food is necessary for the sustenance of life. There must be times of prayer and occasions of definite, formal approach to Him, the more the better, provided they be healthy and free. It is not an arbitrary enactment that declares morning, noonday and evening to be the moments of time when the soul of man should with peculiar intensity lift up its gaze unto the hills.[4] One recognizes immediately the inherent fitness of having conscious fellowship with God at the opening, in the middle and at the close of day. In the morning,--because man's powers are then replete with life, his will nerved to act, his eye clear to see; never is he so well able to gain a vision of God, whether in the solitude of his room or in the quiet of the Church at an early Eucharist, as in the first hours of a new day. At noon,--because the soul like the body needs a mid-day rest; the dust of activity and the distractions of business will have dimmed the morning vision before the day is full gone, and it is good to refresh the nature by again, if it be only for a brief moment, looking straight up into the face of the Most High. At night,--for the evening shadows find God's servant with soiled soul and drooping aspirations in sore need of that cleansing and cheer which the sight of God imparts.