406 VAIN EXCUSES FOR most important. They acknowledge, if men have time to spare, they cannot spend it better ; but they have no time. It is, indeed, a duty, but a duty not to be compared with that of the court, the bar, the public office, the counting-house, or the shop. Now, in pleading for the importance of the one, we should be the last to detract from that of the other. We only plead for their entire compatibility. We pass over the instance of Daniel, a man of business and a statesman, and of many other public characters, recorded in Scripture, and confine ourselves to the example of Nehemiah. He was not only an officer in the court of the greatest king of the East, but it was his duty to be much in the royal presence. He was, on a particular occasion, under deep affliction ; for Jerusalem was in ruins ! On a certain day his sadness was so great, as to be visible to the king, at whose table he was attending. The monarch enquired the cause of
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