Our reasons for thinking that the business man would not
prove a success in the work of government were many, but they cannot be better expressed than in the words of the inspired writer of Ecclesias- ticus. He put the whole matter with extraordinary zest and prescience :-
" The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure : and he that hath little business shall become wise. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is o-icupied in their labours, and whose talk is of bullocks ? He giveth his mind to make furrows ; and is diligent to give the kine fodder. So every carpenter and workmastcr, that laboureth night and day : and they that cut and grave seals, and are diligent to make great variety, and give themselves to counterfeit imagery, and watch to finish a work : The smith also sitting by the anvil, and considering the iron work, the vapour of the fire wasteth his flesh, and he fighteth with the heat of the furnace : the noise of the hammer and the anvil is ever in his ears, and his eyes look still upon the pattern of the thing that he maketh ; he setteth his mind to finish his work, and watcheth to polish it perfectly : So cloth the potter sitting at his work, and turning the wheel about with his feet, who is alway carefully set at his work, and maketh all his work by number ; He fashioneth the clay with his arm, and boweth down his strength before his feet ; he applieth himself to lead it over ; and he is diligent to make clean the furnace : All these trust to their hands : and every one is wiso in his work. Without these cannot a city be inhabited ; an i they shall not dwell where they will, nor go up and down : They shall not be sought for in publick counsel, nor sit high in the congregation : they shall not sit on the judges' scat, nor understand the sentence of judgment : they cannot declare justice and judgment ; and they shall not be found where parables arc spoken. But they will maintain the state of the world, and [all] their des:re is in the work of their craft."—(Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 24-34.)
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