We are to be careful not only to be industrious, but industrious about the right things and in the right proportion. A man might slave himself to death cutting down wood or in throwing away stones, but if some other man of inferior mental faculty could be employed to do that work the superior man should turn his attention to other and nobler pursuits, and thus with smaller expenditure of strength he might be doing immeasurably greater good. If the thinker is not to degrade himself to the level of a drudge, neither is the drudge to attempt to force his way to positions for which he is not qualified. Nothing is mean that is not meanly done. The Canaanites might be as useful as the Israelites in their own way. With the eye of a statesman and with the inspiration of a genius, Solomon saw that he must distribute and classify men, and set each man to do that for which he was best fitted. Even Solomon could not do all the work alone. “And Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her; for he said: ‘My wife shall not dwell in the house of David, king of Israel, because the places are holy whereunto the ark of the Lord hath come.’” This may be taken as an instance of punctilious morality. We are not able to understand all that was involved in the incident. Evidently we are in the presence of conscience working under some eccentric law or suggestion. Yet here is a conscience, and by so much the action of Solomon is to be respected. He will not have any place or institution even ceremonially defiled. He will go back to precedents; he will consult the genius of history; he will preserve the consistency of the royal policy. Solomon felt that the ark of the Lord had sanctified every locality into which it had come, and that a broad distinction must always be maintained between heathenism and Judaism--between the idols of pagan lands and the Spirit of the living God. In these matters Solomon’s wisdom was displayed as certainly as in the greater concerns of State and Church. We are to remember that at the beginning Solomon was endowed with the spirit of wisdom and of a sound mind. The Lord quickened his sagacity and gave him that marvelous insight which enabled him to penetrate into the interiors and cores which were hidden from the scrutiny of other men. We are, therefore, to give Solomon credit for being at once wise and conscientious; we are to see in his action the working of a tender conscience. Even though he may be appeasing his conscience by some trick or ceremony, yet he is showing us the working of the moral nature within the kingly breast.