And now, lest there should be complaint of time wasted on such reading as this, I shall add but two other points. One of these, stated by Rothe, is the advice that it is most desirable not to take up one’s time with the details of one’s business affairs. Even if this is not altogether possible, one may, if he wish it, greatly reduce the care of details of administration, and live in a world of larger and happier thoughts. The other point, which has even more practical significance, is this: Limit yourself to that which you really know and which has been especially committed to your care. For your special task you will almost always have time enough. An Old Testament saying states it even more plainly: “He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough.” As to the things which do not concern one’s special calling, but which have a certain significance in the world and a certain importance for culture, it may be necessary for one, once in his life, to acquire a superficial survey of them by a glance at the best original sources. One should thereafter leave these matters alone and not concern himself with them further. Finally, in this enumeration of the things which waste one’s time, I may add that one must not permit himself to be overburdened with superfluous tasks. There are in our day an infinite number of these,--correspondence, committees, reports, and not the least, lectures. All of them take time, and it is extremely probable that nothing will come of them. When the Apostle Paul was addressing the Athenians, he remarked that they did nothing else than to hear some new thing. It was not the serious part of his address, or its spiritual quickening, to which they gave their attention, it was its novelty; and the outcome of his sermon was simply that some mocked, and the most friendly said with patronizing kindness: “We will hear thee again of this matter.” Indeed, the reporter of the incident finds it necessary to mention expressly, that one member of the Athenian City-Council and one woman in the audience received some lasting good from the Apostle’s address. How is it, let me ask you, with yourselves? Have the lectures which you have heard been to you in any way positive influences of insight and decision, or have they been merely the evidences of the speaker’s erudition?