the parables, and tracing
every feature up to all its springs, and down to all its consequences.
The power of attributing a distinct spiritual import to every light and
shadow of the picture is common; but the faculty of permitting a
subordinate accessory to drop when it has fulfilled its office, and
following stanchly on the main track, is comparatively rare.

You may, indeed, find instances in which a man, awakened and persuaded
of the preciousness of Christ, has kept all silent within his own breast
until he has made his own calling and election sure; but in these cases
the secrecy is by no means prompted by a fear that to publish the secret
were to lose the treasure; and in many other examples the discoverer,
during the continuance of his efforts to obtain possession, publishes
the secret to the world, and enters at last into his heritage in
presence of many witnesses. The discoverer of Christ's preciousness is
like the discoverer of hid treasure, in his ultimate aim, but not in his
mediate methods. Concealment would not help him to possession, and
therefore he does not uniformly or necessarily take pains to conceal.

5. He parts with all in order that he may acquire the treasure. This is
the turning-point of the parable, and the turning-point too of that
which the parable represents,--the conversion of sinners,--the saving of
the lost. The picture, being framed of earthly materials, fails on one
point to represent the idea of the Lord. When the man had converted all
his property into money, and offered the net proceeds for the field, his
offer was accepted as adequate, and the property was conveyed to him in
return for value received. The transaction which takes place in
redemption between a sinful man and God his Saviour is essentially
different. Although it is true on the one side that in accepting pardon
we must and do surrender all to Christ, pardon is, notwithstanding,
bestowed as a free gift. Our self-surrender does not in any sense or
measure give to God an equivalent for that which in the covenant he
bestows on his own. The same two things occur, indeed, in the natural
and in the spiritual spheres, but they occur in the reverse order. The
price which the buyer offers induces the possessor to give him the
property; on the contrary, on the spiritual side it is the free gift of
the treasure by the Proprietor that induces the receiver to part with
all that he has to the Giver. In one aspect the acquisition of t