, the "joy thereof" had not been kindled in his cold, calculating
heart. His love of earthly riches was too strong to yield to the
suggestions of prudence, or the fear of a future judgment. The love of
the old portion will yield to nothing but love of the new; and love of
the new he had never felt.

The case of Paul supplies an exact contrast. A learned Pharisee,
conscious of a power that would one day place the highest dignities at
his disposal, he was a man of great and manifold possessions. A curious
and interesting inventory of his goods has been preserved like a fossil
in the Scriptures (Phil. iii. 5, 6). These things he highly valued and
fondly loved; but another and opposing love came against them, and the
strong man succumbed to the stronger. "What things were gain to me,
these I counted loss for Christ:" he parted with all and purchased the
newly discovered treasure; but it was "for joy thereof." He went into
the transaction not driven by dread, but drawn by the expectation of a
greater joy.

It is thus that men buy an incorruptible treasure; it is thus that men
win Christ. They deceive themselves who try how cheaply they may get to
heaven,--how much of their idol they may retain and yet be safe in the
judgment. The man who was "sorrowful" when the two portions were set
before him for his choice, "went away." As long as peace with God in his
Son, labelled with its price, "All that you have," makes us sorry that
the boon is held so dear, we will never obtain the boon: when the sight
of it, price and all, sends a flash of more than earthly joy into the
soul, then we shall bound forward, leaving all behind, and win Christ.

VI.

THE PEARL.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking
goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went
and sold all that he had, and bought it."--MATT. xiii. 45, 46.

So closely allied are these two parables, that if we had regarded
repetition as a formidable blemish in our lessons, we would not have
proposed to expound them separately and successively. The two lines are
coincident throughout their whole length, except at one point; but there
the diversity is broadly marked, amounting in one aspect to a specific
contrast. In view of this difference on the one hand, and of the example
of the Lord on the other, I think it right to open and apply the parable
of the pearl as fully as if the parable of the hidden treasure had no