k, and, lo! he
came upon all the fulness of the Godhead bodily treasured up in Christ,
and all that fulness offered in return for simple surrender of himself.

Surprised by the greatness of the treasure, he suspects at first that
there must be some mistake; but when he becomes convinced of its
reality, his resolution is instantly taken, and the transaction
irrevocably closed. Like the merchant rejoicing in his fortune is a
believer who has found peace with God: henceforth he is rich. He does
not need now to huckster in small bargains between his conscience and
the divine law every day, and struggle to diminish the ever-increasing
amount of guilt by getting small entries of merit marked on the other
side of the page. All this is past. He is in Christ Jesus, and to him,
therefore, there is now no condemnation.

The treasurer of the Ethiopian Queen was precisely such a merchant.
Before he left home he evidently counted himself poor, and longed to
possess the true riches: before he left home he was aware that a man is
not profited although he gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul.
It was an oppressive sense of poverty that compelled him to travel. He
occupied the highest office in a kingdom; he stood on the steps of the
throne, and had charge of the royal treasury; but he counted himself
poor notwithstanding. He must go in search of more precious pearls than
these. Peace of conscience, righteousness, hope for eternity,--these are
goodlier pearls than any that can be found in Ethiopia; and the man
undertakes a journey to Jerusalem to try if he can find them there.
Disappointed there, he was on his way home, seeking still for the
pearls, and seeking near the very spot in the Scriptures where the one
priceless pearl lay, when Philip met him. By the Evangelist's skilful
help he found it then and there; but when he found it at last, it was
much more precious than he had ventured to expect. "He was led as a lamb
to the slaughter." "Of whom speaketh the prophet this?" inquired the
Ethiopian, "of himself, or of some other man?" Some subordinate benefit
he was contemplating,--the suffering of some good man, perhaps, as an
example to his brethren. Even that, as being something that might
contribute to the peace of his soul, he was glad to hear of, and would
gladly buy, that he might add it to his stock of goodly pearls. But when
Philip, beginning from that scripture, "preached to him Jesus," he found
that the lamb led to the