rthy holder, the riches thereof shall be his beyond the
grave.[636]

Casuists have raised the question of propriety as to the man's course of
action in the story, inasmuch as he concealed the fact of his discovery
from the owner of the field, to whom the treasure, they say, rightly
belonged. Whatever opinion one may hold as to the ethics of the man's
procedure, his act was not illegal, since there was an express provision
in Jewish law that the purchaser of land became the legal owner of
everything the ground contained.[637] Assuredly Jesus commended no
dishonest course; and had not the story been in every detail probable,
its effect as a parable would have been lost. The Master taught by this
illustration that when once the treasure of the kingdom is found, the
finder should lose no time nor shrink from any sacrifice needful to
insure his title thereto.

THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.

"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."[638]

Pearls have always held high place among gems, and long before, as
indeed ever since, the time of Christ, pearl-merchants have been active
and diligent in seeking the largest and richest to be had. Unlike the
man in the last parable, who found a hidden treasure with little or no
search, the merchant in this story devoted his whole energy to the quest
for goodly pearls, to find and secure which was his business. When at
last he beheld the pearl that excelled all others, though it was, as of
right it ought to have been, held at high cost, he gladly sold all his
other gems; indeed he sacrificed "all that he had"--gems and other
possessions--and purchased the pearl of great price. Seekers after truth
may acquire much that is good and desirable, and not find the greatest
truth of all, the truth that shall save them. Yet, if they seek
persistently and with right intent, if they are really in quest of
pearls and not of imitations, they shall find. Men who by search and
research discover the truths of the kingdom of heaven may have to
abandon many of their cherished traditions, and even their theories of
imperfect philosophy and "science falsely so called,"[639] if they would
possess themselves of the pearl of great price. Observe that in this
parable as in that of the hidden treasure, the price of possession is
one's all. No man can become a citizen o