of which makes all the
difference to a man. A small grammatical difference points us beyond
minutiae to the common experience of the two men. Each makes a great
discovery, and takes action in a great and urgent resolve; and they
are both repaid. If we are to understand the two parables in the
sense intended by Jesus, the term "God" must become alive to us with
all the life and power and love that the name implies for him. Then
to grasp that this Father of Jesus is King--that the God of his
thoughts, of his faith, with all the tenderness and the power
combined that Jesus teaches us to see in Him--rules the universe,
controls our destiny and loves us--this is the experience that Jesus
compares with that of the Treasure Finder and the Pearl
Merchant--worth, he suggests, everything a man has, and more than
all.

In passing, we may notice that these stories suggest that this
experience may be reached in different ways. In the parables of the
seed and the leaven he indicates a natural, quiet and unconscious
growth, a story without crisis, though full of change. To the
Treasure Finder the discovery is a surprise--how came Jesus so far
into the minds of men as to know what a surprise God can be, and how
joyful a surprise? The Pearl Merchant, on the other hand, has lived
in the region where he makes his discovery. He is the type that
lives and moves in the atmosphere of high and true thought, that
knows whatsoever things are pure and lovely and of good report, of
help and use; he is no stranger to great and inspiring ideas. And
one day, in no strange way, by no accident, but in the ordinary
round of life, he comes on something that transcends all he has been
seeking, all he has known--the One thing worth all. There is little
surprise about it, no wild elation, but nothing is allowed to stand
in the way of an instant entrance into the great experience--and the
great experience is, Jesus says, God.

To see God, to know God--that is what Jesus means--to get away from
"all the fuss and trouble" of life into the presence of God, to know
he is ours, to see him smile, to realize that he wants us to stay
there, that he is a real Father with a father's heart, that his love
is on the same wonderful scale as every one of his attributes, and
in reality far more intelligible than any of them. That is the
picture Jesus draws. The sheer incredible love of God, the wonderful
change it means for all life--that is his teaching, and he
encour