The Parable of the Hid Treasure
Matthew xii. 44.
OnE of the most beautiful legends of old times is that of the Golden Age. As sung by the heathen poets, this once was a happy world; its earliest periods being like the bright dawn of a dark and cloudy day; cheerful and happy, as the infancy of a life which afterwards grows beset with troubles and stained by crime. In these days, envy and strife and war were unknown; the habits of men were simple, their wants were few, their lives were virtuous: no slaves toiled in chains, nor captives pined in dungeons, nor bloody tyrants reigned on thrones; plenty filled every cup to the brim, and peace, unbroken by the strife of tongues or clash of arms, brooded on every shore. In contrast with those which followed them and went by the name of the Iron, these happy times were called the Golden Age. No poet’s dream, this, Jike many other legends preserved in ancient song, is a fragment of true history, and one in which it is not difficult to recognize a tradition of Eden, and of man’s early innocence — changed, no doubt, from its original form, as like a
13* (149)
stone in the bed of a river, it has come rolling down the long and turbulent stream of time.
Literally, as well as figuratively, the earliest periods of the world were the Golden Age: for the discoveries of archeologists show that man’s acquaintance with the metals began with gold and silver. Long ere he had forged iron into sword or plowshare, sheathed his ships with copper, covered his bull’s-hide shield with brass, or cast lead either into pipes to convey water or into bullets to carry death, with no palace other than a hut, and no throne other than a stone, kings wore crowns of gold; while women, attired in wolf’s skin, danced on the green with golden ornaments tinkling on their naked ankles. It was so in tnis island among the brave and hardy savages from whom we trace our descent. It was much more so in sunnier and richer lands. At the invasion of Peru, for instance, Pizarro and his Spaniards found the interior of the king’s palaces adorned with the finest and most costly materials; the sides of the apartments were studded with gold and silver ornaments; their niches were filled with images of plants and animals made of the sarae precious metals; and even much of the domestic furniture displayed the like wanton magnificence. The Temple of the Sun shone with something of his own dazzling splendor. Every part of its interior was richly ornamented: on the eastern wall, and so situated that at his rising the rays of the sun struck directly on it, was a figure of their god, engraved on a golden plate of massive dimensions, and studded all over with emeralds and precious stones; nor was there in that vast
and splendid edifice any utensil whatever that was not made of gold or silver. Besides this, there were a hundred inferior temples in the Holy City, and many in - the provinces, that almost rivaled in magnificence that of the metropolis. Historians also mention, that even the pipes which conveyed, and the fountains that con-* tained, water in the garden of the summer palace of the Incas were of silver; and that one ornament of this fairy-like retreat consisted in full-sized imitations of foreign plants, with stalks of silver, and leaves of gold.
Where are these treasures now — the gold and silver of the world’s departed empires, of such kings as Solomon, the Pharaohs of Egypt, the Caesars of Rome, the mighty satraps and sultans of the Hast? They have vanished, not perished; for, while silver resists the influences that tarnish the baser metals, gold is absolutely indestructible — resisting the action of fire itself. Expose water to fire, and it dissolves in vapor; wood, and it vanishes in smoke and flame, leaving but gray ashes behind; iron, and it is converted into rust : — but fire may play on gold for a thousand years without depriving it of a degree of its lustre or an atom of its weight. Beautiful emblem of the saints of God, gold cannot perish — their trials, like the action of fire on this precious metal, but purifying what they cannot * destroy.
The disappearance of the old world’s treasures finds its explanation in the custom to which the man of this parable owed his fortune. In ancient times there was little trade in which men could embark, and there were no banks in which they could lodge their money.
And as secrecy offered them the best, if not only, security, it was common for people, while reserving a portion for ordinary use, to hide their gold and silver in the ground; and it often happened, through sudden death or otherwise, that the treasure was left there, ‘their secret being buried with them. Besides this, old times were unsettled. A country was suddenly invaded, — to preserve their valuables from the hand of the spoiler, the inhabitants buried them in the earth: falling in battle or dying in exile, they never returned to claim them; and thus the earth became a bank in which was accumulated during the course of ages, a vast amount of unclaimed deposits. Even in our country, though scantily supplied with the precious metals, the spade that digs the railway, the plow that breaks up some waste moorland, is ever and anon bringing aid coins to light, or still older ornaments of gold and silver. And, since the lands of the Bible were much richer than ours, and had accumulated vast stores of wealth at a period when our forefathers were naked savages, nothing was more likely to happen in these countries than the circumstance which forms the groundwork of this parable. A peasant goes out to plow. The ground has lain undisturbed, perhaps for centuries; or, in order to recruit an exhausted soil with virgin earth, he sends ’ his share deep into its bosom. Suddenly, as he whis-’ tles carelessly behind his oxen, he is startled by the ring of metal; and on turning his head, how he stares to see the black furrow yellow with scattered gold, and sparkling in the sun with jewels! The plow is aban-SESS DS8Sy7
AW (of,
Parables, p. 152
swear bm k it
My
ny *
: Au S@ 4 * y i ’ iid
ryt, vid Tie ig a ie nt
1 iw) dl J i; a ‘, ‘ M
va ae r A ah ait ‘aie af Hy
Aen lise ea ies cy iy;
a.
fetal WY Hn lee ia ene ee ery doned; he drops on his knees ; — happy man! he has lighted on an old hid treasure, and has a fortune within his grasp. Restoring the treasure to its place, he conceals with care all traces of the discovery, and, masking his joy under an air of indifference, hastens homeward. To the amazement of his neighbors, who pity him as moonstruck or mad, he sells his house, his furniture, his bed, and pulling the beds out from beneath his sleeping children, sells them — parting with ali he has in the world. He is not mad, though men think so — not he. He knows what he is about. Making what others reckon a bad bargain, he purchases the field in question: and ere the villagers have recovered from their surprise, their astonishment at his folly changes to envy of his fortune. Possessor of an enormous treasure, he has exchanged a hard, humble, toiling life for the respect and ease, the comforts and luxuries, Which are the eager desire of all and the happy lot of few.
Such is the incident which forms the groundwork of a parable where
THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL ARE COMPARED TO A TREASURE.
In a world which looks down on poverty, where beggars are counted offscourings, and the respect is often paid to wealth that is due only to worth, a considerable fortune will secure its possessor from contempt, and a * splendid one secure his introduction to the proudest circles of the land. Yet how much higher are the rewards which the treasures of the Gospel secure to him who, though poor in this world’s goods, is rich in faith?
Lifting ‘the poor from the dust, and the needy from
the dunghill to set him with princes,” they introduce
him to the presence of the Divine Majesty and the palace of the Great King — to the society of angels andy the communion of saints — to the general assembly of
those high-born and first-born, compared with whom in
point of worth, or dignity, or lofty and enduring glory,
your kings are but worms of the dust.
Again, if wealthy, you may reside in a splendid mansion, but it is to leave it one day for the narrow house; you may pamper the body with the costliest luxuries, but you are fattening it for worms; nor can the flashing blaze of a thousand diamonds blind our eyes to the melancholy fact that this gay, beautiful, charming form shall, stripped of all that bravery, be wrapped in a shroud, nailed up in a coffin, and thrust down into a black hole to rot. But give me the treasures of redemption, my food is manna, and my wine is love; my sweet pillow the bosom of the Son and my strong defence the arm of Almighty God; my home that palace, eternal in the heavens, where angels’ harps supply the music, and woven of Jesus’ righteousness the robes are fairer than angels wear. Again, the bankrupt who succeeds to a fortune is placed in circumstances to pay his debts. Is there a stain on his honor, he wipes it out; if none, he relieves himself of a load which lies heavy on the heart of an honorable man. Henceforth he neither fears to examine his accounts nor look all men in the face: and on the day when he summons his creditors to pay his debts in full, he is esteemed a happy, applauded and féted as an honorable, man. But possessed of the treasures of the gospel, I pay debts whose sum no figures can express, nor long ages in Hell atone for; with Jesus’ infinite merits I pay God all his claims; and obtaining a full discharge from the hands of Eternal Justice in the High Court of Heaven, I lift up my head, not only before men but before angels; not only in the presence of holy angels but of a holy Ged; and lecking round on conscience and the Law, on Death and the Devil, challenge them all, saying, ‘‘ It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?”’
A treasure! So men speak of the child who, like a beautiful flower with a worm at its root, may droop and die ; — of fame won on a stage, where the spectators who applaud to-night may hiss to-morrow; of riches that, like scared wild fowl on the reedy margin of a lake, take to themselves wings and fly away. But how much worthier of the name the Friend who never leaves us; health that sickens not, and life that dies not; love that never cools, and glory that never fades; a peace that troubles may disturb but do not destroy — being to it but-the raging tempest that shakes the arms of a tree which it cannot uproot; the swelling, foaming, angry billows that toss the bark which, securely anchored, they cannot part from its moorings nor dash on the surf-beaten shore!
The unspeakable value of those blessings of divine mercy, pardon, peace, and grace represented by this treasure may be tested in a simple way. In London, within whose heart there is gold in more senses of the expression than one, stands a building with armed sentinels by its door, and at its table directors with the fate of empires, with war or peace, want or plenty, in their hands. Entering by the guarded portal, and passing through the bustle of a crowded hall where Mammon sits enthroned, and gold coins are tossed about like pebbles, and silver, as in the days of Solomon, seems nothing accounted of, you descend, by strongly protected passages, to a room whose walls, divided into compartments, are formed of massive iron. Around you there are heaped, pile on pile, not thousands, but millions of money — the wealth of a great nation — the price of crowns and kingdoms. You are in the strong room of the Bank of England, one of the wonders of the world. Now, from his loom where the shuttle flies from early morn into the night, take a poor, pale-faced, but pious weaver ; — from the dark mine, where any moment he may be drowned by water, blasted by fire, suffocated in the choke-damp, or buried beneath falling rocks in the bowels of the earth, take a poor begrimed, but pious pitman — and placing either in that room, offer him al! its treasures on condition that he parts with that in his bosom! He would spurn the glittering bribe, saying as he returned to bless God for his brown bread and lowly home, ‘‘ Get thee behind me, Satan;’’ or, “Thy money perish with thee!” With this blood-bought treasure he will rather die than part, saying, “It cannot be gotten for gold, neithe: shall silver be weighed for the price thereof; the gold and the crystal cannot equal it, and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of pure gold; no mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, for the price of it is above rubies.”’
THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL ARE COMPARED TO A HID TREASURE.
The discovery of gold some years ago in our most distant colony agitated the whole kingdom; and as the news spread, thousands, breaking the ties which bound them to home, hurried away to the seaports, where crowded ships bore off the adventurers — all eagerly striving under press of sail which should first touch the happy strand. The voyage ended, our countrymen threw themselves on the gold fields; and soon the lonely dells of Australia, with emigrants from all lands, rang with the sounds of labor and a Babel of tongues. Yet long years before its treasures were brought to light, shepherds had left our hills to herd the flock on Australia’s boundless pastures: the hut of the squatter had encroached on the hunting-grounds, and his axe had sounded in the forests of the wondering savage; and there, earning only a bare subsistence, far removed from the homes and friends of their love, without hope of improving their condition or returning with a fortune, many had pined and drooped — like a flower removed from its native to an uncongenial soil. Yet all the while a fortune lay hid beneath the exile’s feet; the roots of the tree under whose shadow he reclined, recalling scenes and friends far away, were matting rocks of gold; and from the bed of the stream where he quenched his thirst, thousands, with thirst for gold burning as his, came afterwards to draw splendid fortunes, — vaulting at once from abject poverty to the heights of affluence. He lived poor in the midst of riches; and daily walking above wealth that had made him independent of labor, he sank, exhausted by toil and care and sad regrets, into an early and lonely grave. Such fate befell many a one, with gold enough in the stones that formed his rude hearth, or in the rock against which his log-hut stood, to surround him with the splendors of a brilliant fortune.
Now that poor man, with his ragged tent pitched on a gold field, but ignorant of the treasure which he might have possessed and enjoyed, is the type and image of thousands. The treasures of the Gospel, they, as he had those of gold, have and yet have not. They are hid from them. Their minds, as Paul says, are blinded — ‘‘ The God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.’”’ — “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.’’ Were God to make these treasures as plain to men as the plowshare did this to the peasant’s wondering, rejoicing, sparkling eyes, they would leave the house of God for their homes happier far than he. What is gold to these? Within the two boards of the poor man’s Bible is-a greater wealth of happiness, of honor, of pleasure, of true peace, than Australia hides in the gold of all her mines. ‘That, for example, could not buy the pardon of any of the thousand criminals whom a country, weary of their crimes, once cast on her distant shores; but here is what satisfies a justice stricter than man’s,
% and procures the forgiveness of sins which the stoutest heart may tremble to think of. Again, the wealth of the most successful adventurer cannot conceal the meanness of his birth, give polish to his manners, or raise him to a level with an ancient and jealous nobility: it alters the condition, but not the character of the man; and associated with ignorance, meanness, vulgarity, is, to use the figure of the wise man, only as “a jewel in a swine’s snout.’’ But, accompanied with the blessing from on high and received into the heart by faith, the Gospel alters both our character and condition — making the rude gentle, the coarse refined, the impure holy, the selfish generous — working a greater transformation than if a felon of the prison were to change into a courtier of the palace, or the once ragged boy who had been educated to crime on the streets were to wear a star on his manly breast and stand in the brilliant circle that surrounds a throne. In the blood of Christ to wash out sin’s darkest stains, in the grace of God to purify the foulest heart, in peace to calm life’s roughest storms, in hopes to cheer guilt’s darkest hour, in a courage that defies death and descends calmly into the tomb, in that which makes the poorest rich and without which the richest are poor indeed, the Gospel
has treasures greater far
Than east or west unfold,
And its rewards-more precious are
Than all their stores of gold.
THE TREASURE WAS FOUND WITHOUT BEING SOUGHT.
Each spring which by the voices of birds breaking the long winter silence, reminds us that other voices, now mute, shall wake again, and by the flowers on the green sod above our dead, reminds us that they also shall rise again — beautiful from dust, immortal from the bed of mortality, is emblematical of conversion as well as of resurrection. It is Christ’s own voice speaking through the Spirit to souls for love of whom he left the skies, which I recognize in this beautiful and tender address, ‘‘ Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come; the voice of the turtle is heard in the land; the fig-tree putteth forth her green figs: and the vines with the tender grape give a smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come -away.”’ In new life, life as from the dead, in songs of love, smiling skies and balmy air, budding woods and fields which hold the seeds of future, golden, bountiful harvests, the spring is an emblem worthy of conversion — the fitting dress of so great an event.:
Besides, both in trees and flowers the spring presents remarkable illustrations of that variety with which: God is pleased to work in saving souls, and turning - sinners from the error of their ways. All his people are converted; must be so — for our Lord says, ‘‘ Hixcept a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’’ But all are not converted in the selfsame manner; and there are in grace, as in nature, to use
Paul’s words, ‘‘ diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.’ For example, the leaves of roses, of tulips, and of our orchard fruit-trees appear first — preparing the way for flowers still in the bud. In other cases this order is reversed. In the catkins of the hoary willow hung on naked stems, in the gold and silver cups of the crocus, whether they spring from the grass of Alpine meadows or edge our parterres with a beautiful border, the flowers precede the leaves — these plants, like a day unheralded by a dawn, burst into blossom without any apparent preparation. Even so, while some after a long search for true happiness and their souls’ good, in fulfillment of the promise, ‘‘seek and ye shall find,” get in Jesus Christ the treasure of this parable and the pearl of the next, others find a Saviour without seeking him. They burst at once into a state of grace; and without seeking, or so much as thinking of it, they stumble on salvation, if I may say so, as this man on the treasure hid in the field. They are converted, and it is a great surprise to them — what neither they nor any one else expected.:
Ambitious of riches and yet averse to work, men have resorted to necromancy to discover hidden treasures, digging for them in fields and amid hoary ruins. The man whose good-fortune is recorded here was otherwise employed. Bred up in poverty, and satisfied * with his lot — the robust health of out-door occupation, an appetite that gave zest to the plainest fare, the lively prattle of his children when he came home at even, he thought no more of riches than some of conversion, who, suddenly changed, rise in the morning in a state of nature and close the day in a state of grace. His good-fortune, if I may say so, was an accident — the merest accident; and thereby distinguished from the case of him who found the pearl of great price. He, a merchant seeking goodly pearls, found what he sought; but this man what he was not seeking, nor even so much as thinking of.
Hqually different are the cases of those whom a God, sovereign in working as he is great in mercy, converts to a saving knowledge of the truth. ‘For example, Nicodemus, who repaired to Christ under the cloud of night, was one seeking goodly pearls; so also was the centurion, who ‘‘ was a just man and one that feared God,” and to whom Peter was sent with the tidings of a Saviour; and so in some sense also was that unhappy youth who with more courage than Nicodemus came in open day, and pushing his way through the ‘crowd, thus accosted our Lord, ‘‘Good master, what shall Ido to inherit eternal life?’’ — only when Jesus told him to sell all, give the price to the poor, and follow him, he judged the terms too hard, the cost too great. Like many others he sought the pearl but disliked the price. On the other hand, showing that God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and that salvation is of grace and not of merit, he sometimes bestows it where it has never been sought; and a change comes as unlooked for as in the case of Saul, the son of Kish — leaving home to seek his father’s asses he found a crown on the road, and he who went out a commoner came back aking. Look, for instance, at the case of Zaccheus! Curiosity to see Jesus draws him from the receipt of custom; and leaving his books and money bags — for he was rich, he throws himself into the crowd. In vain the little publican stands on tip-toe. He can see nothing. Leaving the throng behind, he hies away; and climbing a friendly sycamore that threw its branches over the road, he perches himself on a bough, proud of his ingenuity and congratulating himself on the excellent view he will command as Jesus passes — borne along on the crest of popular favor. Tis curiosity once gratified, he has no purpose other than of returning to his old habits and resuming the pursuit. of gain. What he sought he found; but more, in that, besides a sight of the Saviour, he obtained a hold of salvation. Jesus, as he passed by, looked up, and calling him down, invited himself to his house; and ere nightfall there was a greater transformation wrought on that poor worldling ‘than appears in the insect which les coffined in the morning within its narrow cell, and ere sunset is roaming on wide-spread wings from flower to flower — its bed their cups, its food their honied nectar. Another instance of people obtaining salvation who were not seeking it, is found in that Samaritan who after long years of sin, is sitting crowned like a queen in heaven. With pitcher poised on her head, she leaves her village to draw water, — having no other purpose than to prepare a meal for her paramour on his return from the labors of the day. Shading her eyes from the glare of the sun, she descries a lone traveler resting on Jacob’s well. The man and she meet; they converse; scicgigia er and she who had approached the well with the slow step and graceful carriage of Hastern women, leaving both it and her pitcher, hurries back with eager eyes and flying feet. What has happened? She has found her Saviour — found, as she said, ‘‘the Christ;’”’ and at the news the whole village, — mothers with infants at the breast and old age bending on its staff, — leave looms silent and streets deserted to see Jesus.
Even so, it may happen that some who repair to the house of God without any expectation or even wish to be converted, and with no better purpose than to see or be seen, may there behold a sight they never expected, and meet one whom they looked not for. Drawn to the church only by curiosity to hear some preacher, they may, Zaccheus-like, receive a call from the preacher’s master; and so the scene of an idle curiosity may be turned into that of a true conversion. There are some cases in which God has made even the wrath of man to praise him — those who went to mock having stayed to pray. Let me give an example. A stranger to the congregation was one day preaching in a church in England. He wound up an impressive sermon by telling them that, some twenty years before, three bad young men had entered that very house with the intention of stoning the minister. Something, a look or word from the preacher, led one of the three to hesitate. In consequence of this the plot was abandoned: and while his associates who were angry with him for his pusillanimity left the scene, he lingered behind from no other motive than curiosity. The preacher went on to tell how one of the two who left was, some few years afterwards, guilty of a horrid murder, and hanged for it; and how the other also for some other crime ended his life on the gallows. As to the third who stayed behind, strange to say, he was converted on that occasion, and afterwards became a minister of the gospel; and, the preacher added, his voice trembling the while with ill-suppressed emotion, He now addresses you in me — a monument of the grace of God, a brand plucked from the burning. And since, as that case proves, God’s grace is sovereign, and Jesus is the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, of whom may we not hope? The pardon of all our sins through the blood of the Lamb of God, the sanctifying influences of his Holy Spirit, glory for a crown and heaven for a home, these, like the treasures which the plowshare brought to light, lie at our feet. They are within our reach. And why, if yet poor and miserable, with no better portion than a passing, perishing world, should not we stoop down to make them our own; and saved, through God’s free grace and sovereign mercy, be of those of whom it is said, ‘‘ He was found of them who sought him not’”’?
THE CONDUCT OF THE FINDER.
He hid the treasure. — “It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer;’’ and though this man may not have depreciated the real, he took pains to conceal the accidental value of the field. We are not required to settle such questions of moral casuistry as the method he took to possess himself of this treasure may suggest. To the profits of such discoveries as are the
%
fruits of a man’s observation or inventive genius, our law gives him the exclusive right — at least for a term of years; nor would it regard the profits of this discovery as belonging of right to the proprietor of the soil. In this country, treasure-trove, as it is called, is claimed by the crown. But whether this man’s conduct was justifiable is not a question we are called to settle. In hiding the treasure till he had made himself owner of the field, he took the surest way of making it his own, and expressed, better than any words could do, its value in his eyes. Teaching us how to act in those matters that belong to salvation, he spared no pains, and lost not an hour, arid grudged no sacrifice to possess himself of this treasure — and, as applied to the infinitely more valuable treasures of the gospel, these are the points which Jesus proposes for our imitation. By this parable the Saviour calls men to leave no stone unturned, no pains untaken, no anxiety unfelt, no prayer unsaid, no Sabbath nor day unimproved to make these treasures theirs. And,.O, how happy the wretched, how calm the troubled, how cheerful the sad, how pure the foulest, how rich the poorest, in view of death how brave the timid, in death itself how tranquil, even triumphant, all might be, if we only felt as much concern and took as much care to find Christ, as this man to secure a fleeting treasure.
Unless in the sense of guarding their peace of mind from being disturbed by temptation, and their purity from being stained by sin, those who find treasures in the Gospel, do not hide them. On the contrary, they seek to make the great discovery known, and to communicate its benefits to all. There is no temptation to do otherwise, to keep it to ourselves, since it has blessings in the pardon and peace of God enough for us and for all others. It is as if one of a caravan that had sunk on the burning desert, were, in making a last effort for life, to discover no muddy pool, but a vast fountain — cool as the snows that replenished its spring, and pure as the heavens that were reflected on its bosom. He revives at the blessed sight, and, pushing on to the margin, stoops to drink; yet ere his thirst 1s fully quenched, see how he speeds away to pluck his friends from the arms of death; and, hark! how he shouts, making the lone desert ring to the cry, “‘ Flo, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.”’ None ever found Christ but they wished that others also might find him, were ever saved without a desire to save springing up in their hearts — theirs the spirit of Andrew, when he went to his brother Peter, crying, “We have found the Messias,’ — of those who said ‘¢ Come thou with us, we will do thee good,” “‘ Arise, for we have seen the land, and behold it is very good.”’
HE PARTS WITH ALL FOR THIS TREASURE.
On boating once along a coast where the billows roared in the deep caves, and broke in sheets of foam on the face of cliffs that rose hundreds of feet sheer up from the sea, we heard the sound of merry voices mingling with the sea-mew’s screams; and on looking up saw to our surprise a group of urchins standing with their backs against the rocky wall, and with scant room on its projecting ledges for their naked feet. One false step, a dizzy moment, and the body, bounding from ledge to ledge, had sunk like lead into the deep. Yet these children, poised on the beetling crag, were light-hearted as any culling the flowers of; the meadow, or sitting by their mother’s side on the hearth of the fisherman’s hut. Their safety lay in this, that they had been reared among such scenes, and accustomed from early infancy to positions that would have turned our heads. On the other hand a sudden elevation is usually followed by a sudden fall; and such is the danger he is exposed to, who, like the man of this parable, is raised by one rapid revolution of the wheel of fortune from great poverty to great affluence. The man gets intoxicated with joy; the head grows giddy; and falling into habits of boundless extravagance, or, worse still, into habits of profligacy and vice, he is ruined — his fortune proving in the end a great misfortune. So imminent indeed is this danger, that there is no wise and prudent pious father but would tremble for his boy, should he, when preparing himself to fight his way on in life, suddenly succeed to the possession of a fortune.
In the treasures of gold and silver there lurks great danger; in those of grace none: nor is there a good man but would rejoice should his son come, with beaming face, to announce the tidings that he had found a Saviour; pardon and grace and peace in Jesus Christ.
Unlike common riches, this treasure breeds neither jealousies nor fears nor envy. No Christian woman repines that her husband loves Jesus better than her:
no godly mother, however she may feel the pang of parting, but approves the son who, burning with love to souls, tears himself from her arms to plant the cross on heathen shores. Your families of noble blood or ancient pedigree eye him with jealousy who, emerging from the obscurity of humble life, rises with his plebeian blood to a position lofty as their own. But next to the joy of possessing the treasures and honors of the Gospel is that of seeing poor sinners made heirs of the grace of God, and heaven’s highest titles bestowed on those that were the vilest of mankind. The greater the number who get this treasure, the greater the joy of those who already have it. And how great and deep that joy, is set forth in the conduct of this man — he parted with all he had to possess the treasure. What he paid indeed was not the value of it; and certainly this parable was not told to teach us that when the haughty part with their pride, and drunkards with their cup, the licentious with theirvices, the gay with their vanities, the avaricious with the love of money, others ‘with their darling sins, they thereby purchase salvation. Assuredly not. Salvation is all of grace. Yet these things are required. — “‘ Let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from all iniquity.”’ — ‘‘ Whosoever would be my disciple, let him take up his cross,, deny himself daily and follow me.” ‘Ye cannot,” says our Lord, ‘serve God and Mammon.” Shrink not from the pain these sacrifices must cost. It is not so great as many faney. The joy of the Lord is his people’s strength. Love has so swallowed up all sense of pain, and sorrow been so lost in ravishment, that men of old took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, and martyrs went to the burning stake with beaming countenances, and sang high death-songs amid the roaring flames. Let us by faith rise above the world, and it will shrink into littleness and insignificance compared with Christ. Some while ago two aeronauts, hanging in mid-air, looked down on the earth from their balloon, and wondered to see how small great things had grown — ample fields were contracted into little patches — the lake was no bigger than a looking-glass — the broad river with ships floating on its bosom, seemed like a silver snake — the wide-spread city was reduced to the dimensions of a village — the long, rapid, flying train appeared but a black caterpillar slowly creeping over the surface of the ground. And such changes the world undergoes to the eyes of him who, rising to hold communion with God and anticipating the joys of heaven, lives above it and looks beyond it. This makes it easy and even joyful to part with all for Christ — this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.