String of Pearls.
MY YOUNG FRIENDS: Here is a whole string of pearls. One time I found a large pearl in an oyster. I thought it might be valuable, and I took it to a jeweler, but he soon told me that it was not worth much, because it was not perfect. It was unusually large, but to be valuable it must be perfectly round and have no defects. When Jesus was upon the earth He told of a merchant who went in search of a very valuable pearl, and when he had found it, he sold all that he had and bought that pearl, in order that he might have the largest and most valuable jewel in all the world.
Diving for Pearls.
Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, had a pearl that was worth three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, and one day she dissolved this costly pearl, and drank it in a glass of wine to the honor of Mark Antony, one of the Roman rulers. There are pearls to-day worth two and three hundred thousand dollars, and possibly more.
The pearl in this parable is the symbol of salvation. Now, salvation has cost more, and is worth more than all the farms, and houses, and stores, and wealth of all this nation, and all the nations of all the globe, and all the created universe about us. It cost the life of the Son of God, and it is desirable, therefore, that you and I should obtain it, because of the many blessings it secures to us, both in this world and in the world to come.
For two thousand years men from all the largest nations of the earth have gone to the island of Ceylon, seeking pearls. It is a barren and deserted island, but during the months of February, March and April, every night at ten o'clock, many boats sail out about ten miles, to the place where men, with large leaden weights at their feet, dive down through the water until they come to the banks where the large pearl oyster has his home. They quickly pick up several of these oysters and drop them into a basket of network, and in about sixty or seventy seconds are again drawn up by their companions into the boat.
Men and women could not have pearls if it were not that these men are willing to risk their lives by diving way down under the water to obtain them. No one could secure salvation had not Jesus left His throne in heaven and come down to this wicked world to suffer and die, that He might make atonement for our sins upon the cross, so that you and I might not perish but have everlasting life—so that you and I might have salvation, both here and in heaven.
When I went to the jeweler, he told me that the defects on the pearl which I had found could not be removed and the rough places polished. Diamonds have to be cut and polished. Many precious and costly jewels when found look only like rough stones in the field, but the pearl is perfect when found; nothing can be done to make it more perfect or more valuable. Just so is the salvation of Jesus perfect; no human wisdom can improve upon it. The best book that any man ever wrote has been equaled by what some other man has thought and written. The religion of the heathen can be greatly improved, but the Bible and the salvation which it reveals, man has never been able to equal, much less to improve upon.
To-day, as thousands of years ago, pearls are worn as ornaments to the body, but the salvation which Jesus Christ came to bring is an ornament to the soul that possesses it.