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Subject religion to the ordinary tests of value: there are four great tests of value.

I. The first is RARITY. An old master who painted pictures many a hundred years ago, and sent down a worthy name and fame to posterity, is represented in these days by only two or three. One canvas is hung here, we will say in the National Gallery, and another in Vienna, and another somewhere else: all the rest are burned by fire or rusted and moulded away by the influence of time. The bare fact that there are only three specimens extant of that man's master-pieces gives them a value that cannot be covered even though you cover that canvas with gold. According to their rarity is their value. For what is true religion? If there is anything in it at all, if it is not a gross deception, I will tell you what it is. It is holiness and happiness — rare things in the world, my masters, look for them where you will.

II. Let us take another test of value, one that you are all acquainted With more or less — I MEAN THE VERDICT OF A COMPETENT AUTHORITY. If a child is playing at the mother's door with what appears to be a piece of beautifully-coloured or transparent glass, it may flash so brightly that even the mother is curious enough to take it from the little palm of her child and hold it up to see how the sun rays dance around it; but she is content then to pass it back again as a thing of no more moment. But lo, a lapidary comes that way who, with keen and practised eye, catches the peculiar scintillations that rise from it, and he takes it in his hand, holds it between him and the sun, weighs it, judges of the comparative weight and measure, and then passes it into the mother's hand, saying, "Madam, are you aware that that is a diamond, and not glass? " In a moment the verdict of a competent authority has increased its value fifty thousand fold. So with a picture which has hung on a cottage wall for years, an unvalued heirloom, that hangs there simply because it is its accustomed place. There comes in one who knows, and he uses means to take away the canker and the rust of time, and unburies a patch of subtle colour that lies beneath, and he says in a moment, "Why that is a Rembrandt," and in a moment the verdict of a competent authority gives it a value that it never possessed before. I want to rest religion on the same ground, the verdict of a competent authority. "Ah," but I hear somebody there saying, "where will you find an authority that is sufficient for us? Where will you find one that we are bound to believe?" Brothers, on the principle that experience is the grandest teacher.

III. Not only rarity, not only the verdict of a competent authority, BUT DURABILITY IS AN IMPORTANT TEST OF VALUE. Why, you will scarcely give your child a sixpence to go and buy a toy without giving it a little wise motherly counsel at the same time not to buy something that will break almost before it gets home. That is true right along the whole of your business transactions. How long will it last? as old Humphreys says, is one of the wisest questions that a buyer can inquire after. Well, let us put that test to religion. You know beauty has a value, a wondrous value, as we have seen in the diamond already; but if you ask for the value of beauty alone, then I protest to you that I know nothing in this world that is more beautiful than a full-blown bubble rising from the lips of a schoolboy on a summer's afternoon, floating out in a stately silence of its own, a beautiful crystal globe, dancing in the sunlight as though it loved its congeners. As it passes over field and tree and house and passer-by, is photographed in many colours upon its brilliant walls, and as it rises higher and higher in the sunlight, you are ready to say, "How beautiful!" And yet you say, "As worthless as a bubble." Why? Because it will not last.

IV. Now, there is only one more that I know anything about myself, but I declare to you I THINK IT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT OF THE FOUR, AND THAT IS THE TEST OF ADAPTATION. What is the use of a telescope that does not bring a thing nearer and magnify it to the eye? What say you of yonder sailor who is out on the seas shipwrecked; all his chance of life is his gripping power to a slippery, craggy rock that rises just above the surging seas; he can see nothing; no hope of life, blood starts from his fingers' ends as he grips, lest he plunges in the deep. What is the most precious thing in the world to him? You won't offer him a fortune, will you? Millions are of no use: the most precious thing to that man is a boat; it is adapted to his special necessity.

(J. J. Wray.)

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KJV: Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

WEB: "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.