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Again, I remark that Christ may be compared to a pearl, because He is such an adornment and decoration to the soul that seeks Him. I have no sympathy with the Puritanic notion that God despises jewellery. I think if God despised jewellery He would not make so much of it. Instead of the variegated seasons, the earth would have had the same colour all the year round; the tree would have yielded its fruit without leaf or blossom; Niagara would let down its water without thunder or winged spray; the clouds would have drawn their black bodies through the skies where now they resemble silvery skiffs with angelic crew, sailing through the archipelago of stars. If God had despised beauty and adornment, He would not have made the caverns of the ocean great gardens of coral, and sponge, and seaweed, and pearls. No. God loves adornment from the fact that He has made it, and allows Jesus Christ to be compared to a pearl. I know there are some people who suppose that religion distorts one; that religion damages a man's nature; that religion cows him down; that religion takes all the spirit out of him; that it turns a man into a snuffling bigot; that it puts handcuffs on the wrists and hopples on the ankles, and that, like a retreating army, it poisons all the wells along where it goes. No, no. It is a decoration; it is an embellishment; it is a pearl. Why, my friends, as an adornment religion was mere than philosophy to Bacon, more than prowess to Havelock, more than geology to Silliman, more than science to Agassiz, more than music to Mozart. Religion! It has sung the sweetest songs, and it has built the highest monuments, and it has lifted the noblest arches, and it has painted the finest pictures, and it has worked the richest embroideries, and it has composed the sublimest tragedy.

(Dr. Talmage.)

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KJV: Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:

WEB: "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls,