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Time does not rust a pearl. It passes down from one royal family to another, from one generation to another, the same beautiful, exquisite thing — worth as much now as it was ever worth — always to be valuable, and a type of Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Other gems may be split or ground, but this pearl of great price is unbroken of the wheel, and it is uninjured of fire. Paul wore it through imprisonment, and darkness, and shipwreck, and martyrdom. Howard wore it through the plague in festering lazarettos. It heaved on the dying heart of Robert South and of Jeremy Taylor. Shadrach carried that gem through the furnace seven times heated. It is always bright. It is always beautiful. Rutherford, in his dying moments, caught a glimpse of it, and was filled with infinite exultation, and there are multitudes of the suffering who, after all other staffs were broken, and all other lights were extinguished, and all other strength was exhausted, cried out, "Pearl of great price, comfort me!" The sapphire, and the topaz, and the emerald, and the diamond shall perish; but this pearl of great price shall go uninjured long after the globe has been tossed, a miserable hulk, charred, dismasted, and shipwrecked, amid the howling blasts of the judgment gale.

(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,