In the spiritual department a similar end is pursued, but the adoption of similar means there would not tend to insure success. In the nature of the case it is not necessary to conceal the spiritual treasure from others in order to secure it for yourself. Although the world should discover it, by an intimation from you, and enrich themselves out of it, you would not therefore obtain less. It is thus a vain labour to search, as many do, for something in the spiritual sphere corresponding to the concealment by the discoverer in the story. The best way of interpreting that feature is to represent by it a soul's high appreciation of divine mercy and earnest desire to obtain it, and then allow the feature to drop out of sight, like the husk after the ripened grain has fallen from it and been secured. It has been said that one of the rarest kinds of knowledge is to know when to hold your peace. Many know well how to speak; few know when to be silent. A similar experience emerges here: many have an excellent faculty for opening up the parables, and tracing every feature up to all its springs, and down to all its consequences. The power of attributing a distinct spiritual import to every light and shadow of the picture is common; but the faculty of permitting a subordinate accessory to drop when it has fulfilled its office, and following stanchly on the main track, is comparatively rare. You may, indeed, find instances in which a man, awakened and persuaded of the preciousness of Christ, has kept all silent within his own breast until he has made his own calling and election sure; but in these cases the secrecy is by no means prompted by a fear that to publish the secret were to lose the treasure; and in many other examples the discoverer, during the continuance of his efforts to obtain possession, publishes the secret to the world, and enters at last into his heritage in presence of many witnesses. The discoverer of Christ's preciousness is like the discoverer of hid treasure, in his ultimate aim, but not in his mediate methods. Concealment would not help him to possession, and therefore he does not uniformly or necessarily take pains to conceal.