+III. The certainty of success if the conditions are fulfilled.+ Then _shalt_ thou understand, etc. The mariner puts out to sea, and fulfils all the conditions known to him for reaching the country to which he is bound, but he may find a grave midway between his starting-point and his goal. The husbandman sows the seed, and fulfils all the conditions upon which a good harvest depends. But his crop may fail notwithstanding: he may not reap the golden grain. But no such disappointment ever befals the earnest seeker after the knowledge of God. _ILLUSTRATION OF VERSE_ 4. "There are frequent allusions to hid treasure in the Bible. Even in Job we read that the bitter in soul dig for death more earnestly than for hid treasure. There is not another comparison within the whole compass of human action so vivid as this. I have heard of diggers actually fainting when they have come even upon a single coin. They become positively frantic, dig all night with a desperate earnestness, and continue to work until utterly exhausted. There are, at this hour, hundreds of persons engaged in it all over the country. Not a few spend their last farthing upon these ruinous efforts. . . . It is not difficult to account for this hid treasure. The country has always been subject to revolutions, invasions, and calamities of different kinds. . . . Warriors and conquerors from every part of the world sweep over the land, carrying everything away that falls into their hand. Then, again, this country has ever been subject to earthquakes, which bury everything beneath her ruined cities."--_Thomson's "Land and the Book."_ _OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._ Verses 1 and 2. The sinner is here told how he may become serious. In any conceivable path if thou wilt do that lowest conceivable thing--just listen; and, that thy listening may not be a mere passing flash, if thou wilt pause upon it, and attend. If a man just takes a chair and thinks for a moment of death and judgment and eternity, his heart begins to feel, and it will go on feeling to any length. It required the Spirit, no doubt; but what is the Spirit but the Spirit of the God of Nature? He will come in the track of thought just as surely as a star is dragged after Him in the track of gravitation.--_Miller._ The Word of God is a vital seed, but it will not germinate unless it be hidden in a softened, receptive heart. It is here that Providence so often strikes in with effect as an instrument in the work of the Spirit. The place and use of providential visitations in the Divine administration of Christ's kingdom is to break up the way of the word through the incrustations of worldliness and vanity that encase a human heart, and keep the word lying hard and dry upon the surface.--_Arnot._