God will richer gifts bestow.

Learn the lesson fast or slow,

This is heaven’s law,

We must let the old things go,

To make room for more.

We shall reap in some glad way,

Fairer joys than lost today.

The scene was one of such special and affecting beauty that for some time Grace and Glory was quite speechless as she looked at all the little wounded thorn trees pouring themselves out through the lacerations made in their very hearts, and as she noticed that every bleeding thorn was crowned with a crimson bud just about to break forth into royal bloom. The bittersweet perfume of the oozing resin of myrrh (the spice specially used for anointing the dead) filled the air.

“These are my happy trees,” said the King at last with one of his loveliest smiles as he seated himself on a low bank. “These are the meek who inherit the earth—and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Grace and Glory looked at him eagerly, and waited to hear what he would say next.

They sat for a few moments in silence and then the quiet voice went on: “These little trees of Meekness, breathing out this lovely fragrance and pouring out the treasure of their hearts, have a great lesson to teach, Grace and Glory. I have brought you here that, as you sit among them, you may ‘learn of me, who am meek and lowly in heart, and may not only find rest for your soul, but may learn the secret of heaven.’

“When I say to you, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in your Lord … Who humbled or emptied himself’ you have a lovely illustration all around you of what it means to empty oneself. Here you see demonstrated before you the gracious, happy spirit which yields up its very self, to be poured out for the use of others, without caring at what cost it is accomplished, nor even if it must be by means of the knife which cuts away the very deepest treasure of the heart. This meekness, this willingness to be emptied and humbled (and humility is nothing but willingness to accept humiliations sweetly and unresentfully) is the chief characteristic of the citizens of the Kingdom of Love and of all who live in heaven. It is the very nature of the Son of Man himself!