“No,” she answered, “I can understand it very well, and I notice, too, that this mountainside is the most beautiful of all the places that I have yet seen, and that from it we look out on an absolutely new view. And yet isn’t that still the Valley of Humiliation right down there beneath us?”

“Yes,” said he, “you are quite right. Tell me, Grace and Glory, what you think about this new view.”

She sat beside him quietly for a long time just looking at the scene spread out before her and trying to take it in. High, very high up into the sky, towered tier upon tier of gleaming white peaks, their distant summits hidden in a shimmering haze of light so dazzling that she had to cover her eyes, while in the foreground in striking contrast was a much lower mountain, beautifully shaped like a perfect pyramid, but black as coal from foot to summit as though it has been swept by fire—a great blot upon the perfection of the landscape. The contrast indeed was striking. It seemed a solitary, shattered outcast unable to hide itself from the great company of pure white onlookers; a starkly naked criminal forced to stand in the presence of his judges.

As she looked at it, she actually felt tears pricking in her eyes. It was so black and spoilt, so dreadfully in contrast to everything else, but above all, so unable to hide its own shame. There it stood with every hideous mark of its ruin laid bare to the scrutiny of the undefiled peaks around.

She gazed at it for a long time until she was startled out of her reverie by the King’s voice saying, “Grace and Glory, why are you weeping?”

“It’s the view from this Mountain of Pomegranates,” she answered in a choked voice. “Why should there be such a view as this from the place where the trees of love grow? What is that desolate, ruined mountain over there, right in the foreground? Why is it so unlike the other mountains? What happened to it? Why don’t you do something about it, my Lord the King? Everything else in sight is perfect in beauty, and that—that poor ruined thing breaks all the harmony. It ought to be beautiful too. Indeed, I am sure that once upon a time it was beautiful, for it is such a lovely shape. I wonder that you can bear to look at it as it is now. What has happened to it, my Lord?”

“I will tell you about the Black Mountain,” said the King very gently, “and then you will understand. As you see, it stands right here in full view from my favorite Mountain of Pomegranates. Love looks right out onto it and that is why long ago I determined to beautify it in a special way and to make it one of the loveliest parts of my Kingdom. With rich and fertile soil and slopes open to the sun it could be exceedingly fruitful. So I planned to make it a mountain of vineyards which should produce the wine of joy and gladness in great abundance. I commanded my gardeners and workmen to terrace the sides of the mountain from top to bottom, and we planted it with the choicest vines, as well as with many other beautiful trees to give shade and a variety of fruits. We left nothing undone for its perfecting, rejoicing in the prospect of its fruitfulness.”