Here and there amid the groves of bushes there were ponds and lakes through which the countless streams of healing waters flowed until they emptied themselves into one great reservoir of sapphire blue waters. In these lakes and pools swam brilliantly colored fish like gorgeous living jewels darting about between the carpets of water lilies. The whole scene was enchantingly beautiful but perhaps the most delightful and healing thing of all was the lovely stillness and calm which brooded over everything, for the whole mountain lay back a little from the other mountains which shut it in and protected it from wind and storm. It was so quiet there that it was only gradually the sound of murmuring streams became audible to the ears, the soft humming of the bees and an occasional low note from some bird, a species of turtle dove which nested among the bushes of peace.

When they reached the great reservoir, the King and his companion sat down on the bank above it. There they were on the very edge of the mountain and could look straight down into the Valley of Humiliation far below. Indeed, the King explained that the very shortest route between the valley and the High Places was up the sides of this Mountain of Spikenard, but he added that the greatest storms and tempests, so common on the lower parts of the mountains, were generally strongest and most violent just below those very slopes on which they sat, and at such times the rolling of the thunder could be heard quite plainly and the lightning could be seen rending the clouds beneath that place, yet not a breath of any raging tempest could invade the quiet Valley of Peace up there on the High Place of the mountain.

For some time the two of them sat in perfect silence. Grace and Glory could not help comparing the deep rest and tranquility of that place with the scenes of stress and tempest through which she had first struggled up to the High Places, and also with the storms and stresses in the lives of the inhabitants of the valley down there beneath them. She thought of so many of her relatives down there whose inner lives were tempest-tossed and tormented by fear and bitterness, by rage and envy and covetousness, and by rivalries and evils of all sorts.

Then she began to think of all the sorrows and anguish of heart endured by the multitudes in the City of Destruction which lay not far from the Valley of Humiliation, on the shores of the great sea. She had recently visited the city with the King and some of the things she had seen and heard there seemed seared upon her memory.