When he finished speaking intense silence brooded up there on the Mountain of Spikenard as though all living things on the mountain knelt in trembling worship. The King himself finally broke that silence as he began to sing. These were the words of the song which Grace and Glory heard, but no words can express the full meaning:

Love is the Lord. He hears each cry,

His gentleness is great,

No wounded heart will he pass by

Nor leave it desolate.

For in his love he stoops to be

At one in all our misery.

Love is the Lord. Love casts out fear!

He breaketh all sin’s chains;

The moan of sin-sick hearts he hears

And feeleth all their pains.

There is no wrong that men can do

But God’s own Lamb must suffer too.

Oh, understand it if you can!

(’Tis Love himself who pleads)

Whene’r you wound a son of man

The Son of God still bleeds.

And not till sin is wholly slain

Can God’s own heart be healed of pain.

Chapter 7 To the Rescue of Self-Pity

CHAPTER 7
To the Rescue of Self-Pity

Mrs. Valiant was cheerfully and energetically bustling about her cottage, busy with the morning’s work. Through the open kitchen door she could look out in the garden where the brown hen was teaching her new family of yellow chicks to search for worms and tidbits. The little ducklings were splashing about in the stream; the yellow cat was blinking in the sun and the bees were humming all over the garden. In the next cottage Mercy was singing as she went about her work.

“A really lovely day,” said Mrs. Valiant to herself happily—“just the sort of day when something especially nice is likely to happen. I do hope poor Dismal’s awful almanac is not foretelling calamity. I wonder whether I ought to go see her? I should so love to know what happened after the Shepherd went into her cottage.”

Just as she reached that point in her thoughts the garden gate clicked, and, looking out, she saw a tall woman wearing a most beautiful oriental-looking shawl embroidered all over with richly glowing colors, the pattern outlined in threads of gold and silver which shone and sparkled in the bright sunshine, making it a thing of almost dazzling beauty.

Mrs. Valiant’s attention was so taken by the glittering shawl, and she was so astonished that anyone so gorgeously appareled should actually be walking up the garden path towards her kitchen door, and so occupied in wondering whoever it could be that for a moment or two she did not recognize the face of the newcomer. When she did she gave a little gasp of bewildered amazement, and then her eyes misted over with tears of joy so that everything was blurred.