By this time the King and his companion were so far up the mountain that they had almost reached the skyline, and now they seated themselves beneath one of the pine trees on a cushion of moss and lichen. The pungent fragrance of the sun-warmed pine needles and cones filled the air, and across from the wooded slopes of a neighboring mountain came the clear and oft repeated call of a cuckoo. Overhead the sky was such a wonderful blue it was as though they sat beneath a roof of sapphire. In this lovely setting the King and Grace and Glory continued the conversation they had begun on the Mountain of Spikenard.

The scene was so beautiful that at first the main thought which filled the mind of Grace and Glory was that though they were surrounded with so much beauty and though every living thing around them seemed an individual cup full and brimming over with joy, they were actually sitting upon the Mountain of Suffering Love. It was this strange paradox which led Grace and Glory at last to break the thoughtful silence in which they had been sitting.

“My Lord,” she said, “this is called the Mountain of Longsuffering. Has love no power to save and help others apart from suffering? Why must love suffer at all, and why, above all else, must love suffer long?”

“It is because the very essence of love is oneness,” answered the King. “That is why love must suffer. If the beloved creatures whom the Creator created for love’s sake must suffer, then the oneness of love makes it impossible for him to allow them to suffer anything which he is not willing to suffer with them. It is because the whole body of mankind is suffering so dreadfully from the disease of sin and all its dreadful consequences, that I, who am so one with mankind, must suffer it all with them. Ever since the first sin, the love of God has been, as it were, upon a cross of suffering. For do you not see that when I became Man I became Head of the whole suffering body of mankind? You also know that it is the head which feels all the sum total of any and all suffering experienced by the individual members of the body.