When presently they went on their way, the King began to tell his companion about the reeds of gentleness. He said that the chief product from them was a lovely perfume extracted from the lower part of the canes. This perfume lingered about the persons who wore it, all day long, very fresh and fragrant and soothing. He explained also that it was the pliability of the reeds and their perpetual motion which developed the spice from which the perfume was made, and he pointed out to her the exquisite grace and lovely, unresisting meekness with which they bowed themselves before the wind, sometimes right to the ground, only to sweep upright again from that low position, without apparent effort or strain of any kind, as soon as the wind had passed over them. A lovely gracious submissiveness characterized their every movement and yet at the same time there was something grandly regal about the poise and perfect control of their motions, no weakness of any kind but the most perfect command.

“They know how to be abased and how to be exalted,” thought Grace and Glory with sudden understanding, and she realized that the lovely fragrance which exuded from them and which men call gentleness, sympathy, and loving understanding was developed by the daily practice of bending submissively to life’s hard and difficult experiences without bitterness, or resentful resistance and self-pity. She saw quite clearly that no force of storm or tempest would be able to harm or break the reeds because they had learned to bow themselves so easily to the least breath of wind, without offering any resistance at all. It was this gentle movement of submissiveness, combined with perfect balance and graceful motion, which produced the cadences of music sounding all over the mountainside, for the wind turned every reed into an instrument through which to play the harmonies of heaven.

In silence Grace and Glory followed the King as he walked along the narrow path between the reeds, and she noticed that the poise and grace and litheness of his movements had in them the same quality as that of the reeds, the same lovely willingness to stoop and bend, and the same buoyant and royal way of rising again, uncrippled by the stooping. As she watched him she remembered her long journey up to the High Places, and how from start to finish it had been the gracious gentleness of his manner towards her, his perfect understanding of her weakness and fears, as though he felt with her all that she suffered, which had wooed her to follow him, even up to the grave in the mist-filled canyon on the mountains. Then she whispered to herself most gratefully, “His gentleness hath made me great,” and “Oh, how I long to be anointed with the same gentleness towards others!”