“Yes,” he said, “Love is a consuming fire. It is a burning, unquenchable passion for the blessedness and happiness, and, above all, for the perfection of the beloved object. The greater the love, the less it can tolerate the presence of anything that can hurt the beloved, and the less it can tolerate in the beloved anything that is unworthy or less than the best, or injurious to the happiness of the loved one. Therefore it is perfectly true that love, which is the most beautiful and the most gentle passion in the universe, can and must be at the same time the most terrible—terrible in what it is willing to endure itself in order to secure the blessing and happiness and perfection of the beloved, and, also, apparently terrible in what it will allow the beloved to endure if suffering is the only means by which the perfection or restoration to health of the beloved can be secured.”

When he had said this he began to sing another of the mountain songs.

Can love be terrible, my Lord?

Can gentleness be stern?

Ah yes!—intense is love’s desire

To purify his loved—’tis fire,

A holy fire to burn.

For he must fully perfect thee

Till in thy likeness all may see

The beauty of thy Lord.

Can holy love be jealous, Lord?

Yes, jealous as the grave;

Till every hurtful idol be

Uptorn and wrested out of thee

Love will be stern to save;

Will spare thee not a single pain

Till thou be freed and pure again

And perfect as thy Lord.

Can love seem cruel, O my Lord?

Yes, like a sword the cure;

He will not spare thee, sin-sick soul,

Till he hath made thy sickness whole,

Until thine heart is pure.

For oh! He loves thee far too well

To leave thee in thy self-made hell,

A Savior is thy Lord!

Grace and Glory sat by his side on the great throne of granite rock, looking down and yet further down the valley so far below. She thought of the people who lived down there so far away from the Kingdom of Love, but most especially she thought of the miserable, terrified old Lord Fearing beside whose deathbed she had so recently stood, and of the many others whom she knew who lived as though the Lord of Love did not exist; and her heart was overwhelmed within her; overwhelmed with the terror of love and yet comforted by it too.

Then she looked up into the face of the King and what she saw there left her absolutely silent, but with this one thought shining in her mind like a clear lamp: