[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0316":3},"MARCH 16\n\nFor our profit (Heb. 12:10).\r\nIn one of Ralph Conner's books he tells a story of Gwen. Gwen was\r\na wild, wilful lassie and one who had always been ACCUSTOMED TO HAVING HER own way. Then one day she met with a terrible accident which crippled her for life. She became very rebellious and in the\r\nmurmuring state she was visited by the Sky Pilot, as the missionary among the mountaineers was termed.\r\nHe told her the parable of the canyon. \"At first there were no\r\ncanyons, but only the broad, open prairie. One day the Master of the Prairie, walking over his great lawns, where were only asked  the Prairie, 'Where are your flowers?' and the Prairie said,\r\n'Master I have no seeds.'\r\n\"Then he spoke to the birds, and they carried seeds of every kind\r\nof flower and strewed them far and wide, and soon the prairie\r\nbloomed with crocuses and roses and buffalo beans and the yellow crowfoot and the wild sunflowers and the red lilies all summer\r\nlong. Then the Master came and was well pleased; but he missed the flowers he loved best of all, and he said to the Prairie: 'Where\r\nare the clematis and the columbine, the sweet violets and wild-flowers, and all the ferns and flowering shrubs?'\r\nAnd again he spoke to the birds, and again thy carried all the\r\nseeds and scattered them far and wide. But again, when the Master came he could not find the flowers he loved best of all, and he\r\nsaid:\r\n\"'Where are those my sweetest flowers?' and the Prairie cried sorrowfully:\r\n\"'Oh, Master, I cannot keep the flowers, for the winds sweep\r\nfiercely, and the sun beats upon my breast and they wither up and fly away.'\r\n\"Then the Master spoke to the Lightning, and with one swift blow the Lightning cleft the Prairie to the heart. And the Prairie\r\nrocked and groaned in agony, and for many a day moaned bitterly over the black, jagged, gaping wound.\r\n\"But the river poured its waters through the cleft, and carried\r\ndown deep black mould, and once more the birds carried seeds and strewed them in the canyon. And after a long time the rough rocks\r\nwere decked out with soft mosses and trailing vine, and all the\r\nnooks were hung with clematis and columbine, and great elms lifted their huge tops high up into the sunlight, and down about their\r\n\r\nfeet clustered the low cedars and balsams, and everywhere the\r\nviolets and wind-flower and maiden-hair grew and bloomed, till the canyon became the Master's favorite place for rest and peace and joy-\"\r\nThen the Sky Pilot read to her \"The fruit--I'll read 'flowers'--of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness--and some of these grow only in the canyon.\"\r\n\"Which are the canyon flowers?\" asked Gwen softly, and the Pilot answered: \"Gentleness, meekness, longsuffering; but though the  others, love, joy, peace, bloom in the open, yet never with so rich  a bloom and so sweet a perfume as in the canyon.\"\r\nFor a long time Gwen lay quite still, and then said wistfully,\r\nwhile her lips trembled: \"There are no flowers in my canyon but only ragged rocks.\"\r\n\"Some day they will bloom, Gwen dear, the Master will find them, and we, too, shall see them\"\r\nBeloved, when you come to your canyon, remember!",1783499792050]