“Well, why didn’t he prevent it, mother?”

“Hear me through, my child.  If he allowed you to be sick, when he could have kept you well, then it is certain that, on the whole, he would rather you would be sick.  You see this, don’t you, Julian?”

“Yes, ma’am.  God made me sick, didn’t he?”

“There’s no doubt that all diseases are under his control.”

“Then, mama, I am sure that God—­”

“Not quite so fast.  I want you to see what you was doing, when you was so peevish a little while ago.  You was very much out of humor.  Indeed, I think you showed some anger.”

“Oh, no, mother, I was not angry.”

“Perhaps not, my child; but what would you call that spirit, if it was not anger?”

“I was—­I was—­provoked—­I mean vexed, mama.”

“Well, who vexed you?”

“Nobody; it was the whooping-cough.”

“I’m very sorry that my child should get into such a passion—­or vexation, whichever it may be—­with the whooping-cough; for you say that you suppose the disease was under the control of God, so that it must have been rather an innocent sort of thing, after all.  If you should fall into the mill-pond, and a man standing on the shore should let you struggle a while before he helped you out, you would get vexed, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess I should.”

“You would certainly have as much reason for vexation as you have had this morning.  But would you be likely to get vexed with the water?”

“Why, no, mama.  I should be provoked with the man, because he didn’t help me out.”

“I thought so.  Well, then, don’t you think you found fault with God, in this matter of the whooping-cough?”

“It may be so.”

“It must be so.”

Little Julian was a thoughtful child.  He saw that this spirit of peevishness was very wrong, and that he had murmured against God.  He told his mother that he hoped he should not do so any more.  He was silent for some minutes, and then said—­

“There is one thing I would like to know about, mother; but it may be I ought not to ask.”

“What is it, Julian?” asked his mother.

“If God is kind, and if he loves us, why does he let us get sick?  I am sure you would keep me well all the time, if you could, because you love me, and because you are good and kind.”

“I am glad you asked that question, Julian.  There are a great many things which we cannot understand about the government of God.  But I think I can explain this to you.  God, it is true, often disappoints us, and gives us pain, and makes us weep.  This would all seem very strange, and almost unkind, if we did not know that God has some other end in view besides making us happy in this life.  He is training us for another world; and if you live to be a man, you will see that such disappointments as this of yours, for a part of God’s plan of fitting his children for heaven.”