"He says God takes care of you, and gives you a pleasant home, don't he?"
"Yes."
"But it's your father and mother that do it, too, isn't it?"
"Yes: it always seems to me that the minister don't put it right, and I've wanted to tell him so, sometimes."
"Yes, he puts it right, if you understand what he means: he means that God made the world so that children have parents to take care of them. God don't appear to do things in this world directly himself, but seems to have agents to carry out his plans; and Nature is the greatest of these agents, who appoints all the smaller agents. Of course, God made Nature, and some think he is in Nature; and we can find out a good deal about him by studying her ways."
"What can you find out?"
"We can find out that he is wise and good, and that he doesn't let us know every thing in a minute, even about his wisdom and goodness, and that we've got to wait until we get into another world before we can understand the meaning of some things that happen in this world; so we learn to have faith in him,—that is, to believe he will make every thing right sometime, even though we can't see how."
"Do you suppose we shall ever know just how the trees and grass came to be so green?" said Felix, who was getting sleepy, and looking dreamily into the thick, low boughs of the apple-orchard.
"Why, we know that now; that was explained long ago."
"Was it? Well, I'd like to know how. I never heard any one tell about it."