“But the Great Spirit is good,” said Angut, rather as if he were soliloquising than addressing his friend.
“Yes; He is good—must be good,” returned the sailor; “it cannot be otherwise.”
“Then why does evil exist?” asked Angut quickly. “Why did He make evil? You have told me He made everything.”
“So He did, but evil is not a thing. It is a state of being, so to speak.”
“It is a great mystery,” said Angut.
“It would be a greater mystery,” returned the seaman, “if the Great Spirit was not mysterious.”
“He has allowed Ujarak to carry off Nunaga, though she loves not Ujarak, and Ujarak does not love her, else he could not have treated her so badly. Why did the Great Spirit allow that?” demanded the Eskimo, with some bitterness of tone.
“I know not, Angut, yet I know it is for good, because the Great Spirit is our Great Father, and if human fathers know how to treat their children well, does the Great Father of all not know?”
The Eskimo gravely bowed his head in assent to this proposition, and the seaman continued—
“I have spoken to you more than once, Angut, about the men in our land called surgeons—that you call knife-men,—how they will cut and carve your body, and tie you down sometimes, and give you terrible and prolonged suffering for the purpose of curing you and relieving your pain.”