"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."
"But I think we should be just as good, if he did not make us feel bad and cry."
"That is your mistake. Do you think you would be just as good a child, if your parents always humored you, and gave you every plaything you asked for? Are you quite sure that you would now mind your father and mother as well, if you had always been allowed to have your own way?"
"But you don't make me sick, mother."
"True. We correct you in another way. But we sometimes give you pain, and make you cry. Did you ever think, when your father reproved you and punished you, that it was because he did not love you?"
"Oh, no, mother."
"You can see how your father can be kind and affectionate, and still give you pain?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Then cannot you see how God may disappoint his children, and even make them unhappy for a time, and love them tenderly, too?"