"Then how can we have dominion over them if there are none there?" asked his wife.
"It seems to me that you are both very dense this evening. Let us continue and these things will clear up as we proceed," said the pastor, a little nettled at his inability to answer their questions clearly.
Walter had several more questions he wanted to ask on this subject, but he thought best not to ask too many at one time.
There was no more interruption until the pastor reached Genesis 1, 31st verse—"and God saw everything He had made, and behold it was very good, and the evening and the morning were the 6th day." Here Walter interrupted with, "Then everything that God made was good."
"Yes, everything that God made was good," answered the pastor.
"If that be true, God could not have made me sick, for sickness is not good," said Walter.
"Walter, I believe you are right," said his mother.
The pastor looked from one to the other, then slowly laid the Bible down in his lap. He was surprised at the turn the conversation had taken, and he remembered that Walter had on a previous occasion said something similar. Just what would be the best answer to make he did not know, so thought he would ask Walter a few questions, and in this way find out what the boy had on his mind. So he asked, "What makes you so positive that God did not make you sick Walter?"
"Because God is good and just, and I am His child, and the Bible says He made everything good and He made everything that was made, so everything must be good. Besides, I cannot conceive of a just God making me suffer for a sin some one else committed, any more than I could think of you, father, punishing me for something that our neighbor's boy had done."
Like a flash the pastor saw now what the boy had meant when he spoke of sending him to jail because some one else had stolen some chickens. The boy was only trying to illustrate to him the injustice of punishing one person for the deeds of another. Then the thought came, "Shall man be more just than God?" There was something here he did not understand, and yet the Bible said God made everything that was made. If this be true, He was the author of all the sorrows and woes, as well as the joys, of the human race.