ther; 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."

"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?"

"Oh, mother, I see it all now! I wonder I never thought of this before!
Well, the whooping-cough is not so bad, after all. I've learned
something by it, at any rate."

"Yes, and it may be worth a great deal more to you than the 'show' would
have been."

THE OLD MAN AT THE COTTAGE DOOR.

Come, faint old man! and sit awhile
Beside our cottage door;
A cup of water from the spring,
A loaf to bless the poor,
We give with cheerful hearts, for God
Hath given us of his store.

Too feeble, thou, for daily toil,
Too weak to earn thy bread--
For th' weight of many, many years,
Lies heavy on thy head--
A wanderer, want, thy weary feet,
Hath to our cottage led.

Come rest awhi