It appeared He did, but there were difficulties in the way. Men and women were wicked--were born wicked: that was the trouble. “But why were we born wicked?” persisted the child. “Didn’t God make us?” “Of course He made us. God made everything.” “Why didn’t He make us good?” It seemed He had made us good. Adam and Eve were both quite good, in the beginning. If only they had remained good--hadn’t disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit we might all of us have been good and happy to this day. “He was the first man, wasn’t he--Adam?” demanded the child. “Yes. God made him out of the earth. And saw that he was good.” “How long ago would that be?” he asked. His aunt was not sure of the exact date. Along time ago. “A hundred years?” Longer than that. Thousands and thousands of years ago. “Why couldn’t Adam have said he was sorry and God have forgiven him?” “It was too late,” explained his aunt. “You see, he’d done it.” “What made him eat it? If he was a good man and God had told him not to?” It was explained to him that the Devil had tempted Adam--or rather Eve. It seemed unimportant so far as their unfortunate descendants were concerned. “But why did God let the Devil tempt him--or her, whichever it was. Can’t God do everything? Why didn’t He kill the Devil?” Mrs. Newt regarded her knitting with dismay. While talking to Anthony John she had lost count of her stitches. Added to which it was time for Anthony John to go home. His mother would be getting anxious. His aunt, though visiting was not much in her line, dropped in on his mother a day or two later. Mrs. Plumberry happened to have looked in for a gossip and a cup of tea the same afternoon. His aunt felt sure that Anthony John would be helpful to his father in the workshop. In the evening his mother informed him that she and his father had decided to give to him the opportunity of learning whatever there was to be learnt about such things as God and sin and the everlasting soul of man. She didn’t put it in these words, but that was the impression she conveyed. On the very next Sunday that was he should go to chapel; and there kind ladies and gentlemen who understood these matters, perhaps even better than his aunt herself, would answer all his questions and make all things plain to him.