There being no system of female education in Bengal, my father applied all his energies for my training, and being a religious man himself, cared more for the right development of my heart than for my head. I remember distinctly sitting in his lap every evening and committing the prayers, proverbs, etc., to memory. He had a remarkable faculty of cultivating, improving, and enriching another’s memory. Every evening I had to learn either a part or the whole of a prayer or moral precept, in the Sanscrith poetry, and to recite to him _all_ the old ones beside. Thus, while other Brahmun boys of my own age or older knew nothing about proverbs and parables, my memory was amply supplied with the same. With such care he had taught me these things, that what I learned while a boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, I can repeat to-day, word by word, most of it being prayers to nearly twelve deities, such as the Sun, the River Ganges, Doorga, Shibă, Rama, Krishto, etc., and “an hundred and eight proverbs,” besides select pieces from old Sanscrith poems, etc. He did not aim at crowding my youthful mind with dry, unintelligible precepts, but bathed it with their sweet juice. Indeed, ere I was made Thejo, or Second Born, I could almost draw pleasure from those Sanscrith proverbs, and recognize their applicability to the internal phenomena of the world. My fondness for poetry--which afterwards grew so strong that, though a renouncer of the Hindoo gods, I took much pains to compose several pieces of drama from the legends--was implanted in these younger days. And, as the result of learning the stories and legends of the gods, a deep reverence for them filled my heart. My childhood’s devotion to the idols was exemplary. My dear mother told me several anecdotes of my early days, about my offering or rather reciting prayers to the deities. During the great worship of a goddess in our neighborhood, my father was going to see the theatrical shows late in the evening. He awoke me from my sleep, and gladly I started with him. It was my habit to thank the gods, each by its respective name, before going out of doors. There was an idol of Shawlgram in our house, and as I passed through a narrow entry, I bent my head against the wall of the room in which the image was, and offered prayers. One by one my favorite gods all came into my mind; of course it took a longer time than usual to ask blessings from them all. My father walked almost to the place of worship and turned back to speak to me, but I was not there. Fearing some accident might have happened, or that I was taken aloft by Neeshie, he hastened toward home,[29] and found his little boy slowly striking his head against the wall. He felt doubly happy in learning that nothing unpleasant had happened, and that his boy was growing religious. How little did he know then that a Spirit more hurtful than Neeshie had already taken possession of the tender heart of his son. It was superstition that