She does not find any pleasure in gossip and slander, and avoids the place where such are indulged. Her counsel is, “Speak good of others, and bring their evil before you simply for the purpose of deriving admonition from them. We are all liable to make blunders. ‘The saints may err,’ is the Sanscrith saying. Our talking of the imperfections and immoralities of others is just as ridiculous as the censure of the sieve, which cried out, ‘Brother needle, why, there is a hole in your body.’” In her daily occupation and habits she is worthy of our imitation. She is the last to go to bed and the first to leave it. You awake in the midnight and you will find her at work or whispering hymns; rise early, and you will see she has gone to the Ganges to bathe. Inaction is an abomination to her: she would urge all to do something innocently profitable. She hates debt, and fears it as death itself. At the first call she would pay her debts, even if her children should suffer for it. She believes that he who dies a debtor will have to settle his dues after death; and to confirm this doctrine she points out the trees that grow one upon the other, such as a banian tree upon the trunk of a palm; explaining, thus, that the latter did not pay his debts, so after death he has become a tree, and his creditor grows on his head in the form of a banian. Such is an imperfect sketch of my dear mother, under whose care and supervision my early days were directed. Any good thing I have in me was the gift of this noble woman; she laid it in my heart in its rude state, and a Teacher wiser and more unerring than she has polished it afterwards. May God judge and reward her according to the light she has. To whom much is given of them much shall be required. God grant that before she breathes her last breath, she may know that in deserting the idol gods her son has not committed an unpardonable sin! CHAPTER II. MY “SECOND BIRTH.”--CONSECRATION FOR THE PRIESTHOOD.--RELIGIOUS TRAINING.--DEATH OF MY FATHER.--ENGLISH SCHOOLS.--ZEAL FOR IDOLATRY. The Brahmun boys are not permitted to touch idols or to perform any religious services until they are become “Second born.” Accordingly at the age of thirteen, I believe, I was consecrated to Brahmun life.