Angad was thus the second of the ten Gorus who reigned in succession over the Sikhs. They were treated with such adoring reverence as man should render to the Supreme Being alone. To the Sikh his Goru stood almost in the place of his God. The first Gorus, however, appear to have been meek and gentle-spirited men. The following anecdote is characteristic, and shows that though the sons of Goru Nanak were not permitted by their father to inherit his spiritual dignity, they were yet treated with great respect for his sake. The fourth Goru, Rámdas, was once in the company of Sirichand, he who, in his youth, had preferred keeping his fine clothes unspotted to helping his father out of the bog. It might be expected that some jealousy would arise in the heart of Sirichand, seeing thus a third Goru in the position to which, from his birth, he might naturally have aspired. The conversation between the two men is curious. Beholding the long beard of Goru Rámdas, the son of Nanak said, "O Rámdas Ji! Wherefore has your beard grown so long?" Rámdas, with Oriental courtesy, replied, "O true king! It has grown long in order to wipe the dust from your feet!" Nanak's son exclaimed, with generous admiration of the ruler's humility, "Brother, showing such love, you have obtained power to hold the Goruship, and we, who were sons, remain free from envy." I cannot refrain from adding the story of this Rámdas's elevation to the Goruship, it being one of those pleasing anecdotes which soften the hard, dry lines of history. At an early age Rámdas had married the little daughter of the third Goru, Amrdás. The youthful wife and her husband took pleasure in rendering any act of menial service to her father the Goru. One day her parent, seated on a chair, was performing his ablutions, his daughter pouring water over his feet, when accidently a nail of the chair ran into the poor girl's foot. Instead of starting or crying out with the sudden pain, the Goru's daughter thought to herself, "If I lift my foot, my father, seeing my blood, will forget his ablutions;" so, with rare fortitude, the young Sikh did not change her position. The blood from her wounded foot, however, trickling from under the seat, attracted the Goru's attention. "Daughter!" he cried, "from whence does this blood come?" In the simple words of the native narrator, "the girl, not thinking it right to tell lies, on her father's asking her again and again, told him the truth." The father, deeply touched by his child's loving reverence, tenderly kissed her, and said, "I have nothing else now to bestow on you, but from this day forth I present you with the Goruship." The offer tells more of parental affection than of wisdom, for a female Goru would have been somewhat analogous to a female Pope. Happily the daughter showed more sense than her parent. The young Sikh shrank back from the strange post of spiritual leadership to which her father's love would have raised her.