e either to read or to write; but, when
quite a child, he manifested a very clear judgment in many things, and
especially in the view he took as to the worship of idols.

CHAPTER TWO.

DANIEL'S FIRST PROTEST AGAINST IDOLATRY.

One day when Daniel was about ten years old, and living with his father
in Goobbe, a relation of the family came from Toomcoor, on what, to him,
was a very important matter; and he said to Daniel's father, "Well,
Veera Chickka, your father shut up our goddess in a box and left it, in
his village, in care of the temple priest, and there she now remains.
The goddess has had no worship paid her from that time to this; she is
angry, and a great calamity has, in consequence, come upon me and my
family. Come now, let us fetch the goddess from our ancestral home, and
worship her here in this place." The goddess referred to was Lakshmi,
the wife of Vishnu, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. When little
Daniel heard this proposal, it seemed foolishness to him, and at a
favourable opening in the conversation he said to his relation, "The
goddess Lakshmi has blessed you with wealth, but she has left us in
poverty; when she gives us prosperity we will worship her, but not till
then." Both Daniel's father and his visitor looked at the boy angrily,
but said nothing; however, in the end his father decided not to fetch
the idol.

The following is another proof of Daniel's decision; and it shows what a
clear view he had of idolatry before he ever heard a word of Gospel
truth. The account is given in his own words.

CHAPTER THREE.

SNAKE-WORSHIP.

When I was about eleven years old, my brothers and sisters were
suffering from boils, and my parents asked a fortune-teller what they
should do to get rid of them. He told my parents that the boils had
come in consequence of their neglect of serpent-worship, and that the
children would be cured if my parents would again worship snakes. These
reptiles often take up their abode in white-ant-hills, after the ants
have vacated them. My parents had been in the habit of worshipping
serpents two or three times a year. Their custom was to pour milk,
clarified butter, curds, etcetera, etcetera, into the holes of a
white-ant-hill, when they knew there was a venomous serpent inside. The
libations were accompanied by fastings, prayers, prostrations, and many
ceremonial purifications. And now to remove the boils from their
children they resolved to compl