His young son, Sheo Deo, who from his birth had been paralyzed in his limbs, lay on his mat near, and thus addressed his father:—
“O father, the time for pujah (worship) has come! Why do you not prostrate yourself before Krishna?”
Sheosahai made reply: “My son, I was at the mela (fair) yesterday, and there was a man preaching;[48] and I stood to listen, and his words have troubled my soul. He said that thousands of years ago the mighty God came down upon a mountain in fire and smoke, and that from the midst of the fire and smoke a terrible voice gave this command,—Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them. I would fain have cast dust at the speaker; and yet his words clung to my soul, for he spake as one who knows that he speaks the truth.”
“Was the great God of whom he told the God of the Christians?” asked Sheo Deo, who had heard something of their religion before.
“The same,” replied his father. “And the preacher went on to say that in England, thousands of years ago, men bowed down to idols, and worshipped the work of their own hands; and then the people were feeble and few. But the nation has long since cast away idols, and now men read their holy Book, and pray to the Lord Jesus Christ; and therefore England is mighty, and a blessing rests on the land.”
“O father! do you not fear the wrath of Krishna when he hears you repeat such words?” cried Sheo Deo, looking up in alarm at the painted image.
Sheosahai made no reply; he turned and slowly left the hut. Perhaps the thought arose in his heart: “Has Krishna power to hear them?”
After his father’s departure Sheo Deo lay still on his mat, from which he could not move, and often he gazed up at the idol, and turned over in his mind the strange words which his father had heard.
Presently there came on a terrible storm. The thunder roared above like the noise of a thousand cannon, and fierce lightnings flashed from the darkened sky; the whole earth seemed to tremble with the fury of the great tempest.