h children of His own age. And as He is growing
into a boy, able to go alone, He begins wandering through the fields and
through the forest, and the notes of His wondrous flute are heard in all
the groves and over all the plains. The child, a child of five--only
five years of age when He wandered with His magic flute in His hands,
charming the hearts of all that heard; so that the boys left tending the
cattle and followed the music of the flute; the women left their
household tasks and followed where the flute was playing; the men
ceased their labours that they might feast their ears on the music of
the flute. Nay, not only the men, the women and the children, but the
cows, it is said, stopped their grazing to listen as the notes fell on
their ears, and the calves ceased suckling as the music came to them on
the wind, and the river rippled up that it might hear the better, and
the trees bowed down their branches that they might not lose a note, and
the birds no longer sang lest their music should make discord in the
melody, as the wondrous child wandered over the country, and the music
of heaven flowed from His magic flute.

And thus He lived and played and sported, and the hearts of all the
cowherds and of their wives and daughters went out to that marvellous
child. And He played with them and loved them, and they would take Him
up and place His baby feet on their bosoms, and would sing to Him as the
Lord of all, the Supreme, the mighty One. They recognised the Deity in
the child that played round their homes, and many lessons He taught
them, this child, amid His gambols and His pranks--lessons that still
teach the world, and that those who know most understand best.

Let me take one instance which ignorant lips have used most in order to
insult, to try to defame the majesty that they do not understand. But
let me say this: that I believe that in most cases where these bitter
insults are uttered, they are uttered by people who have never really
read the story, and who have heard only bits of it and have supplied the
rest out of their own imaginations. I therefore take a particular
incident which I have heard most spoken of with bitterness as a proof of
the frightful immorality of Shri Krishna.

While the child of six was one day wandering along, as He would, a
number of the Gopis were bathing nude in the river, having cast aside
their cloths--as they should not have done, that being against the law
and showing carele