 Chapter 10 We say that it is hard to live in accordance with Christ's precepts. How can it be otherwise than hard, while we conceal our state from ourselves, and earnestly try to maintain the trust that our state is not what it really is? Calling that trust faith, we exalt it into something sacred, and either by violence, by working upon the feelings, by threats, by flattery, or by deceit, we seek to allure others to that false trust. A Christian once said, Crado Queer Absurdum, and other Christians now enthusiastically repeat the words, thinking a belief in absurdities is the best way to the truth. A clever and learned man observed to me a short time ago, in the course of conversation, that the Christian doctrine was of no importance as a doctrine or morality. We find the same, he said, in the teachings of the Stoics, the Brahmins, and in the Talmud. The substance of the Christian doctrine is in the theosophical teaching contained in the dogmas. That means that what is eternal and general to all humanity, what is necessary for life and what is rational, is not of most value, but what is quite incomprehensible and therefore unnecessary, but in the name of which millions have been put to death, is the most important point of Christianity. We have formed an erroneous idea of life, both as concerns ourselves personally and the world in general. We have based it on our own wickedness and on our own personal lusts, and we look upon that erroneous idea, united only by outward observances to the doctrine of Christ, as the most important and necessary to life. Were it not for that trust in what is but falsehood, which has been upheld by men for ages, the falsity of our view of life, as well as the truth of Christ's doctrine, would have become manifest long ago. Awful as it may seem to say so, I sometimes think that if the doctrine of Christ, with the church teaching that has become a part of it, had never existed, those who now call themselves Christians would be nearer than they are now to the doctrine of Christ, that is to a rational idea of the true happiness of life. The morality taught by all the prophets would not then have been a closed book for mankind. Men would have had their petty preachers of the truth, and they would have believed them. But now that the whole truth has been revealed, it seems so awful to those whose deeds are evil, that they have interpreted it falsely, and men have lost their trust in the truth. In our European world the saying of Christ that he came into the world in order to bear witness of the truth, and that he who is of the truth hears him, has long since been answered in the words of Pilate, what is the truth? We have taken in earnest these words of Pilates, expressive of such sad and deep irony, and we have made them our faith. In our world not only do all live without knowing the truth, and without a desire to know it, but also with the firm conviction that of all idle occupations the idlest is the search after truth. The doctrine of life that all nations, long before the existence of European society, considered as most important, that doctrine which, as Christ told us, is the only thing necessary, is alone excluded from our lives. This is done by the institution called the church, and yet even those who themselves belong to that institution have long ceased to believe in it. The only aperture that lets in the light, to which the eyes of all who reflect and suffer turn, is concealed. There is but one answer to the questions, what am I? What shall I do? Can I not render my life easier by following the commandments of the God who, according to your words, came to save us? And the answer is honor and obey the authorities, and believe in the church. Why is there so much suffering in the world, cries a despairing voice? Why is there so much evil? Can I not refuse to take part in it? Can evil not be mitigated? The answer is, it is impossible. Your wish to lead a good life, and to help others to do so, is but pride and vain glory. The only thing you can do is to save yourself, your soul, for a future life. If you wish to flee from the evils of the world, leave the world. There is a way open to each, says the teaching of the church, but know that, having chosen it, you have lost all right to return to the world, that you must cease to live and must voluntarily die a lingering death. There are only two ways open to us. Our teachers tell us that we must either believe our spiritual pastors, and obey them, and those who are in authority over us, and take an active part in the evil they organize, or else leave the world, and enter a monastery, deprive ourselves of food and sleep, and let our bodies rot on an iron pillar, bend and unbend our bodies in endless genuflections, and do nothing for our fellow-creatures. Thus a man must either confess the doctrines of Christ to be impracticable, and live contrary to them, or renounce the life of this world, which is but a type of slow suicide. Surprising as the erroneous assumption that the doctrine of Christ is sublime, but impracticable, may seem, to him who understands it, the error by which it is maintained, that he who wishes to keep the commandments of Christ not only in word, but indeed must leave the world, is still more surprising. The erroneous idea that it is better for a man to leave the world than to submit to its temptations is an old error, known to the ancient Hebrews, but entirely foreign, not only to the spirit of Christianity, but even to that of Judaism. It was against that very error that the story Christ loved and so often quoted of the Prophet Jonah was written. The story contains one idea from beginning to end. The Prophet Jonah wishes to be the only just man, and flies from association with the depraved inhabitants of Nineveh. But God shows him that he is a prophet, one whose duty it is to make the truth known to those who have gone astray, and that he must not flee from them, but live among them. Jonah has an aversion to the depraved Ninevites, and once more tries to escape by flight. But God brings him back in the body of a whale, and the will of the Almighty is accomplished. The Ninevites receive the teaching of God through Jonah and amend their lives. But Jonah does not rejoice at having been instrumental in accomplishing the will of God. He is angry, jealous of the Ninevites. He wishes to be the only wise and good man. He goes away into the wilderness, bemoans his fate, and reproaches God. And then a God grows over Jonah in one night, and protects him from the rays of the sun. But on the next night, worms eat the God. Jonah, in his despair, reproaches God for letting the God so precious to him wither. Then God says to him, You regret the God which you called yours. It grew and perished in one night. And do you think I had no pity for so numerous of people who were perishing, living like the beasts, unable to distinguish their right hands from their left? Your knowledge of the truth was needed that you might have given to those who did not have it. Christ knew this story and often quoted it. We are likewise told in the Gospel that Christ himself, after visiting John the Baptist, who had retired to the wilderness before he began his preaching, was subjected to the same temptation, and was conducted into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, by delusion. He overcame that delusion, and in the strength of the Spirit came back into Galilee, and from that time, without abhorring those who were depraved, he passed his life among publicans, Pharisees and sinners, teaching them the truth. According to the teaching of the church, Christ, who was God and man, gave us an example of how we were to live. Christ passed his whole life, as we know, in the turmoil of life, with publicans, adulteresses, and the Pharisees in Jerusalem. These two great commandments are love to our fellow-creatures and the preaching of his doctrine to all men. Both commandments require constant communication with the world, yet the conclusion drawn from Christ's doctrine is that, in order to be saved, we must leave all, cease all communication with our fellow-creatures, and stand on a pillar. Thus it would seem that, in order to follow the example of Christ, we must do just the contrary of what he taught and of what he did himself. According to the interpretation given by the church, Christ's doctrine does not teach either secular men or monks how they are to live in order to make their own lives and the lives of their fellow-creatures better, but teaches the former what they must believe in order to be saved in the next world, in spite of their evil lives, and enjoins the latter to make their lives on earth still harder. But this is not what Christ teaches us. Christ preaches truth, and if abstract truth is truth, it will be truth in reality. If life in God is the only true life, blissful in itself, it will be true and blissful here on earth, in all the various circumstances of life. If life here did not confirm the doctrine of Christ, that doctrine would not be true. Christ does not call men from good to evil, but on the contrary from evil to good. He pities men whom he considers as lost sheep perishing without their shepherd, and promises them a shepherd and good pasture. He says that his disciples will be persecuted for his doctrine, that they must suffer and bear the persecution of the world. But he does not say that if they follow his doctrine they will suffer more severely than if they follow the teaching of the world. On the contrary, he says that those who follow the teaching of the world will be miserable, and those who follow his doctrine will be blessed. Christ does not teach us that we shall be saved either through faith or through asceticism, that is self-deception, or voluntary torments in this life. But he teaches us a life in which, besides salvation from the ruin of individual life, there will be less suffering and more joy than in individual life, even here on earth. Revealing his doctrine to men, Christ says that by following his doctrine, even in the midst of those who do not do so, they will be happier than those who do not fulfill his doctrine. Christ says that, even from a worldly point of view, it is a successful plan not to care about the life of this world. Mark chapter 10, verses 28 to 31, then Peter began to say to him, Lo, we have left all and have followed you. Matthew chapter 19, verses 27 and 29 to 30, what shall we have therefore? And Jesus answered and said, Truly I say to you, there is no man who has left house or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the Gospels. But he shall receive a hundredfold now, in this time, houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, and in the world to come, eternal life. Matthew 19, verse 27, Luke 5, verse 11 and chapter 18, verse 28. Christ mentions it is true that those who follow him shall be persecuted by those who do not, but he does not say that the disciples shall lose anything by doing so. On the contrary, he says that his followers shall have more joy in this world than those who are not his. We cannot doubt that Christ spoke and thought thus. He says it clearly. The spirit of his teaching proves it, as well as the way in which he himself and his disciples lived. But is it true? On an abstract examination of the question whether the state of the followers of Christ or that of those who live for the world will be best, we cannot help seeing that the state of the followers of Christ must be better, because by doing good to all, they avoid exciting the hatred of men. The follower of Christ will do no harm to any, and will therefore be persecuted by the wicked. But the followers of the world will be persecuted by all, because the law of life of those who live for the world is a law of strife or the persecution of each other. The chances of suffering may be the same for both, with the difference that the followers of Christ will be ready to bear them, while the followers of the world will use all their endeavours to avoid them. The followers of Christ will suffer, but will know that their suffering is necessary for the good of humanity, while the followers of the world will suffer without knowing the reason why they suffer. Reasoning abstractly, the state of the followers of Christ should be more profitable than that of the followers of the world. But is it so? Let each verify this by calling to mind all the trying moments of his life, or the suffering, both moral and physical, which he has gone through and still goes through, and let him ask himself in whose name he bore and still bears all that misery. Was it for the sake of the world, or for the doctrine of Christ? Let him examine his past life, and he will see that he never once suffered from having followed the doctrine of Christ. He will see that all the unhappiness of his life, preceded from his having, contrary to his own inclinations, followed the teaching of the world. During my life, which has been an exceptionally happy one, according to the opinion of the world, I can remember so much suffering borne by me for the sake of the world, that it might have sufficed for the life of one of the greatest martyrs of Christianity. All the most trying moments of my life, from the orges and debauchies of my student days, to jewels, war, and ill health, all the unnatural and painful conditions of life in which I now live, were and are but martyred them for the sake of the world. I speak of my life which, as I say, has been an exceptionally happy one, according to the opinion of the world, but how many martyrs there are who have suffered and still suffer for the teaching of the world, whose sufferings I cannot even picture to myself. We do not see the difficulty and peril there is in following the teaching of the world, only because we look upon all we bear for its sake as being absolutely necessary. We have become convinced that all the misfortunes that we create for ourselves are in dispensable conditions of life, and we cannot understand that Christ shows us the way to escape suffering and to attain happiness. In order to examine the question which life is a happier one, we must cast aside all our mistaken notions and examine all those around us and ourselves without any preconceived idea. Just through a crowd of people, especially those living in a town, and see their wearied, sickly and anxious faces, then think of your own life, of the lives of those you know. Think of all the unnatural deaths, or the suicides that you may have chance to hear of, and ask yourself what led to all the despair and suffering that drove these men to commit suicide. And you will see that nine-tenths of the suffering there is in this life, is born for the sake of the world, that it is all unnecessary suffering, that need not exist, that men are, for the most part, martyrs of the teaching of the world. A short time ago, on a rainy Sunday in the autumn, I drove in an omniboss through the marketplace near Suhareva Tower in Moscow. For the space of half a mile, the carriage made its way through a compact mass of people. From morning to evening, thousands of human beings, the greater part of whom are ragged and hungry, prowl about here in the dirt, abusing, cheating and hating each other. The same may be seen in all the marketplaces of Moscow. These men will spend their evenings in taverns and public houses, and the night in their corners and dens. Sunday is the best day in the week for them. On Monday, in their infected dens, they will again set to the work that they are heartily sick of. Reflect what the lives of all these men and women are. Think of all they have left, of the hard work to which they have voluntarily condemned themselves. And you will see that they are true martyrs. These men have left their homes and fields. They have left their fathers, brothers, wives and children. They have forsaken all, and have come into the town to procure what the teaching of the world forces each to consider as indispensable. And not only these thousands and thousands of miserable beings who have lost all, and now live from hand to mouth on tripe and brandy, but all, I say, from workmen, cabmen, seamstresses and harlots, to rich merchants, bureaucrats and their wives, lead the hardest, most unnatural lives, and yet fail to attain what is considered necessary according to the teaching of the world. Tell me whether you can find among all these men, from the beggar to the rich man, a single man who finds that what he earns is sufficient for all that he considers as indispensable necessary, and you will find not one in a thousand. Each struggles to get what he does not of himself require, but what is considered requisite by the world, and the want of which therefore makes him miserable. No sooner has he attained it than more and more is required, and so this labour of Sisyphus goes on without intermission, ruining life after life. Take in an ascending scale the fortunes of men, from those who spend thirty rubles a year to those who spend fifty thousand, and you will seldom find a man who is not tormented and worn out by his efforts to obtain four hundred if he has but three hundred, five hundred if he has four, and so on without end. There is not one who, having five hundred, would voluntarily exchange with him who has but four hundred. Each strives to lay a still heavier burden on his already heavy-laden life, and gives up his whole soul to the teaching of the world. Today a man has earned an overcoat and galoshes. Tomorrow he gets a watch and a chain, then a lodging with a comfortable sofa, carpets in the drawing-room, and velvet clothes. Then he buys a house, horses, pictures in gilt frames, and then, having overworked himself, he falls ill and dies. Another continues the same career, likewise sacrificing his life to the same mollock, dying in the same way, without knowing why he does all this. Well, but perhaps with all this men are happy. What are the principal requisites for earthly happiness, those that no one can deny? The first condition essentially necessary for happiness has always been admitted by all men, to be a life in which the link between him and nature is not destroyed, that is, a life in the open air, in the sunshine, in communion with nature, plants, and animals. Men have always considered being deprived of this as the greatest misfortune that could befall them. Men's feel this privation above all others, and now consider what the life of those who live according to the teaching of the world is. The more successful their worldly career is, the further they are from all that is true happiness. The higher the worldly prosperity they have attained, the less sunshine do they enjoy. The fewer are the fields, woods, and animals they see. They, indeed almost all, women dwelling in towns, live to old age without having seen the rising of the sun more than once or twice in their lives. They have never seen the fields and woods, except through the windows of their coaches or of railway carriages. Not only have they never brought up intended cows, horses, or poultry, but also they have no idea even how animals grow and live. These people see stuffs, stones, and wood worked by human hands, and do not even see them in the light of the sun, but in an artificial light. They hear the noise of machinery, cannons, or musical instruments. They inhale strong scents and tobacco smoke. Their enfeebled digestions crave stimulating food that is neither fresh nor savory. Nor are they nearer to nature, even when travelling from one place to another. They travel shut up in boxes. Wherever they go, be it into the country or abroad, the same curtains hide the light of the sun from their eyes. Footmen, coachmen, and watchmen prevent all communication between them and nature. Wherever they go they are, like prisoners, deprived of this condition that is so necessary for happiness. As prisoners find consolation in a blade of grass that grows in the yard of their prison, or a spider, or a mouse, so do these men and women find consolation from time to time in keeping half withered plants on their window-cells, or in parrots, lap-dogs, or monkeys, the care of which they leave to others. The second indubitable condition necessary for happiness is labour, congenial free labour, physical labour, which gives a man a good appetite and sound invigorating sleep, and again the greater the prosperity a man has attained, according to a worldly estimate, the further he is from this second condition essentially necessary for happiness. All the fortunate of this world, the great dignitaries and rich men, are either as completely deprived of labour as prisoners are, and struggle unsuccessfully against ill health, which is the result of the absence of physical labour, and still more unsuccessfully against the ennui to which they are a prey, I say unsuccessfully, for work is a source of pleasure only when it is necessary, or they have work to do that they hate, as, for instance, our bankers, attorneys, generals and bureaucrats. I say it is work they hate, because I never yet met one among them who liked his work, and who found as much pleasure in it as a stable boy does in clearing away the snow before his master's house. All these so-called fortunate beings have either no work to do, or work that they hate, they are indeed, in much the same position as a galley-slave. A third condition essentially necessary for happiness is family life, and again the further advance men are in worldly prosperity, the less accessible that happiness is for them. Most of them are adulterers, and voluntarily renounce all family ties. Even if they are not adulterers they consider children as a burden rather than a joy, and try all possible means to make their unions sterile. If they have children they take no joy in them. They are obliged to confide them to others, for the most part to complete strangers. At first they are left to the care of foreign nurses or governesses, then sent to some government school, and the children grow up as miserable as their parents, and often have but one feeling toward their parents the wish for their death that they may inherit their property. These men are not prisoners, but the result is more painful than that entire separation from all family ties to which a prisoner is condemned. A fourth condition essentially necessary for happiness is a free, friendly communication with all men, and again the higher the step on which a man stands in the world the further he is from this condition. The higher your position the narrower and closer is the circle of men with whom you can have any communication, and the lower in intellectual and moral development are the few persons who form this spellbound circle out of which there is no escape. The whole world is open to a peasant and his wife. If one million men refuse to have anything to do with him, there are 80 million working men left, like himself, with whom from Archangelsk to Astrakhan he enters immediately into the closest most brotherly communication without waiting to be called upon or introduced. There are, for a functionary and his wife, hundreds of men who are their equals, but their superiors do not admit them into their circle and they are cut off from all the lower classes. There may be ten fashionable families for a rich man of the world and his wife, but they are cut off from all the rest. Bureaucrats and very wealthy men and their families may find about ten friends as important and as rich as themselves. The circle of emperors and kings is still more restricted. Isn't that called solitary confinement, when a prisoner can only have communication with two or three jailers? The fifth and last condition, essentially necessary for happiness, is health and a painless death. And again, the higher a man stands on the social scale, the further he is from it. Take, for instance, a moderately rich man and his wife, and a well-to-do countryman and his wife. In spite of hunger and the hard work, which is the peasants' lot through the inhumanity of others, and not through any fault of his own, you will find, if you compare the two, that the lower men stand on the social scale the healthier they are, and the higher they stand the weaker they are in health. Call to your minds all the rich men and their wives whom you have ever known, and those whom you know at present, and you will see that they almost all suffer from ill health. A healthy man among them, one who does not take medicine continually, or at least periodically every summer, is as great an exception as is a sick man among the working classes. Almost all the fortunate beings are toothless, gray-haired, or bald at the age when a working man is still in the full vigor of his manhood. They are almost all sufferers from nervous diseases, dyspepsia, or worse, from overeating, from drunkenness or depravity. And those who do not die young spend half their lives under medical treatment, using frequent injections of morphine and becoming shriveled cripples unable to maintain themselves, living on like parasites. Think of what the deaths of these men are. One has shot himself, another's body has rotted from disease, another again has died in his old age from a too frequent use of medicines, one has died in a drunken fit, another of gluttony, etc. All perish, one after the other, for the world's sake, and the crowd crawls after them like martyrs in search of suffering and death. One life after another is cast under the wheels of their God, the carriage drives on, tearing lives to pieces, and again and again fresh victims fall under its wheels with groans, wails, and curses. It is difficult to live as Christ enjoins. Christ says, He who will follow me must leave houses, fields, and brethren, and He shall receive a hundredfold more than houses, fields, and brethren in this world, and shall besides have eternal life and none follow Him. The world says, leave your home and your brothers, leave the country to live in a corrupt town, pass your whole life either as a servant in a bath-house, soaping other people's backs with vapour-bath, or as a clerk counting other people's money, or as an attorney general spending your life in courts of law, busyed with various documents in order to make the fate of the miserable more miserable still, or as a bureaucrat hastily signing useless papers all your life, or as a commander-in-chief killing your brethren. Lead a wicked life, the end of which is always a painful death, and you shall suffer in this life and not attain eternal life. And all go the world's way. Christ says, Take up your cross and follow me. By which He means, Bear the fate, allotted you humbly, and submit to me your God, and none do so. But the first lost man wearing an epaulet, and fit for nothing but murder, who says, Take up not the cross but your knapsack and your sword, and follow me to suffering and certain death, is instantly obeyed. Leaving their parents, their wives and children, they go in their buffoon attire, blindly submissive to some superior whom they hardly know, cold, hungry, worn out by a march above their strength, they follow him like a herd of oxen to the slaughter. But they are not oxen, they are men. They cannot help knowing that they are driven to slaughter, with the unsolvable question, Why must I go? And with despair in their hearts they go on, many dying off through cold, hunger and infectious diseases, until those who are left are placed under bullets and cannonballs, and ordered to kill men whom they know nothing about. They kill and are at last killed themselves, and not one of those who kill their fellow creature knows why he does so. The Turks roast them alive, they flay them, they tear out their bowels, and no sooner does any one call than others go to the same dreadful suffering and to death, and nobody finds it hard. Neither do they themselves think it hard, nor do their fathers and mothers think so. The latter even advise their children to go. Not only do they think it necessary and unavoidable, but even perfectly right and moral. We might think the fulfilling of Christ's doctrine difficult, if it were really an easy and pleasant thing to live according to the teaching of the world. But it is much more difficult, dangerous and painful to do so than it is to live up to the doctrine of Christ. It is said that formerly there were martyrs for Christianity, but these were exceptional cases. We reckon about three hundred and eighty thousand voluntary and involuntary martyrs for Christianity in the course of eighteen hundred years. Now count those that have died for the teaching of the world, and for each martyr for Christianity you will find a thousand martyrs for the world's sake, martyrs whose sufferings were a hundred fold more dreadful. Thirty million have been killed in war during the present century alone. Those were all martyrs for the world's sake. Had they but rejected the teaching of the world, even without following the doctrine of Christ, they would have escaped suffering and death. Were a man but to act as he finds best for himself? Were he but to refuse to go to war? He would have to dig ditches. But he would not be tortured in Sebastopol or Plevna. Let a man not believe that it is indispensable to wear a watch-chain and to have useless drawing-rooms. Let him but understand that all the foolish things the world teaches him to consider as indispensable are but useless trash. And he will not work beyond his strength. He will not have to endure suffering and constant care. He will not have to labour without purpose or rest. He will not be deprived of communion with nature or of the work he loves or of his family or his health. And he will not die a uselessly painful death. We need not be martyrs for Christ's sake. That is not what he requires of us. But he teaches us to cease making ourselves martyrs for the sake of the false teaching of the world. The doctrine of Christ has a deep metaphysical purpose. It has a purpose general to all humanity. The doctrine of Christ has the simplest, clearest, most practicable purpose for each of us. We may express this idea in a few words. Christ teaches men not to act foolishly. In this lies the simplest sense of Christ's doctrine, and it is one each has it in his power to understand. Christ says, never give way to angry feelings nor consider another as worse than yourself. It is foolish. If you give way to anger, if you abuse others, it will be worse for you. Christ says, too, do not lust after all women, but take one to you and live with her. It will be better for you. He says likewise, make no promise lest you be forced to act foolishly and wickedly. He says likewise, never return evil for evil, for it will fall back upon you. And Christ says, consider no men as strangers to you, because they live in other lands and speak in other tongues than you do. If you consider them as your enemies, they will do the same with respect to you, and it will be worse for you. Do not act thus, and it will be better for you. Yes, but as the world is organized, it is more difficult to resist it than to live up to its precepts. If a man refuses to become a soldier, he will be imprisoned and possibly shot. If a man does not assure his future by acquiring property for himself and his family, they will all starve. Men say so in order to defend the social organization of the world, but they do not think so themselves. They say so only because they cannot deny the justice of Christ's doctrine, which they pretend to believe in, and they must justify themselves in some way for not fulfilling it. Christ calls men to the spring that is near them. Men suffer from thirst, eat mud, and drink each other's blood. But their teachers have told them that they will suffer more if they go to the spring toward which Christ calls them. And men believe them rather than Christ, and suffer and die of thirst when they are but a few steps from the spring and dare not approach it. But if we believed in Christ, if we believed that he came to bring bliss on earth, if we believed that he offers us who are thirsting a spring of living water, if we drew near to it, we should see how craftily we are deceived by the church and how senseless it is to suffer as we do when salvation is so near. Accept the doctrine of Christ in all its sublime simplicity and the grievous deception in which you all live will grow clear to you. We labor generation after generation to secure our lives by violence and the consolidation of property. We think that our happiness depends upon power and property. We're so used to that idea that the doctrine of Christ, which teaches us that the happiness of man does not lie in wealth, that a rich man cannot be happy, seems to us to require some great sacrifice for the sake of future bliss. And yet Christ does not call upon us to make any sacrifice. His doctrine does not tend toward making our present lives worse for us, but better. Christ in his infinite love teaches men to forbear from trying to assure their lives by violence, from caring about riches, just as philanthropists teach men to forbear from quarrelling and drunkenness. Christ says that if men live without resisting evil and without riches, they will be happier. And he confirms his teaching by his own life. He says that he who lives according to his doctrine must be ready to die at any moment of his life, either of cold or hunger and cannot call a single hour of his life his own. And so it seems that Christ requires great sacrifices of us. Yet it is but a general assertion of the inevitable condition of each man. The follower of Christ must always be ready to suffer and to die. Isn't the follower of the world in the same position? We are so used to the deception we're in that we have come to consider all that we do for the imaginary security of our lives, our armies, fortresses, medicines, property and money, as indispensable for the welfare of our lives. We forget what happened to him who intended to build barns in order to provide himself with riches for a long time. He died the same night. All we do for the security of our lives is but what the ostrich does when hiding its head in order not to see itself killed. We do worse for in order to secure an uncertain life, for an uncertain future, we resolutely ruin our real lives in the actual present. The deception lies in the false assumption that we can secure the welfare of our lives by a struggle with others. We're so used to this erroneous idea that we do not see all we lose. We lose even our lives. Our lives are swallowed up in the cares of this world so that no real life is left. Let us set aside all we have become so used to and then we shall see all we do for the imaginary security of our lives is not done to assure our welfare but to make us forget that our life here is not secure and that it never can be secure. The French take up arms in the year 1870 to assure their existence and that leads to the destruction of hundreds and thousands of Frenchmen and every nation that takes up arms does the same thing with the same result. The rich man thinks his money assures the welfare of his life and the money attracts a robber who kills him. A man who is overly careful of his health seeks to assure it by taking medicine and the medicine kills him by slow degrees and even if it does not kill him it deprives him of all vigor and makes him like the paralytic who hardly lived during 35 years while waiting for the angel at the pool. The doctrine of Christ that life cannot be assured and that we must be ready for suffering and death every moment of our lives is incontestably better than the teaching of the world which says that we must strive to make our lives as comfortable as we can. It is better because though the impossibility of avoiding death and the uncertainty of life are the same yet according to Christ's doctrine life is not wholly swallowed up in the idle employment of trying to ensure our own comfort but is free and can be given up to the only aim natural to it namely our own happiness in that of others. The follower of Christ will be poor. Yes, but he will enjoy the blessings given to him by God. We've come to consider the word poverty as expressive of misery yet it really is happiness. He is poor means that he does not live in a town but in the country. He does not sit idly at home but labours in the fields or the woods. He sees the sunshine, the sky, beasts and birds. He need not take thought what he shall do to excite his appetite, to facilitate his digestion but he feels hungry three times a day. He does not toss about in his soft pillows thinking how to cure himself of sleeplessness but sleeps soundly after his work. He sees his children around him and lives in friendly communion with men. The main point is that he is not obliged to do work that he hates and he need not fear for the future. He will be ill, suffer and die as others do and judging by the way the poor suffer and die his death will be an easier one than that of the rich but he will indubitably have led a happier life. We must be poor, we must be beggars wanderers on the face of the earth. Toxos means wanderer. That is what Christ taught us and without it we cannot enter the kingdom of God but then we shall starve is the answer. Christ has given to us one short saying in reply to this observation a saying that has been usually interpreted as justifying the idleness of the clergy. Matthew chapter 10 verse 10 and Luke chapter 10 verse 7 take neither money for your journey nor two coats nor shoes nor a walking stick because he who works is worthy of his meat and in the same house remain eating and drinking such as they give for the laborer is worthy of his hire. He who works, Ed zest signifies literally can and shall have food. It's a very short saying but he who understands it as Christ did will never argue that if a man has no personal property he must die of hunger. In order to understand the saying clearly we must renounce the idea that the dogma of the redemption has made habitual to us that the happiness of man lies in idleness. We must reestablish in our minds the idea natural to all unperverted men that the necessary condition of happiness for man is labor and not idleness. That every man must labor that his life will be as wearisome and as hard without work as it is for an ant, a horse or any other animal. We must cast aside the barbarous idea that the condition of a man who has an inexhaustible ruble in his pocket a lucrative post or some landed property that enables him to live in idleness is a naturally happy condition. We must reestablish in our minds the idea of labor that all unperverted men have and to which Christ referred when he said that the laborer is worthy of his hire. Christ never could have thought that men would come to consider labor as a curse and therefore he could not imagine a man who did not work or who had no wish to work. It was an understood thing for him that all his followers labored and he says that a man's labor feeds him. And if one man profits from the work of another man he will feed him who works for him and so he who labors will always have food. He will not be rich but there can be no doubt of his having food. The difference is that according to the teaching of the world labor is a man's service for which he considers himself entitled to more or less food in proportion to the work he does. While according to the doctrine of Christ labor is the necessary condition of life and food is its inevitable consequence. Work is the result of food and food is the result of work. It is an eternal cycle. One is the effect and the cause of the other. However hard-hearted a man may be he will feed his workman as he feeds his horse and he will give the workman sufficient food to enable him to work. The son of man came not to be ministered to but to minister and to give his soul as a ransom for many. According to the doctrine of Christ every man will lead a better life if he understands that his duty is not to get as much work as he can out of others but to pass his own life in working for them. The man who acts thus Christ says is worthy of his hire and he cannot fail to obtain it. By the words man does not live to be ministered to but to minister to others. Christ lays the foundation of what is to assure the material existence of man and by the words he who works is worthy of his hire Christ sets aside the argument so often used against the possibility of fulfilling his doctrine that he who does so will perish of hunger and cold. Christ chose that a man does not assure his own food by depriving others of it but by making himself useful and necessary. The more useful he is the more assured his existence will be. In our present social adjustments those who do not fulfill the law of Christ but who are forced by poverty to work for their neighbours do not starve. Then how can we say that those who do fulfill his commandments who work for their fellow creatures will starve? No man can starve while the rich have bread. Millions of men in Russia possessing no property live by their work alone. A Christian will be as sure of his daily bread among pagans as among Christians. He works for others. Consequently he is of use to them and therefore he will be fed. A dog that is useful is fed and taken care of. Then how can we think a human being will not be fed and taken care of? But if a man is sick he is of no use. He cannot work. No one will give him food. People say so but they act in a very different way. The very persons who deny the practicability of Christ's doctrine in fact fulfil it. They do not even cast a sheep, an ox or a dog that is ill adrift. Neither do they kill an old horse but they give it work proportionate to its strength. They feed their lambs, their sucking pigs and poppies in expectation of deriving profit from them by and by. And will they not feed a man when he falls ill? Nine tenths of the lower classes are fed as beasts of burden are by the one tenth, by the rich and powerful of the earth. And however great the error may be in which this one tenth lives and however much they may despise the other nine tenths, they never deprive the other nine tenths of the food necessary for their sustenance. Wherever man has worked he has received food as each horse receives its fodder. He is fed even though he works grudgingly, unwillingly, only caring to get his daily labour over as quickly as possible or longing to earn as much as possible in order to get the upper hand of his master. Even he does not remain without food and he is happier than the one who lives by the labour of others. And how much happier would the man be who worked in accordance with the doctrine of Christ, whose aim would be to work as much as possible and to receive as little as possible? How much happier will his position be when there will be several around him, perhaps many such as he who will serve him in his turn? The doctrine of Christ about work and its fruit is shown in the story of the five and seven thousand men fed with two fish and two loaves. Man will attain the highest happiness possible on earth when each, instead of only caring about his own personal comfort, acts as Christ taught those assembled on the seashore to do. It was necessary to feed several thousand men. One of the disciples said to Christ that a boy there had a few fish. The disciples had also a few loaves. Christ knew that some of those who had come from a distance had brought food with them and others had not. That many had brought provisions with them is evident from there being 12 basketfuls gathered of what remained as we read in all the four gospels. If nobody had had anything except the boy there would not have been 12 baskets in the field. Had Christ not done what he did, that is the miracle of feeding thousands with five loaves, what now takes place in the world would have taken place then. Those who had provisions with them would have eaten all they had and would have overeaten rather than see that anything should be left. Mises would perhaps have taken the remainder home. Those who had nothing would have remained hungry, looking on with wicked envy at those who ate and some would very likely have stolen from those who had provisions. Quarlling and fighting would have ensued and some would have gone home satisfied and others hungry and cross. Exactly what takes place in our present lives would have happened then. But Christ knew what he meant to do. He told them all to sit in a circle and enjoined his disciples to offer a part of what they had to those next to them and to tell others to do the same. The result was that when all those who had brought provisions with them followed the example set them by the disciples and offered a share of their provisions to others, there was enough for all. All were satisfied and so much remained that 12 baskets were filled. Christ teaches men to act thus in all the circumstances of life for this is the law of humanity. Labour is the necessary condition of life and work is a source of happiness for man. But if a man keeps to himself the fruit of his own or others' work, he prevents its contributing to the general good of mankind. By giving up his work to others, he acts for the good of all. We are accustomed to say, if men do not despoil each other, they will starve. Wouldn't it be more correct to say that if men despoil each other, there will always be some who will starve? For that is the actual fact. It does not matter if a man is a follower of Christ or a follower of the world. He is never entirely independent of others. Others have taken care of him, fed him, and still take care of him. But according to the teaching of the world, man forces others to continue feeding him and his family by threats and violence. According to Christ's doctrine, man is taken care of, brought up, and fed by others. And he does not force others to continue feeding him but tries to serve others in his turn to do as much good as possible to all his fellow creatures. Which life is then a truer, more rational, and happier one? Is it a life in accordance with the teaching of the world or in accordance with Christ's doctrine? End of chapter 10. Chapter 11 of What I Believe. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. What I Believe by Count Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constantine Popov. Chapter 11. The doctrine of Christ establishes the kingdom of God on earth. To think that it is difficult to fulfill his doctrine is an error. It is not difficult. Indeed, he who has once clearly understood it cannot do otherwise than fulfill it. And the fulfilling of Christ's doctrine does not involve us in suffering. It really saves us from nine-tenths of the suffering that we must bear for the world's sake. And when I had understood this, I asked myself why I had never followed Christ's doctrine, which leads to salvation and happiness, but had followed a contrary teaching that had brought me nothing but suffering. There could be but one answer to that question. The truth had been hidden from me. When Christ's doctrine grew clear to me, I did not think my having understood it would lead me to renounce the teaching of the church. It seemed to me only that the church had not arrived at the conclusions that the doctrine of Christ led to, but I did not think that the new light, which was revealed to me, and the conclusions that I drew from it would separate me entirely from the church. Not once did I try, during my researches, to discover any error in the teaching of the church. I intentionally closed my eyes to the views that seemed strange and ambiguous to me, as long as they did not absolutely contradict what I considered to be the basis of the Christian doctrine. But the further I advanced in the study of the Gospel and the clearer the purpose of Christ's doctrine grew, the more inevitable it became for me to choose between the doctrine of Christ, which was rational, clear, and in harmony with my conscience, and a teaching that was in direct opposition to it, and that gave me nothing but the consciousness of my own peril and that of others. I could not help throwing each of the church's theses aside, one after the other. I did it most unwillingly, often struggling with my feelings, longing to soften the discordance between my reason and the teaching of the church. But when I had ended my work, I saw that however hard I might try to keep something at least of church teaching, nothing really was left for me. As I was drawing toward the close of my work, it happened that my son, a boy, told me that two of our servants, perfectly uneducated men, who hardly knew how to read, had been disputing about a passage in some book, in which it was affirmed that it is no sin to kill criminals or to kill men in war. I could not believe such a statement could have been published, and I asked to see the book. It was An Exposition of the Book of Prayer, Third Edition, Eightieth Thousand, Moscow, 1879. I read page 163. Question. What is the sixth commandment? Answer. You shall not kill. Question. What does God forbid by this commandment? Answer. He forbids our killing, that is, depriving a man of life. Question. Is it a sin to punish a criminal by death according to the law, or to kill our enemies in war? Answer. It is no sin to do so. A criminal is put to death in order to put a stop to the evil that he does. Enemies are killed in the war in which we fight for our sovereign and our country. These are the only words that explain why this commandment is repealed. I could hardly believe my own eyes. The disputants asked my opinion about the subject. I said to the one who maintained that the text was quite right that the interpretation was incorrect. Then how is it that incorrect statements are printed? He asked. I could give him no answer. I kept the book and looked through it. The book contains one prayers with instructions concerning genuflections and the way the fingers are to be joined in making the sign of the cross. Two. The interpretation of the creed. Three. Extracts from the fifth chapter of Matthew without any explanations in which the sayings contained in the chapter are for some unknown reason called the Beatitudes. Four. The ten commandments with explanations that annul them. And five. Anthems for feast days. As I have said I had not only tried to avoid finding fault with the teachings of the church but I had tried to view it in its best light and had not sought to discover its weak points. Though well acquainted with its academic literature I was completely ignorant of its books for the use of schools. The enormous circulation of a prayer book which excited doubt even in ignorant men struck me. I could not believe that a prayer book the contents of which were quite pagan was the church teaching propagated among the people. In order to see if it were really the case I bought all the books published by the Synod or that it allowed to be published in which there were short explanations of the church creed for the use of children and uneducated people and I read them. The contents were almost new for me. At the time when I learned the Bible history and the catechism these books did not exist. There was at that time as far as I can remember neither any explanation of the Beatitudes nor were we told that to kill a fellow creature is no sin. This was not to be found in the old Russian catechisms of Platon. Footnote. The Moscow Metropolitan, 1785. Nor is it to be found in the catechisms of Peter Mogina or of Boljakov. Footnote. The Moscow Metropolitan, 1826 to 1868. It was an innovation made by Filaret who likewise wrote a catechism for the military classes. The exposition of the Book of Prayer was taken from that very catechism. The book that serves as the basis is a complete Christian catechism for the use of all Orthodox Christians published by order of His Imperial Majesty. The book is divided into three parts on faith, hope and love. The first part contains an analysis of the Nicene Creed, the second an analysis of the Lord's Prayer and of eight verses of the fifth chapter of Matthew which form the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount and which are for some unknown reason termed Beatitudes. Both of these sections treat the dogmas of the church, prayers and sacraments. The third part treats of the duties of a Christian. We do not find the commandments of Christ expounded in this part but the ten commandments of Moses. These commandments are expounded in a way that seems to enjoin men to leave them unfulfilled and to act contrary to them. In reference to the first commandment which enjoins us to worship God alone the catechism teaches us to worship angels and saints as well as the Virgin Mary and the three persons of the Godhead. The complete catechism pages 107 and 108. In reference to the second commandment you shall not make for yourself any graven image. The catechism teaches us to worship images page 108. In reference to the third commandment you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. The catechism tells men it is their duty to take an oath every time the legal authorities may require it of them. Page 111. In reference to the fourth commandment to keep holy the Saturday the catechism enjoins us to keep Sunday holy as well as thirteen great holidays and a number of smaller ones and to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. Pages 112 to 115. In reference to the fifth commandment honour your father and your mother the catechism tells us it is our obligation and duty to honour our sovereign, our fatherland, our spiritual pastors and all those who are put in authority over us and about three pages are taken up with the enumeration of the authorities we are to honour schoolmasters, civil commanders, judges, military commanders masters for those who serve and whose property they are. Pages 116 to 119. I cite from the 64th edition of the catechism published in 1880 20 years have gone by since slavery has been abolished and no one has taken the trouble to remove the sentence that was added to the commandment honour your father and mother in order to uphold and justify slavery. With regard to the sixth commandment you shall not kill men are taught from the very first lines to kill. What does the sixth commandment forbid? Murder or taking away our neighbour's life in any way. Is taking a man's life always illegal murder? Murder is not unlawful when it is our duty to take away a man's life for instance when we punish a criminal by death when we kill the enemies in fighting for our sovereign and our native land and further on what other instances can you cite of murder? When a man harbours a murderer or sets him free and that is published in hundreds and thousands of copies and instilled into the Russians by violence by threats and fear of punishment under the pretense of its being the Christian doctrine that is taught to the whole Russian nation that is taught to innocent children in speaking of whom Christ said Allow little children to come to me for theirs is the kingdom of God to children whom we must be like in order to enter the kingdom of God like them in knowing nothing of all this to children in speaking of whom Christ said woe to him who tempts one of these little ones and these children are made to learn this they are told that it is the sacred law of God such things are not proclamations secretly propagated under fear of being sent to hard work in the mines but they are proclamations acting contrary to which leads men to hard work in the mines while I write a chill creeps over me at my daring to say what I must say that we have no right to annihilate the commandments of God which are written in all his laws and in all our hearts by adding such words as duty our sovereign, our fatherland etc which explain nothing yes what Christ warned us against has come to pass for he said in Luke 11 verses 33 to 36 and Matthew 6 verse 23 take heed that the light that is in you is not darkened if the light that is in you is darkness how great is that darkness the light that is in us has indeed become darkness and that darkness is an awful one Christ said woe to you scribes and Pharisees for you shut up the kingdom of God against men for you neither go in yourselves nor do you allow others to go in woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you devour widow's houses and for a pretence make long prayers therefore you are still more guilty woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you search seas and lands to make one proselyte and when you have done so you make him worse than he had been before woe to you blind guides woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because you build up the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous and you suppose that if you had lived in the days when the prophets were martyred you would not have joined in shedding their blood then you are witnesses against yourselves that you are no better than those who killed the prophets fill up then the measure begun by those like yourselves and behold I will send to you wise prophets and scribes and some of them you shall kill and crucify and some of them shall you scourge in your synagogues and drive them from city to city and may all the righteous blood shed since the days available fall back upon your heads every blasphemy may be forgiven but blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven isn't it as if this had been written only yesterday against those who now force men to accept their faith and persecute and destroy all the prophets and just men who try to bring their deception to light and I saw that though the church calls its teaching a Christian doctrine it is in truth the very darkness against which Christ strove and enjoined his disciples to strive the doctrine of Christ has two parts first it bears upon the life of each individual and upon our social lives or it has an ethical mission second it points out why men ought to live in the way it enjoins and not otherwise or it has a metaphysical mission one is the effect and at the same time the cause of the other man must live thus because such is the purpose of his creation or the purpose of his creation is such and therefore he must live thus these two sides of every doctrine are to be found in all the religions of the world such is the religion of Brahma, Confucius, Buddha and Moses and such is the religion of Christ it teaches us how we are to live and explains why we are to live thus but what befell all these other doctrines has befallen the doctrine of Christ also men have turned aside from it and there are many who try to justify their having done so sitting down in Moses seat they explain the metaphysical part of the doctrine in a way that makes the ethical requirements of the doctrine no longer obligatory and they replace them by outward worship, rites and ceremonies the same occurs in all religions but it appears to me that never has the evil influence been so striking as in Christianity it acted with peculiar force because the doctrine of Christ is the most sublime of all doctrines it is the most sublime just because the metaphysical and ethical parts of the doctrine are so indissolubly bound together and so bear upon each other that it is impossible to separate one from the other without depriving the whole doctrine of its true sense the doctrine of Christ is ultra-protestantism for it rejects not only all the ritualistic observances of Judaism but also every outward form of worship this rupture in Christianity could have no other effect than to completely pervert the doctrine and deprive it of all sense and it did so the rupture between the doctrine of life and the exposition of how we are to live began with the sermon of Paul who did not know the ethical teaching expressed in the Gospel of Matthew and who preached a metaphysically cabalistic theory, foreign to Christ the rupture was definitely accomplished in the time of Constantine when it was found possible to array the whole pagan course of life in Christian clothing without any change and then to call it Christianity from the time of Constantine the heathen of heathens whom the Church has canonized for all his vices and crimes began councils and the centre of gravity of Christianity was transferred to the metaphysical side of the teaching alone and this metaphysical teaching with the rites that form part of it losing more and more of its fundamental sense reached its present point it has become a teaching that explains the mysteries of life in heaven and gives the complicated rites for divine worship but at the same time gives no religious teaching at all concerning life on earth all religious creeds except that of the Christian Church enjoin, besides the observance of certain rites good deeds and forbearance from evil ones Judaism requires circumcision the keeping of the Sabbath the bestowing of arms the keeping of the Year of Jubilee and many other things Islam requires circumcision daily prayers five times a day the tenth part of a man's riches to be given to the poor the adoration of the tomb of the prophet and so on we find the same in all other religions be the duties good or bad they are deeds pseudo-Christianity alone exacts nothing of its followers there is nothing that is obligatory to a Christian if we exclude fast days and prayers which the church itself does not consider as obligatory there is nothing that he must refrain from all that is necessary for a pseudo-Christian is never to neglect the sacraments but the believer does not administer the sacraments to himself others administer them to him no obligation lies on the pseudo-Christian the church does all that is necessary for him he is baptised and anointed the sacraments of holy communion and extreme unction are administered to him his confession is taken for granted if he's unable to make it orally prayers are said for him and he is saved from the time of Constantine the church never required any deeds of its members it never even enjoined a man to refrain from anything the Christian church acknowledged and consecrated all that had existed in the pagan world it acknowledged and consecrated divorce slavery, courts of law and all the powers that had existed before such as war and persecution and only required evil to be renounced in word at baptism the church acknowledged the doctrine of Christ in word but denied it indeed instead of pointing out to the world what life ought to be the church expounded the metaphysical part of Christ's doctrine in a way that required no duties and did not hinder people from living on as they had lived before the church, having once given way to the world followed it ever after the world organized its existence in direct opposition to the doctrine of Christ and the church invented metaphors according to which it appeared that men who really lived contrary to the law of Christ lived in accordance with it and the world began to lead a life that rapidly grew worse than that of the pagans and the church began to justify this way of living and to affirm that it was strictly in accordance with the doctrine of Christ but a time came when the light of the true doctrine which lies in the gospel penetrated among the people in spite of the church which had tried to conceal the doctrine by forbidding the translation of the Bible the time came when this light penetrated among the people through so-called sectarians and even through free thinkers and then the falsity of the church teaching grew evident to all and men began to change their former lives and live up to that doctrine of Christ that had reached them independently of the church thus men annihilated slavery which had been justified by the church annihilated religious executions which had been sanctioned by the church annihilated the power of sovereigns and popes which had been consecrated by the church and now the turn of property and kingdoms has come the church never rose in defense of anything and cannot do so because the annihilation of these false principles of life is based on the Christian doctrine that the church has preached and still preaches the doctrine of life has emancipated itself from the church and has established itself independently of it the church retains the right to interpret Christ's doctrine but what interpretation can it give? the metaphysical explanation of the doctrine has weight only when it explains what life is or ought to be but no such teaching is left to the church it could only speak of the life that it had organized of old which is now no more if any of the old interpretations remain as for instance when the catechism tells us that we must kill when it is our duty to do so nobody believes them and nothing is left to the church but its temples, images, brocades and words the church has carried the lights of the Christian doctrine of life through 18 centuries but while trying to conceal it in its raiment it has been burnt itself in this light the world with its social adjustments consecrated by the church has now thrown the church aside in the name of the same Christian truths that the church unwillingly carried along with it and the world now lives without it the church is done with and it is impossible to conceal the fact all those who really live and do not drearily vegetate in our European world have left the church all churches, whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant are like sentinels keeping guard over a captive while the captive has escaped and even walks about among the sentinels all that now forms true life in the world socialism, communism, theories of political economy utilitarianism, liberty and equality all the moral opinions of men all that governs the world and that the church considers to be inimical to it is a part of the very doctrine the same church unwillingly brought in together with the doctrine of Christ that it tried to conceal the life of the world in our time follows its own course independently of the teaching of the church that teaching has remained so far behind that men of the world harken no more to the voices of the teachers and indeed there is nothing worth listening to because the church only gives explanations that the world has already grown tired of explanations of an organization that is rapidly decaying certain men sit out in a boat while a man at the helm steered he was a skillful pilot and the boat glided rapidly on but a time came when a less skillful helmsman took his place finding the latter incapable of steering well those in the boat first ridiculed him and then drove him away that would not have mattered much if the men had not forgotten in their anger against the useless helmsman that without one they would not know in what direction they were going so it is with our Christian world the church does not stand at the helm any more we row rapidly on and all the progress of knowledge on which our 19th century prides itself is only the result of our floating without a helmsman we do not know where we are going we go on leading our present lives absolutely without knowing why we do so and yet it is as unreasonable to live without knowing why we do so as it is to set off in a boat without knowing to where we're bound if men did nothing themselves but were placed in the position they occupy by some outward power then they might answer the question why are you in such a position by saying that they did not know why but men make their own positions for themselves for each other and especially for their children and they must therefore be able to answer when asked why they assemble into armies to cripple and to kill each other why they waste the immense strength of millions of directing useless and pernicious cities why they organise their petty courts of law and send men whom they call criminals out of France to Cayenne out of Russia to Siberia and out of England to Australia while knowing that it is senseless to act thus when they are asked why they leave the fields and woods they love to work in factories and sweatshops that they hate may they bring up their children to lead the same lives though they disapprove of them they ought to be able to give some reason for their conduct even if all this were pleasant men should be able to give their reasons but when it is the hardest possible work when men groan over it how can they go on acting in this way without trying to find adequate reasons men never have lived without trying to solve these questions men cannot live without making the attempt the Jew lived as he lived he made war he executed men he built temples he organised his life thus and not otherwise because it was enjoined him by the law which according to his conviction came from God itself it is thus likewise with the Hindus and the Chinese it was thus with the Romans and the Muslims it was thus with the Christians a hundred years ago and it is thus now with the ignorant crowd the unthoughtful Christian now solves these questions in this way soldiery, war, courts of law and executions exist according to the commandments of God transmitted to us by the church the church teaches that the world as we know it is a lost world all the evil that fills it exists only by the will of God as a punishment for the sins of men and therefore we must submit to it we can only save our souls by faith by the sacraments, by prayer and by submission to the will of God the church teaches us that each must submit to the sovereign who is the anointed of God and to those who are in authority over us that each must defend his own property by violence make war and execute or be executed according to the will of the authorities placed over him by God it does not matter if this explanation be good or bad it formally explained all the various phases of life to the believing Christian and man did not renounce his own reason while living according to the law that he acknowledged as divine but now the time has come when only the most ignorant believe in this and even their number decreases with every day and every hour of the day there is no possibility of stopping this progression all eagerly follow those who are in front and all will soon reach the point where the foremost now stand but the foremost are standing upon the brink of an abyss the position of the foremost is an awful one they point out the path to those who are to follow them and are themselves completely ignorant both of what they are doing and of the things that impel them to act as they do there is not one man among them who could now answer the direct question why do you lead the life that you lead why do you do what you do I have addressed such questions to hundreds of men and have never received a direct reply instead of a plain answer to the question I always receive an answer to some question that I had not asked whenever I asked a Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox believer why he lived as he did so contrary to the doctrine of Christ which he professed instead of a direct answer each would begin to talk of the lamentable want of faith of the present generation of the wicked men who propagate irreligion and of what awaited the church in future but the answer why the man did not do what his creed enjoined was never given to me instead of answering about himself he would speak of the general state of mankind and of the church as if his own life was of no importance whatever and as if he were engrossed by the idea of saving all mankind and especially the institution called the church a philosopher whether an idealist, a spiritualist, a pessimist or a positivist would answer the question of why he did not live according to his philosophical teaching by talking of the progress of mankind and of the historical law of that progress thanks to which mankind was rapidly advancing towards perfect happiness but he would never give a direct answer to the question why he himself in his own life did not fulfil what he considered rational the philosopher like the believer seems to be taken up with observing the general laws of all humanity rather than with the ordering of his own individual life if you ask an average man a representative of the great majority of the civilised men who are half-believers, half-unbelievers and who are all without a single exception dissatisfied with their own lives and with our social adjustments and who always foresee approaching ruin such an average man on being asked why he leads a life that he himself finds fault with and why he does nothing to improve it never gives you a direct answer and never speaks of himself but turns the conversation to some general question about justice, trade, the state or civilisation and if he is a policeman or an attorney he will say and how are things to go on if in order to better my own life I take no part in the affairs of the country how will trade progress? if he is a merchant he will say what progress will civilisation make if I do not co-operate in its advancement each speaks as if the problem of his life did not lie in attaining the happiness toward which he strives but in serving the state, commerce or civilisation the average man answers exactly as the believer and philosopher do he answers a personal question by a general one and the reason why the believer, the philosopher and the average man retort by a general question is that not one of them has any true notion of life and each of them really feels ashamed of his ignorance it is only in our Christian world that instead of the doctrine of life the explanation of what our life ought to be which is religion there is only the explanation of why life must be such as it was of old and the name of religion is given to a teaching that nobody needs nor is that all science has acknowledged this same fortuitous defective position of society as the law of all mankind learned men such as Tillard, Spencer and others argue very seriously about religion understanding by the word the metaphysical teaching of the origin of all without suspecting that instead of speaking of religion as a whole they speak only of a part of it the result of all this is that in our century we see wise and learned men who are naively convinced that they are devoid of all religion only because they do not acknowledge the correctness of those metaphysical explanations that were in some past time given as explanations of life the idea never occurs to them that they must live in some way or other that they do live in some way or other and that it is exactly the principle on which their lives are based that is their religion these men imagine that they have very elevated convictions and no faith but whatever they may say they have faith if they accomplish any rational work because rational work is always the result of faith we may live according to the teaching of the world we may lead an animal life without acknowledging anything higher and more obligatory than the decrees of the existing authorities but he who lives thus cannot be said to live rationally before saying that we live rationally we must answer the question which doctrine of life do we consider as a rational one miserable beings that we are we have no such doctrine we have even lost all consciousness of the necessity for gaining any rational doctrine of life ask the men of our day whether they are believers or unbelievers what doctrine they follow they will be obliged to confess that they follow only the laws written by the officials of the second section or by the legislative assembly and put in practice by the police this is the only teaching that our European world acknowledges they know that this teaching does not come either from heaven or from the prophets neither was it taught by the sages they blame the regulations of these officials and of the legislative assemblies but submit to its executors who are the police and obey the most barbarous exactions without a murmur the legislative assemblies have decreed and officials have written that each young man must be ready to submit to insult death and murder and all the fathers and mothers who have grown up sons obey the law but all notions of there being a law that is indubitably rational and that each feels in his inmost soul to be obligatory are so lost in our world that the existence of a law among the Hebrews which defined the whole order of life for them a law that was rendered obligatory by the moral feeling of each is considered as existing exclusively among the Hebrews it is regarded as a peculiarity of the Hebrew nation that they obeyed what they considered in their inmost souls to be the indubitable truth received directly from God and they knew it to be such because it was in unison with their conscience the position of an educated man, a Christian is considered to be a normal, a natural one when he obeys what he knows was only written by despised men and is enforced by policemen that is, when he obeys what he feels to be unjust and contrary to his conscience it was in vain that I looked in our civilized world for some moral principles of life that should be clearly expressed there are none there is even no consciousness of such principles being necessary there is even a firm conviction that moral principles are unnecessary and that religion only consists in words about a future life about God, about certain rights that as some say are necessary for salvation while others consider them as totally unnecessary and say that life goes on independently of all rules that all that is necessary is to obey passively the main points of faith are the doctrine of life and the explanation of what life is and ought to be of these the first is considered as unimportant and as having nothing to do with faith while the second is only an explanation of a life that was in some past time together with some conjectures about the historical progress of life and this is considered as the most important and serious point in all that really enters into the life of man for instance how he is to live is he to commit murder or not is he to condemn his fellow creatures or not in what way he is to bring up his children men submit without a murmur to the rule of others who know no more than they do themselves why they themselves live as they do and why they insist upon others living the same way and men consider such a life as rational and are not ashamed of it this state of things would be awful were it universal fortunately there are men in our days the best men of our time who dissatisfied with such a creed have a creed of their own concerning the life that we ought to lead these men are considered as pernicious and dangerous unbelievers and yet they are the only believers they are believers in the doctrine of Christ or at least in a part of it these men often do not know the whole doctrine of Christ they do not properly understand it and indeed they often reject the chief basis of the Christian faith which is non-resistance of evil but their faith in what life ought to be is derived from the doctrine of Christ however these men may be persecuted and slandered they are the only men who do not passively submit to all that they are ordered to do and therefore they are the only men who do not vegetate but lead a rational life and they are the only true believers the link between the world and the church grew weaker and weaker according as its teaching flowed more and more into the world and now the last link which bound us to the church is breaking and an independent process of life is beginning the teaching of the church with its dogmas, councils and hierarchy is unquestionably bound up with the doctrine of Christ our European world outwardly so self-confident, bold and decided and yet in the depth of its consciousness so terrified and confused is undergoing what a newborn babe does it tosses about, turning from side to side, crying and not knowing what it is to do it feels that the source of its form and nourishment has dried up but does not yet know where to look for a new one it is thus with our European world see what a complicated, seemingly rational, energetic life there is in our European world art, science, trade and social activity all are full of life but all this only lives because its mother has recently fed it the church brought the rational doctrine of Christ into the world it has done its business and now has withered away all the organs of the world are full of life but the source of their former nourishment is stopped and they have not found a new one they seek it everywhere the world now has to comprehend that the former unconscious process of nourishment has outlived its time and that a new conscious process of nourishment is necessary this new process consists in admitting those truths of the Christian doctrine that had formerly flowed into the world through the medium of the church and that are the sources of life men must again lift up the light that was hidden from them and they must place it high before themselves and others and consciously live in that light the doctrine of Christ as a religion that defines life and gives an explanation of human life stands now as it did 1800 years ago before the world but before the world had the interpretations of the church which while hiding the doctrine from their eyes seemed to suffice for its life but now the time has come when the church has served its time and the world has no one to explain to it the problem of its new life and feeling its helplessness must accept the doctrine of Christ Christ teaches us first of all to believe in the light while the light is in us Christ teaches men to place this light of reason above all else to live up to it and not to do what they themselves acknowledge to be irrational if you consider it irrational to kill Turks or Germans do not do so if you consider it irrational to force poor creatures to work hard in order that you may wear fine hats or have fine drawing rooms do not do so if you find it an irrational proceeding to shut up those who have been depraved by idleness in a prison in this way to condemn them to the worst possible company and to complete idleness then do not do so if you think it irrational to live in an infected town when you can live in the fresh fields do not do so if you consider it irrational to make your children study the dead languages more than they do anything else then do not do so the doctrine of Christ is light the light shines it is impossible not to accept the light when it shines it is impossible to struggle against it it is impossible to refuse to accept it it is impossible to refuse the doctrine of Christ because it encompasses all the errors in which men live and like the aether which those who study the philosophy of nature speak of it penetrates all the doctrine of Christ is essential for each whatever position he may be in Christ's doctrine must be accepted by men not because it is impossible to deny the metaphysical explanation of life that it gives we may deny all we choose but because it alone gives us rules of life without which mankind cannot live if at least they wish to live as rational beings the power of Christ's doctrine does not lie in the explanations it gives of the sense of life but in the doctrine of life that flows out of it the metaphysical teaching of Christ is not new it is a teaching that is written in the hearts of men and that all the truly wise men of the world preached but the power of Christ's doctrine lies in the practical application of this metaphysical teaching to life the metaphysical foundation of the teaching of the ancient Hebrews and of that of Christ is the same love to God and love to our neighbour but the application of this doctrine to life according to Moses and according to the law of Christ is very different according to the law of Moses it was necessary to fulfil 613 commandments including some most senseless and cruel ones all based upon the authority of the scriptures according to the law of Christ the teaching that flows out of the same metaphysical basis is expressed in five rational commandments which carry their own meaning and their own justification along with them and which embrace the life of all mankind the doctrine of Christ would not be rejected either by Jews, Buddhists, Muslims or others even if they doubted the truth of their own creed still less can it be rejected by our Christian world which has no other moral law the doctrine of Christ does not disagree with men in respect to their view of life but including it gives them what is wanting in it what is indispensable it points out to them a path that is not a new one but one familiar to them from their childhood you are a believer whatever creed you may profess you believe in the creation of the world in the trinity, in the fall and the redemption of man in the sacraments, in the efficacy of prayer or in the church Christ's doctrine does not tell you that your creed is wrong it only gives it what is wanting while you keep to your present creed you feel that the life of the world and your own life are full of evil and you see no way of escaping from this evil the doctrine of Christ, obligatory to you being the teaching of your God gives you simple rules that will deliver you and others from that evil believe in resurrection from the dead believe in paradise, in hell in the pope, in the church pray as your creed enjoins you to do keep the fasts, sing psalms and all this does not prevent you from fulfilling what Christ tells you to do in order to attain true happiness namely avoid anger do not commit adultery do not swear do not defend yourself by violence never make war it may perhaps happen that you will not always fulfill all this you will yield to temptation and transgress one of these laws just as you violate the rules of the civil law or the laws of good breathing you will perhaps in a moment of impulse swerve from the rules laid down by Christ but in your calmer moments do not act as you do now do not organize your life in a way that renders it difficult to avoid anger and adultery to abstain from swearing and using violence or making war but organize it in a way that should make all these things difficult to do you must admit the duty of acting thus for these are the commandments of God you are perhaps an unbeliever or a philosopher you say that all goes on in the world according to a law that you have discovered the doctrine of Christ fully acknowledges the law that you have discovered but independent of this law which will bring good to mankind after thousands of years is your own individual life now you have no rules at all for your own individual life except those written by men whom you despise and enforced by the police the doctrine of Christ gives you rules that decidedly agree with your law for your law of altruism is nothing but a bad periphrasis for the doctrine of Christ or you are neither a believer nor an unbeliever you have no time to seek the purpose of life and you have no definite creed it is enough for you that you act as all others do then Christ doctrine says in effect to you you are unable to verify the truth of the doctrine that is preached to you you find it easier to follow the example of those around you but however humble you may be in mind you have a judge in your heart who sometimes makes you feel that you have acted rightly and at other times shows you that you are wrong however modest your lot may be you cannot help sometimes asking yourself ought I to act as all around me do or according to my own feeling and no sooner does the question arise in your mind than the precepts of Christ are found to answer both your reason and your conscience if you are more a believer than an unbeliever you act according to the will of God by following the precepts of Christ if you are more a free thinker than a believer by obeying Christ's precepts you follow the most rational laws that ever existed in the world as you will see yourself because the precepts of Christ bear their own justification in themselves Christ says in John chapter 12 verse 31 now is the judgment of this world now shall the prince of this world be cast out he says likewise in John 16 verse 33 these things I have spoken to you that in me you might have peace in the world you shall have tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the world and it is in this way that the world or the evil that is in the world is overcome if a world of evil still exists it exists only as something that is dead it lives only by inertia there is no force of life in it it does not exist for him who believes in the commandments of Christ it is conquered by the rational consciousness of the Son of Man for whatever is born of God overcomes the world the victory that overcomes the world is your faith 1 John chapter 5 verse 4 the faith that overcomes the world is faith in the teaching of Christ end of chapter 11