The Kingdom of God Is Within You; What I Believe

According to this definition, faith must be allied to works, and works make faith perfect, i.e.> true.

The Jews said to Christ (Mark xv. 32, Matt, xxvii. 42, John vi. 30), 1 What sign wilt thou give us, that we may see and believe thee? What dost thou?'

The same was said to Him when He was on the Cross: ' Let Him descend now from the Cross, that we may see and believe ' (Mark xv. 32).

Matt, xxvii. 42: ' He saved others, but Himself He cannot save! If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the Cross, and we will believe Him.'

In answer to their prayer that He may ' increase their faith,' Christ says that the wish is vain; that they cannot be forced to believe (Luke xxii. 67). He says, ' If I tell you, you will not believe ' (John x. 25, 26). ' I told you, and ye believed not.' (26) ' Ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you.'

The Jews require some outward token to enforce their belief in the doctrine of Christ, just as the Christian followers of the Church do now. And He answers that it cannot be given them, and explains why it is impossible to do so. He says that they cannot believe, because they are not of His sheep, or, they dp not follow the path of life which He points out to His flock. He explains (John v. 44) wherein lies the difference between His sheep and those who are not of His flock. He explains the reason why some believe and others do not, and tells them what the basis of faith is. ' How can you believe,' He says, 'when you accept each other's bo%a* teaching, and do not seek the teaching which comes from God alone?'

In order to believe, Christ says, we must seek the doctrine which comes from God. ' He that speaketh from himself, seeketh his own doctrine (Bo^av rrjv iSiav); but he that seeketh the doctrine of Him who sent Him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him ' (John vii. 18).

The doctrine of life, buga, is the basis of faith.

All our actions proceed from faith. Faith proceeds from the So£a of the light in which we consider life. There may be innumerable deeds, numerous beliefs; but there are only two doctrines of life (Ь6%а): Christ rejects one of them, and acknowledges the other. The one which Christ rejects is that of the existence of individual life, as belonging to man. It is the doctrine which was then, and is still, maintained by the majority of men, and from which proceed all the various beliefs of men, and all their deeds.

The other doctrine is the one taught by Christ and the prophets, viz., that our individual life has a purport only when we fulfil the will of God.

If a man has the Suga that his individuality is of more moment than all else, he will consider his individual happiness as the chief and most desirable object in life; and according as he finds that happiness in the purchase of landed property, in fame, in glory, or in the satisfaction of his lusts, his faith will coincide with his views of life, and all his actions be guided by it.

If the bu%a of a man be not such, if he understand the true purpose^ of life to lie in fulfilling the will of God, as Abraham understood it, and as Christ taught it, his actions will coincide with his faith in what he knows to be the will of God.

This is the reason why those who believe in the happiness of an individual life cannot believe in the doctrine of Christ. All their endeavours to do so will be in vain. In order to believe, they must change their views of life. Till they have done so, their actions will coincide with their creed, and not with their desires or their words.

The desire to believe in the doctrine of Christ, both of those who asked Him for some token, and of the believers of the present time, does not coincide with their lives, nor can it ever do so, however hard they may try to fit them together. They may pray to Christ-God, attend the Holy Communion, do good to mankind, build churches, convert others, and yet, with all this, they cannot really work for Christ; because that can proceed only from faith, which is based on a very different doctrine (So'£a) to the one which they profess. They cannot sacrifice the life of their only son, as Abraham did, who did not doubt for a moment that it was his duty to offer up his son as a sacrifice to God, to the God who alone gave import to his life. And in the same way, Christ and His disciples could not help giving up their lives to others, because in that alone lay the object and blessing of their lives.

It is from men's thus misunderstanding the substance of faith that their strange longing arises. They make themselves believe that it would be better to live up to the doctrine of Christ; and all the while they firmly believe in the individual life, and therefore choose to live contrary to Christ's doctrine.

The foundation of faithis a truecomprehensionof life, which enables man to distinguish what is important and good in life from what is unimportant and bad. Faith is a correct appreciation of all the manifestations of life. At the present time men, whose faith is grounded on a doctrine of their own, cannot make it agree with the faith which flows out of the doctrine of Christ any more than the disciples could. And we find this misunderstanding more than once clearly and definitely spoken of in the Gospel, In the Gospel according to St. Matthew xx. 20-28, and in that according to Mark x. 35-45, after the saying, that the \ rich man cannot enter the kingdom of God/ and after the still more awful saying, that ' he who doth not leave all, doth not give up his life for Christ's sake, shall not be saved,' Peter asks, ' What, then, shall we have, who have left all and followed Thee?' In the Gospel according to Mark we read that James and John (or, according to Matthew, their mother) ask that ' they should sit, one on His right hand, the other on His left, in His glory.' They beg Him to confirm their faith by the promise of a reward. Christ answers Peter's question by a parable (Matt. xx. 1-16); and in answer to James, He says, ' Ye know not what ye ask/ i.e., you ask for what cannot be. You do not understand my doctrine. My doctrine is the renunciation of individual life, and you ask for individual honour, and individual reward. You may ' drink of my cup/ or live; but to sit on my right hand, or my left, or to be equal to me, cannot be given you. And then Christ says, that it is only in this world that the powerful of the world think much of the glory and the power of individual life, and rejoice in it; but ye, who are my disciples, ought to know that the true life does not lie in individual happiness, but in ministering to all, in humbling ourselves before all. Man does not live to be ministered unto, but to minister to all, and to give up his individual life as a ransom for all. In answer to His disciples' request, which showed Him how little they understood His doctrine, Christ does not command them to believe, i.e., to change their appreciation of good and evil, which arose from the teaching they had imbibed before Him (He knows that it is impossible); but He explains what the true life is, on which faith is based, and shows that it is a true estimation of good and bad, important and unimportant.

Christ answers Peter's question, 'What reward shall we have for having left all, and followed Thee?' by the parable of the labourers who were hired at different times, and who received the same pay (Matt. xx. і-іб). He explains to Peter the error he is in respecting His doctrine, and that thence proceeds his want of faith. Christ says, it is only in individual life that reward is important in proportion to the work done. A belief in the necessity of reward being proportionate to the work itself, proceeds from the doctrine of individual life. This belief is based on a hypothesis, and on rights which we imagine that we have; but man has no rights — can never have any rights; he is only a debtor for the happiness given him, and therefore he has no right to expect anything. Even if he give up his whole life, he cannot give back'what he has received, and therefore the master cannot be unjust. If a man declares that he has a right to his own life, and requires compensation from the Author of all — from Him who entrusted him with life — he only shows that he does not understand the true purpose for which life was given him.

Men, having obtained happiness, require more. These men stood unoccupied and miserable on the market-place, and did not live. The master hired them and gave them the greatest good in life, viz., labour. They accepted the master's gracious gift, and then grew dissatisfied. They were dissatisfied because they had no clear consciousness of their state.. They came to their work with the false idea that they had a right to their own lives and to their own work, and that, therefore, their work was to be rewarded. They did not understand that work itself was the greatest good given them; in return for which they were to do good to others; but that they could claim no retribution. And men cannot have a just and true faith as long as they possess the same erroneous idea of life as these labourers had.

Christ answers the direct demand of His disciples to confirm, to increase their faith by the parable of the master and the labourer, and explains still more clearly the groundwork of the faith he taught them.

Luke xvii. 3-10. The precept given by Christ to forgive our brother not only once, but seventy times seven, fills the disciples with awe at the difficulty which they would experience in putting such a precept into practice, and they say, ' Yes, but.... to fulfil it we must believe, increase, and confirm our faith.' As they had asked before, ' What shall we have for it?' so do they again say, just as all who call themselves Christians say, ' I would believe, but I cannot; strengthen my faith.' They say, 1 Make us believe,' just as the disciples did when they asked for a miracle. 'Make us believe in our salvation by miracles and promises of reward.'

The disciples spoke just as we do. It would be well if, while continuing to lead our individual, wilful lives, we could be made to believe that by fulfilling God's commandments we should be all the happier. We all ask for what is contrary to the whole spirit of Christ's doctrine, and we are surprised that we can by no means believe. And Christ answers the misunderstanding which existed then, and still exists, by a parable, in which He shows what true faith is. Faith cannot proceed from trust in what He says; faith comes only from a consciousness of our state. Faith is based only on the rational consciousness of what is best for us. He shows that it is impossible to rouse faith in men by promises of rewards and by threats of punishments; that it will be but a very weak trust which will be destroyed at the first temptation; that the faith which moves mountains, the faith which nothing can shake, is based on the consciousness of our inevitable peril, and of the sole salvation possible for us.

Faith needs no promises of reward. It is but necessary to understand that salvation from inevitable destruction lies in a general life for all humanity according to the will of the Master. He that has once understood this will seek no confirmation of his faith, but will be saved without his requiring any exhortation.

When the disciples beg Him to confirm their faith, Christ says, ' When the master comes home with his labourer from the field, he does not tell him to sit down and eat immediately, but first orders him to pen the cattle and to serve him; and, this done, the labourer sits down to his food and eats. The labourer obeys, and does not think himself ill used, neither does he pride himself on his work, nor require thanks or a reward for it. He knows that so it must be, and that he has only done his duty; that is all that is required of him by his service, but just this is, at the same time, for his own good. In like manner, when you have done all you are bound to do, think that you have but done what was given you to do. He that understands his duty towards his Master will see that it is only by submitting to his Master's will that he can have life, and can know wherein lies the blessing of his life. And he will have faith — the faith which Christ teaches us. Faith, according to the doctrine of Christ, is based on a rational consciousness of the purport of life.

The foundation of faith, according to the doctrine of Christ, is light.

John i. 9-12. 'That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, (v. 10) He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. (v. 11) He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. (v. 12) And as many as received Him and believed in His name, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.' John iii. 19-21. 'And this is the condemnation* that light is come into the world; and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (v. 20) For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved, because they are evil. (v. 21) But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his

# xf"'<r(c — signifies pidgment and not condemnation.

deeds may be made manifest, because they are wrought in God.'

He who has understood the doctrine of Christ can require no strengthening of his faith. Faith, according to Christ, is based on the light, on the truth. Not once does Christ call upon men to have faith in Him; He calls upon them to have faith in the truth.

John viii. 40. He says to the Jews, ' You seek to kill Me, a Man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God. (v. 46) Which of you convinceth Me of untruth? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe _Me?' John xviii. 37, Christ says: 'To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world,. that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth My voice.5

Further on, in the same chapter, Christ says to His disciples, ■ The Father shall give you another Comforter, and He may abide with you for ever. (17) Even the spirit of truth, whom the world seeth not, neither knoweth; but ye know him, for he dwelleth in you and shall be in you.'

He says that His whole doctrine is truth, that He Himself is truth.

The doctrine of Christ is the doctrine of truth, and, therefore, faith in Christ is not a trust in anything that refers to Jesus, but a knowledge of the truth. It is impossible to persuade or bribe a man to fulfil it. He that understands the doctrine of Christ will have faith in Him, because His doctrine is truth. He that knows the truth cannot refuse to believe in it. There- fore, ifa man feels himself tobe sinking,he cannot refuse to take hold of the rope of salvation, and the question, What shall we do to believe? is one that shows a total misapprehension of Christ's doctrine.

We say that it is hard to live in accordance with Christ's precepts! How can it be otherwise than hard whilst 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, 'Credo quia absurdum; and other Christians now enthusiastically repeat the words, thinking a belief in absurdities the best way to the truth.

A clever and learned man observed to me, a short time ago, in course of conversation, that the Christian doctrine was of no importance as a doctrine of morality. 1 We find the same,' said he, ' in the teaching 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 in 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 personal lusts; and we look upon that erroneous idea — united but by outward observances to the doctrine of Christ — as 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 which 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; i.e., 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: 1 What is the truth V We have taken in earnest these words of Pilate's, 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, without a desire to know it, but with the firm conviction that of all idle occupations the idlest is the search after truth. The doctrine of life which all nations, long before the existence of European society, considered as most important, that doctrine which, as Christ told us, is the only thing needful, 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 which lets in the light, towards which the eyes of all who reflect and suffer turn, is concealed. There is but one answer to the question, '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 that answer is, ' Honour and obey the authorities, and believe in the Church.' 'But why is there so much suffering in this 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. Thy wish to lead a good life, and to help others to do so, is but pride and vainglory. The only thing thou canst do is to save thyself, thy soul, for a future life. If thou wishest 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, thou hast lost all right to return to the world, that thou 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 that 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, 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 it, or renounce the life of this world, which is but a species of slow self-murder.

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, viz., that he who wishes to keep the commandments of Christ not only in word but in deed, 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 Jonas, was written. The story contains one idea from beginning to end. The prophet Jonas 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 known the truth to those that have gone astray, and that he must not flee from them, but live amongst them. Jonas has an aversion for 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 Jonas, and amend their lives. But Jonas 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 gourd grows in one night over Jonas, and protects him from the rays of the sun; but on the next night the gourd is eaten by worms. Jonas, in his despair, reproaches God for letting the gourd, so precious to him, wither. Then God says to him, 1 Thou regrettest the gourd, which thou callest thine; it grew and perished in one night; and thinkest thou I had no pity for so numerous a people, who were perishing, living like the beasts, unable to distinguish their right hands from their left? Thy knowledge of the truth was needed that thou mightest give to those who had it not.'

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 that were depraved, He passed His life amongst publicans, Pharisees, and sinners, teaching them the truth.*

* Luke iv. i, 2. Christ is led into the wilderness by delusion, in order to be tempted there. Matt. iv. 3, 5. Delusion says to

According to the teaching ot the Church, Christ, God and man, gave us an example how we were to live. Christ passed His whole life, as we know, in the turmoil of life: with publicans, adulteresses, and with the Pharisees in Jerusalem. His 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 fellowcreatures better, but teaches the former what they

Christ that He is not the Son of God if He cannot change stones into bread. Christ answers: 1 1 can live without bread, I live by what is breathed into Me by God.5 Then delusion says: ' If Thou be alive by what is breathed into Thee by God, cast Thyself down from this height; Thou wilt kill Thy flesh, but the spirit breathed into Thee by God will not perish.' Christ answers: 'My life in the flesh is by the will of God. If I kill My flesh I act against the will of God — I tempt God.' Matt.iv. 8-1 1. Then delusion says: 1 If it be so, serve the flesh, as all men do, and the flesh shall reward Thee.' Christ answers: ' My life is in the spirit; but I cannot destroy the flesh, because the spirit is put into My flesh by the will of God. Therefore, while living in the flesh I serve God My Father.' And Christ returns from the wilderness into the world.

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 be truth, it will be truth in reality. If life in God be the onlytrue 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 with more firmness 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, U£.} selfdeception, 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 fulfil 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 x. 28-3 1: * Then Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee.' Matt. xix. 27. ' What shall we have therefore? (29) And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My sake and the gospel's,' (30) but he shall receive an hundred-fold 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 ' (Matt. xix. 27; Luke v. 11; xviii. 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 so doing. 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, all 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 proceeded 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 orgies and debauches of my student days, to duels, war, illhealth — all the unnatural and painful conditions of life in which I now live — were and are but martyrdom 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 which we create for ourselves are indispensable 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 ourselves and all those around us without any preconceived idea.

Pass 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, all the suicides which you may have chanced to hear of, and ask yourself what led to all the despair and suffering which drove these men to commit suicide. And you will see that nine-tenths of the suffering there is in this life is borne for the sake of the world; that it is all unnecessary suffering which might 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 omnibus through the market-place near Souhareva 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 do 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 on all the market-places of Moscow. These men will spend their evenings in taverns and publichouses, 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 which 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, their 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, semstresses, harlots, to rich merchants, ministers, 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 indispensably necessary, and you will not find 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 pounds a year to those who spend fifty thousand, and you will seldom find a man who is not tormented and worn out with his efforts to obtain four hundred if he have but three hundred, five hundred if he have 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. To-day a man has earned an overcoat and goloshes; to-morrow 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 Moloch, dying in the same way, without knowing why he does all this. Well, but perhaps, with all this, these men are happy.

What are the principal requisites for earthly happiness, those which no one can gainsay?

The first condition essentially necessary for happi • ness has ever 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. Prisoners 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, animals they see. Many, 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 ihey never brought up and tended cows, horses, or poultry, but they have no idea even how animals grow and live. These people see stuffs, stones, 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 savoury. 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, watchmen, prevent all communication between them and nature. Wherever they go, they are, like prisoners, deprived of this condition which is so necessary for happiness. As prisoners find consolation in a blade of grass which grows in the yard of their prison, or in a spider, or a mouse, so do these men and women find consolation, from time to time, in keeping halfwithered, plants on their window-sills, or in parrots, lap-dogs, monkeys, the care of which they leave to others.

A 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 needful), or they have work to do which they hate, as, for instance, our bankers, attorneys, generals, ministers. I say it is work they hate, because I never yet met one amongst them who liked his work, and who found as much pleasure in it as does a stable-boy 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 advanced men are in worldly prosperity, the less accessible that happiness is for them. The greater part of them are adulterers, and voluntarily renounce all family ties. Even if they be not adulterers, they consider children as a burden rather than a joy, and try by 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 <riforeign 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 towards their parents, viz., the wish for their death, that they may inherit their property. These men are not prisoners, but the result is more painful

0 The way we often hear parents try to justify such a state of things is really surprising. ' I want nothing for myself,' says a father; ' my life is a hard one; but I love my children, all I do is for them,' i.e. ' I know, by experience, that to live as I do is to suffer, and I therefore bring up my children to be as unhappy as I am. I love them, and therefore I make them live in a town full of physical and moral infection, give them into the hands of mercenary strangers, and both physically and morally spoil my children.' Thus do parents try to justify their own irrational lives.

than that entire separation from all family ties to \\ hich 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 issue. The whole world is open to the peasant and his wife. If one million of men refuse to have any intercourse with him, there- are eighty millions left of working men like himself, with whom, from Archangelsk to Astrachan, 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. Ministers 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. Is not 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 peasant's 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. Recall 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 amongst them — one who does not take medicine continually, or at least periodically every summer — is as great an exception as is a sick man amongst the working classes. Almost all these ' fortunate beings ' are toothless, grey-haired, or bald at the age when a working man is still in the full vigour of his manhood. They are almost all sufferers from nervous diseases, dyspepsia or worse, from over-eating themselves, 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 shrivelled 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 comfortatives; 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 car of their god; the car 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 life eternal.' And none follow Him. The world says, ' Leave thy home and thy brothers; leave the country to live in a corrupt town; pass thy whole life either as a servant in a bathhouse, soaping other people's backs in a vapour- bath; or as a clerk, counting other people's money; or as an attorney-general, spending thy life in courts of law, busied with various documents, in order to make the fate of the miserable more miserable still; or as a minister, hastily signing useless papers all thy life; or as a commander-in-chief, killing thy brethren: lead a wicked life, the end of which is always a painful death, and thou shalt suffer in this life, and not attain eternal life;' and all go the world's way. Christ says, ' Take up thy cross, and follow Me.' By which He means, 1 Bear the fate allotted thee 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, 1 Take up, not the cross, but thy knapsack and thy 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, till those that arc left are placed under bullets and cannon balls, and ordered to kill men whom they know nothing about. They kill and are at last killed themselves, and not one of those who kills his fellowcreature knows why he does so. The Turks roast them alive; they flay them; they tear out their bowels. And no sooner does anyone 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 1800 years. Now count those that have died for the teaching for the world, and for each martyr for Christianity you will find a thousand martyrs for the world's sake, martyrs whose sufferings were a hundredfold more dreadful. Thirty millions 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 Sebastopool 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 martyrizing our own selves for the sake of the false teaching of the world.

The doctrine of Christ has a deep metaphysical purport; it has a purport general to all humanity; the doctrine of Christ has the simplest, clearest, most practicable purport 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 аз worse than thyself; it is foolish. If thou give way to anger, if thou abuse others, it will be worse for thee.' Christ says, too, ' Lust not after all women, but take one to thee, and live with her; it will be better for thee.' He says, likewise, 1 Make no promise, lest thou be forced to act foolishly and wickedly.' He says, likewise, 1 Never return evil for evil, for it will fall back upon thee.' Christ says, ' Consider no men as strangers to thee because they live in other lands and speak in other tongues than thou dost. If thou consider them as thine enemies, they will do the same in respect to thee, and it will be worse for thee. Do not act thus, and it will be better for thee.'

Yes, is the answer, but as the world is organized it is more difficult to resist it than to live up to its precepts. If a man refuse to become a soldier he will be imprisoned, and possibly shot. If a man do 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 for not fulfilling it, in some way.

Christ calls men to the spring which is near them. Men suffer from thirst, eat mud, drink each other's blood; but their teachers have told them that they will suffer more if they go to the spring towards 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 Christr if we believed that Me 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 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 labour, 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 are 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 towards 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. Is not the follower of the world in the same position? We are so used to the deception we are in, that we have come to consider all that we do for the imaginary security of our lives — our armies, fortresses, medicines, property, money — as indispensable for the welfare of our lives. We forget what happened to him who intended to built 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 are 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 that 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 the welfare of his life is assured by his money, and the money attracts a robber who kills him. A man who is over careful of his health seeks to assure it by taking medicine, and the medicine kills him by slow degrees; and even if it do not kill him, it deprives him of all vigour and makes him like the paralytic who hardly lived during thirty-five 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 him by God. We have 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 on 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 which he hates, and he need not fear the future. He will be ill, suffer, 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. Wc must be poor, we must be beggars, wanderers on the face of the earth (тттб-^оч 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 us one short saying in reply to this observation, a saying which has been usually interpreted as justifying the idleness of the clergy. Matt. x. 10; Luke x. 7.

10. ' Take neither scrip for thy journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor staves, because he who works is worthy of his meat. And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give; for the labourer is worthy of his hire.'

He that worketh (efevrt) signifies literally, ' can and shall have food.' It is a very short saying, but he who understands it as Christ did, will never argue that if a man have no personal property he must die of hunger. In order to understand the saying clearly, we must renounce the idea which the dogma of the redemption has made habitual to us, viz., 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 labour, and not idleness; that every man must labour; 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 rouble in his pocket — 1 a lucrative post, or some landed property which enables him to live in idleness — is a naturally happy condition. We must re-establish in our minds the idea of labour which all unperverted men have, and to which Christ referred when He said that ' the labourer is worthy of his hire.' Christ never could have thought that men would come to consider labour 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 laboured, and He says that a man's labour feeds Him And if one man profits by the work of another man, he will feed him who works for him; and so he that labours 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, labour 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 labour is the necessary condition of life, and food 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 unto, 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 understand 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 unto, 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 shows 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 be, the more assured his existence will be.

In our present social adjustments, those who do not fulfil 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 fulfil 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 amongst pagans as amongst 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 be 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, a dog that is ill adrift, neither do they kill an old horse, but give it work proportionate to its strength; they feed their lambs, their sucking-pigs, and puppies 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 work 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 fishes and five 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 fishes. 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 twelve basket-fulls 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 twelve baskets in the field.) Had Christ not done what He did, that is, the 1 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, would have overeaten themselves rather than that anything should be left. Misers 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. Quarrelling and fighting would have ensued, and some would have gone home satisfied, the 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 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 twelve 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 keep to himself the fruit of his own or others' work, he prevents its conducing 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. Would it not be more correct to say, if men despoil each other there will always be some who will starve, for that is the actual fact.

Be a man 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 do 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; but 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 fellowcreatures. 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?

The doctrine of Christ establishes the kingdom of God on earth. To think that it is difficult to fulfil His doctrine is an error. It is not difficult; indeed, he who has once clearly understood it cannot do otherwise than fulfil it, and the fulfilling of Christ's doctrine does not involve us in suffering, it really saves us from nine-tenths of the suffering which 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 which had brought me nothing but suffering. There could be but one answer to that question — the truth had been hidden from me.

When first 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 which the doctrine of Christ leads to; but I did not think that the new light which was revealed to me, and the conclusions which 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 which 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 purport 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 which was in direct opposition to it, and which gave me nothing but the consciousness of my own peril and that of others. I could not help throwing each of the Church 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 me.

As I was drawing towards 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 asked to see the book. It was ' An Exposition of the Book of Prayer,' third edition (eightieth thousand), Moscow, 1879. I read page 163.

Q. ' What is the sixth commandment?'

A. ' Thou shalt not kill.'—' What docs God forbid by this commandment?' ' He forbids our killing, that is, depriving a man of life.' — ' Is it a sin to punish a criminal by death, according to the law, от to kill our enemies in war?' ' It is no sin to do so. A criminal is put to death, in order to put a stop to the evil which he does. Enemies are killed in the war in which we fight for our sovereign and our country/ These are the only words which explain

why this commandment is repealed. I could hardly believe my own eyes.

The disputants asked my opinion upon the subject. I said to the one who upheld that it was quite right, that the interpretation was incorrect. 1 Then how is it that incorrect statements are printed?' asked he. I could give him no answer. I kept the book and looked it through. The book contains: (1) Prayers, with instructions concerning genuflections, and the way the fingers are to be joined in making the sign of the cross. (2) The interpretation of the Creed. (3) 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.' (4) The ten commandments, with explanations which annul them; and (5) Anthems for feast-days.

As I have said, I had not only tried to avoid finding fault with the teaching 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 academical 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 amongst the people. In order to see if it were really the case, I bought all the books published by the Synod, or allowed to be published by it, 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 felloiv -creature is 110 sin. This was not to be found in the old Russian catechisms of Platon;* neither is it to be found in the catechisms of Peter Moguilla, or of Beliakoff.-f- It was an innovation made by Filaret, who likewise wrote a catechism for the military classes. The 1 Exposition of the Book ot Prayer ' was taken from that very catechism. The book which serves as the basis is, 1 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 Nicean 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 reason unknown, termed ' beatitudes.' Both these sections treat of the dogmas of the Church, of 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, 108.) In reference to the second commandment, ' Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image,' the catechism teaches us to worship images (p. 108). In reference to the third commandment, ' Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 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 (p. in). In reference to the fourth commandment, 'To keep holy the Saturday,' the catechism enjoins us to keep Sunday holy, thirteen great holidays, and a number of smaller ones, and to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays (p. 112-115). In reference to the fifth commandment, 1 Honour thy father and thy mother,' the catechism tells us it is our bounden duty to honour our sovereign, our father-land, 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 (sic) for those who serve and whose property they are (p. 116-119). I cite from the 64th edition of the catechism published in 1880. Twenty years have gone by since slavery has been abolished, and no one has taken the trouble to remove the sentence which was added to the commandment, ' Honour thy father and mother,' in order to uphold and justify slavery.

With regard to the sixth commandment, ' Thou shalt not kill/ men are taught from the very first lines to kill.

Q. What does the sixth commandment forbid? A. Murder; or taking away our neighbour's life in any way.

Q. Is taking a man's life always illegal murder? A. Murder is not unlawful, when it is our duty to take away a man's life; for instance:

1. When we punish a criminal by death.

2. When we kill the enemies in fighting for our sovereign and our native land.

Q. What other instances can you cite of murder?

A.... 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 pretence of its being the Christian doctrine. This is taught to the whole Russian nation. This is taught to innocent children, in speaking of whom Christ said, 'Suffer little children to come unto 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 nought of all this; to children, in speaking of whom Christ said, 1 Woe to him that tempteth 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 father-land,' etc., which explain nothing.

Yes, what Christ warned us against has come to pass, for He said (Luke xi. 33-36, and Matt. vi. 23): • Take heed that the light which is in thee be not darkened. If the light which is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!'

The light which is in us had indeed become darkness; and that darkness is an awful one.

Christ said, ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees; for ye shut up the kingdom of God against men. For ye neither go in yourselves, nor suffer ye others to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers; therefore are ye still more guilty. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye compass seas and lands to make one proselyte, and when ye have done so, ye make him worse than he had been before. Woe unto you, blind guides!...'

'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because ye 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 martyrized, you would not have joined in shedding their blood. Then ye are witnesses against yourselves, that you are no better than those who killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure begun by those like ye yourselves. And behold, I will send unto you wise prophets and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues and drive them from city to city. And may all the righteous blood shed since the days of Abel fall back upon your heads.

' Every blasphemy may be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven.'

Is it not as if this had been written but 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. Firstly, it bears upon the life of each individual and upon our social lives; or it has an ethical mission. Secondly, 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, 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; 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 every outward form of worship. This rupture in Christianity could have no other effect than completely to pervert the doctrine and deprive it of all sense. And it did so. The rupture between the doctrine of life and the exposition how we were to live began from the sermon of Paul, who did not know the ethical teaching, expressed in the Gospels 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 which form part of it, losing more and more of its fundamental sense, reached its present point: it has become a teaching which explains the mysteries of life in heaven, gives the most 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 alms, the keeping of the year of jubilee, and many other things. Mahometanism 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 except 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; they are administered to him by others. No obligation lies on the pseudo-Christian; the Church does all that is needful for him: he is baptized, anointed, the sacrament of the Holy Communion is administered to him, and the sacrament of Extreme Unction; his confession is taken for granted if he be 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 which 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 in deed.

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 which 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 amongst 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 to live up to that doctrine of Christ which 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 defence of anything, and cannot do so, because the annihilation of these false principles of life is based on the Christian doctrine which 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 which it had organized of old, and 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 light of the Christian doctrine of life through eighteen centuries; and while trying to conceal it in its raiment has been itself burnt 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 which 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 amongst 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 which the same Church unwittingly brought in together with that doctrine of Christ which 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 hearken no more to the voices of the teachers; and, indeed, there is nothing worth listening to, because the Church only gives explanations which the world has already grown tired of — explanations of an organization which is rapidly decaying.

Certain men set out in a boat, while a man at the helm steered. He was a skilful pilot, and the boat glided rapidly on; but a time came when a less skilful 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 was 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 nineteenth century prides itself, is only the result of our floating without a helmsman. We do not know whither 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 whither we are 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 in erecting useless and pernicious cities; why they organize their petty courts of law, and send men, whom they call criminals out of France to Cayenne, out of Russia to Siberia, 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 manufactories which they hate; why 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 were all this 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 organized his life thus and not otherwise because it was enjoined him by the law which, according to his conviction, came from God Himself. It is thus likewise with the Hindoos and the Chinese, it was thus with the Romans and with the Mahometans, 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, executions exist according to the commandments of God, transmitted to us by the Church. The world, as we know it, is a lost world. All the evil which 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, execute or be executed, according to the will of the authorities, placed over him by God. Be this explanation good or bad does not matter, it formerly 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 which 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 amongst them who could now answer the direct question, ' Why leadest thou the life which thou leadest?' ' Why dost thou do what thou doest?' 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 received an answer to some question which 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 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, ' Why he did not live according to his philosophical teaching?' by talking of the progress of mankind, 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 civilized 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 which he himself blames, and why he does nothing to improve it, never gives you a direct answer, never speaks of himself, but turns the conversation to some general question about justice, trade, the state, or civilization. If he be a policeman or an attorney he will say, 1 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 be a merchant he will say, ' What progress will civilization 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 towards which he strives, but in serving the state, commerce, or civilization. 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 why life must be such as it was of old; and the name of religion is given to a teaching which 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 Tillet, Spenser, 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 but 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 which 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 which 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 that lives thus cannot be said to live rationally. Before saying that we live rationally we must answer the question, 'Which doctrine of life 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, be they 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 without a murmur the most barbarous exactions. 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 that law.

But all notions of there being a law which is indubitably rational, and which each feels in his inmost soul to be obligatory, is so lost in our world, that the existence of a law amongst the Hebrews, which defined the whole order of life, for them, a law which was rendered obligatory by the moral feeling of each, is considered as existing exclusively amongst 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 and natural one, when he obeys what he knows was only written by despised men, and is put in execution 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 which 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 rites which, as sorae^ 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 needful 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 but 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 in 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 which 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, slandered, they are the only men who do not passively submit to all that is ordered them, 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, 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 new-born 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 former 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, social activity — all are full of life. But all this only lives because it has been recently fed by its mother. 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 has now to comprehend that the former unconscious process of nourishment has outlived its time, and that a new, conscious process of nourishment is needful.

This new process consists in admitting those truths of the Christian doctrine which had formerly flowed into the world through the medium of the Church, and which are the sources of life. Men must again lift up the light which 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 which 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, 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, if you consider it irrational to make your children study the dead languages more than they do anything else, then do not do so.