Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/148

 and act contrary to his will, becomes for us a new god, or idol, whom we serve; and a Christian must remember firmly that such an idolatry can never be coextensive with the service of the one God; according to the words of the Saviour: No man can serve two masters; ye cannot serve God and mammon (Matt. vi. 24).” (pp. 90 and 91.)

What is this? Where is this taken from? What a lot of things have been said and connected with the unity of God! How do they all result from it? There is absolutely no answer to that.

“Second lesson, in respect to our relation to our neighbours. Believing in the one God, from whom we all have our being, through whom we live and move and are (Acts xvii. 28), and who alone forms the aim of all of us, we are naturally incited toward union among ourselves.”

And still more texts and still less connection with the preceding. If there is any connection, it is only a verbal one, like a play of words: “God is one,—we must strive after oneness.”

“Finally, the third lesson, in respect to our relation to ourselves. Believing in God, one in substance, let us see to it that in our own being we may reestablish the primitive union which has been impaired in us through sin. To-day we feel the cleaving of our being, the disunion of our forces, abilities, strivings; we delight in the law of God after the inward man: but we see another law in our members, warring against the law of our mind, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin which is in our members (Rom. vii. 22-23), so that in each of us there are, not one, but two men, an inward and an outward, a spiritual and a carnal, man. Let us see to it that we put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and that we put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Ephes. iv. 22-24), and that we