Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/208

 impossible, and not only impossible, but it is quite clear that it is not the truth, that I was mistaken in thinking that I could find an answer and a solution of my doubts in the church. I had intended to go to God, and I found my way into a stinking bog, which evokes in me only those feelings of which I am most afraid: disgust, malice, and indignation. God, that incomprehensible, but still existing one, by the will of whom I live! Thou hast implanted in me this striving after the knowledge of thee and of myself. I have erred, I have searched after the truth in the wrong place. I knew that I erred. I have pampered my evil passions, and I knew that they were bad, but I have never forgotten thee; I have always felt thee, even in moments of erring. I came very near perishing, when I lost thee, but thou gavest me thy hand, and I grasped it, and life was illuminated for me. Thou hast saved me, and I am searching after this alone: to come near unto thee, and to understand thee as much as is possible. Help me, teach me! I know that I am good, that I love and want to love all, and want to love truth. Thou art the God of love and truth, take me nearer unto thee, disclose everything to me, so that I may be able to understand about myself and about thee!

And the good God, the God of truth, replies to me through the mouth of the church: “The Deity is one and trine. Oh, most glorious transformation!”

Go yourselves to your father, the devil, you who have taken the keys of the kingdom of heaven and have not yourselves entered it and have closed it against others! You are not speaking of God, but of something else.