Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/245

 born in sin, that I always live in sin, and that I cannot live otherwise than in sin.

93. The consequences of the original sin. This article expounds, with proofs from Holy Scripture, that the original sin is in all men, that all are filled with uncleanness, that the reason of all men is dimmed, and that the will of all men is more prone to do evil, and that the image of God is blurred.

How would workmen work if it were known to them that they are all bad workmen, if they were impressed with the thought that they cannot work well, that such is their nature, and that, to accomplish their work, there are other means than their labour? It is precisely this that the church does. You are all filled with sin and your bent to do evil is not due to your will, but to your inheritance. Man cannot save himself by his own strength. There is one means: prayer, sacraments, and grace. Can a more immoral doctrine be invented?

Then follows the moral application of the dogma.

Only one moral application of this dogma is possible, and that is, to look for salvation outside the striving after what is good. But the author, as always, not feeling himself bound by any logical train of thoughts, throws into the article of the moral application everything which happens to occur to him and which has some verbal, external connection with what precedes.

94. The moral application of the dogma. There are ten such applications: (1) to thank God for having made us to perish; (2) the wife should submit to her husband; (3) to love our neighbour since we are all related through Adam; (4) to thank God for creating us in the womb of our mothers; (5) to praise God because we have a soul and a body; (6) to care more for our soul; (7) to preserve in us the image of God; (8) to please God—

“May the high purpose toward which we are obliged to strive always be before our eyes, and may it, like a