Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/449

 ishments of hell, because of the prayers of the church. “However, while the Orthodox Church teaches that all sinners, after their death and the private judgment over them, all alike depart to hell, a place of sorrow and of grief, it at the same time confesses that for those who have repented before their departure from the present life, but have not had time to bring the fruits which are worthy of repentance (such as prayer, contrition, the consolation of the poor, and the expression in acts of love for God and for their neighbours), there is still left a chance of getting alleviation in sufferings and even of being completely freed from the bonds of hell. Such an alleviation and immunity the sinners may obtain, not through any of their own deserts or through repentance (for after death and the private judgment there is no place either for repentance or for deserts), but only through the infinite grace of God, through the prayers of the church, and through the benefactions done by the living for the dead, and especially through the power of the bloodless sacrifice, which in particular the servants of the church bring for every Christian and for the deceased, and which the Catholic and Apostolic Church in general brings every day for all.” (p. 589.)

That is proved. That natural consideration how, if God is just (as a man is just), as the hierarchy understands it, he can forgive a sinner for somebody else’s prayers is decided in the following way:

“St. Augustine: ‘There is no cause for the slightest doubt that they (prayers of the holy church, saving sacrifices, and alms) are beneficial to the dead, but only to those who before their death have lived in such a way that they can be beneficial to them. For in behalf of those who have departed without faith, which is accompanied by charity, and without the communion in the sacraments, their friends will in vain perform the works of that godliness, an earnest of which they did not have