Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/454

 of my vessel, that is, I will degrade the ideal in accordance with my weakness."

The ideal of perfection which Christ has given us is not a dream or a subject for rhetorical sermons, but a most necessary, most accessible guide of moral life for man, just as the compass is a necessary and accessible implement guiding the navigator; all that is necessary is to believe in the one as in the other. In whatever situation a man may be, the teaching about the ideal, given by Christ, is sufficient in order to obtain the safest indication of those acts which one may and which one may not perform. But it is necessary completely to believe in this teaching, this one teaching, and to stop believing in any other, just as it is necessary for the navigator to believe in the compass, and to stop looking at and being guided by what he sees on both sides. One must know how to be guided by the Christian teaching, how to be guided by the compass, and for this it is most important to understand one's position, and to be able not to be afraid precisely to indicate one's own deflection from the one, ideal direction. No matter on what round man may stand, there is always a possibility of his approaching this ideal, and no position of his can be such that he should be able to say that he has attained it and no longer can strive after a greater approximation.

Such is the striving of man after the Christian ideal in general and after chastity in particular. If the most varied positions of people, from innocent childhood until marriage, when continence is not practised, were to be considered in respect to the sexual question, then at every stage between these two positions the teaching of Christ, with its ideal which it puts forward, will always serve as a clear and definite guide to what man ought and ought not to do at every one of these stages.

What are a pure young man and girl to do? To keep themselves pure against temptations, and, in order that