Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/15

Rh labor of his hands the bread necessary for his own subsistence and for that of his wife and children; on the other, woman must acquit herself of all the duties of motherhood. Neither one nor the other can evade their respective obligations.

It is from Labor according to the Bible that Tolstoï has taken the leading idea which he has given in What is my Life? and What should be done. But while Bondareff claims that the law of labor and that of motherhood are the effects of a divine malediction, Tolsto"i protests energetically against that notion. What we find in the verses of Genesis cited by Bondareff, and on which he rests his theory, is this: God said to Adam, "In the sweat of thy face shaft thou eat bread;" and to Eve, "In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children." But according to Tolstoï it is an error to believe labor is a curse; and to this error he attributes man's efforts to evade the law and to usurp the fruits of others' work. He ceases not to proclaim that labor is not a sorrow but a joy. Neither is motherhood a curse. It is a sacred and imperative dutv; but it is also a joy, and an utter satisfaction.

Tolstoï thus arrives at the same conclusions with Bondareff, but from a different standpoint. That is, he opposes the Gospel to the Bible. He even claims to find in the Christian precept