Page:Leo Tolstoy - Father Sergius and Other Stories and Plays - ed. Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright (1911).djvu/97

 Rh of bearing witness to his healing power and to his fame.

"People come thousands of miles. Papers talk about it. The Emperor knows. All Europe knows—all godless Europe;" and then he felt ashamed of his vanity and began to pray.

"God, King of heaven. Comforter, True Soul, come into—inspire me—and cleanse me from all sin, and save, O All-merciful, my soul. Cleanse me from the sin of worldly vanity that has overtaken me," he said, remembering how often he had made that prayer and how vain it had been. His prayers worked miracles for others, but as for himself God had not granted him strength to conquer this petty passion. He remembered his prayers at the commencement of his seclusion, when he asked for the grace of purity, humility, and love, and how it seemed to him at that time that God heard his prayers. He had retained his purity and had hewn off his finger. He raised the stump of the finger with folds of skin on it to his lips and kissed it. It seemed to him now that at that time, when he had been filled with disgust at his own sinfulness, he had been humble, and that he had also possessed love. He recalled also the tender feelings with which he had received the old drunken soldier who had come to ask alms