Page:Rolland Life of Tolstoy.djvu/119

Rh of “epicurean consolation,” threw him definitely among the simple folk who alone lived lives in agreement with their faith.

“And he understood that the life of the labouring people was life itself, and that the meaning to be attributed to that life was truth.”

But how become a part of the people and share its faith? It is not enough to know that others are in the right; it does not depend upon ourselves whether we are like them. We pray to God in vain; in vain we stretch our eager arms toward Him. God flies. Where shall He be found?

But one day grace descended:

“One day of early spring I was alone in the forest, listening to its sounds… I was thinking of my distress during the last three years; of my search for God; of my perpetual oscillations from joy to despair… And I suddenly saw that I used to live only when I used to believe in God. At the very thought of Him the delightful waves of life stirred in me. Everything around me grew full of life; everything received a meaning. But the moment I no longer believed life suddenly ceased.

“Then what am I still searching for? a voice cried within me. For Him, without whom man cannot live! To know God and to live—it is the same thing! For God is Life…

“Since then this light has never again deserted me.”