Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/351

Rh make us happy. And so we can't help regarding your desire to enter upon this new life as laudable.

"The young man may adopt his ideal through reason, but I am not a young man, and I am going to speak to you about myself. As I listened to our talk this evening the same thought entered my mind. The life which I am leading, it is plain to me, cannot give me a serene conscience and happiness. Both experience and reason prove this. Then what am I waiting for! You struggle from morning till night for your family, and the result is that both you and your family continue to live ungodly lives, and you are all the while worse and worse entangled in your sins. You work for your family, and it seems your family are not better off or happier because you work for them. And so I often think it would be better if I changed my whole life and did exactly what this young man proposed—ceased to bother about wife and children, and only thought about my soul. Not without reason does it say in St. Paul: 'He that is married takes thought about his wife, but he that is unmarried about God.'"

Before this married man had finished his remarks, all the women present, including his wife, fell upon him:

"You ought to have thought about all this earlier," said one of the elderly ladies. "'Once harnessed, you must work.' According to your plan every man will be saying, 'I want to be saved,' when it seems to him hard to maintain and feed a family. It is all deception and baseness. No; a man ought to be able to live in a godly way even if he has a family. It is easy enough for him to save himself alone. And then the main thing—to act so is to act contrary to the teaching of Christ. God has commanded us to love others, but in this way you would offend others as if it were for God. No; a married man has his definite obligations, and he ought not to shirk them. It is another thing when your family has already been established. Then you may do as you please for yourself, but no one has any right to do violence to his family."

The married man did not agree with this. He said: