Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/463

 vii. 21-27), in this sermon the whole thing is said, and five commands are given as to the way of fulfilling the teaching.

In the Sermon on the Mount, the simplest, easiest, most comprehensible rules are laid down for love to God and one's neighbor, and for living without recognizing and fulfilling these commands it is idle to speak of Christianity. And strange as it may seem to say this after eighteen hundred years, it was brought to me to expound these rules as something new. And only when I understood these rules did I understand the significance of Christ's teaching. These rules so wonderfully embrace the whole life of every man and of all humanity, that only let a man proceed to fulfil these rules on earth and we should have on earth the reign of righteousness!

And then analyze all of these rules separately, applying them to yourself, and you will see that this unimaginably blessed and enormous result will be derived from the fulfilment of these most simple and natural, and not only easy, but also pleasant rules.

Do you imagine that it would be necessary for anything to be added to these rules in order for the kingdom of righteousness to exist? Nothing is necessary.

Do you imagine that anything could be taken from these rules without the kingdom of righteousness being infringed? Impossible!

If I knew nothing of Christ's teaching except these five rules, I should be just as much a Christian as I am now:─

I. Be not angry.

II. Do not commit fornication.

III. Take no oaths.

IV. Judge not; and

V. Do not go to war.

For me this constitutes the essence of Christ's teaching. And this clear expression of Christ's teaching has been hidden from men, and consequently humanity has constantly wandered away from it in two opposite directions. Some, seeing in Christ's teaching the teaching