Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/467

 from the authorities; give it back to the authorities. But your free soul is from the God of truth, and therefore give not your actions, your freedom of reason, to any one, except to God. They may kill you, but they cannot compel you to kill and to do an unchristian act.

As to private property, there, is no private property according to the Gospels, and woe to those that have it; that is to say, it is bad for them, and so in whatever position a Christian finds himself, he cannot do anything in relation to the private property of any one else than not take part in the violence perpetrated in the name of private property; and he must assure others that private property is a myth, there is no private property, but there is a certain customary use of force in relation to the advantage of things which men call private property, and which is bad. For the man who shall give away his cloak when they want to deprive him of his shirt there can be no talk of private property.

Neither can there be any question of international relations. All men are brothers─of the same sort. And if a Zulu should come to murder my children, the only thing I can do is to try to persuade the Zulu that this is not to his advantage and not good─to persuade him, submitting to him by violence, the more so as there is no certainty in fighting with the Zulu. Either he gets the better of me, and, still more, murders my children, or I get the advantage, and my children the next day will be taken down with some illness, and suffer more, and die of it. There is no certainty, because if I submit I probably do better, while if I enter into a contest with him, it is a question whether I do any better.

This, then, is my answer: the very best thing that we can do is to fulfil all of Christ's teaching. But in order to fulfil it we must be convinced that it is true, both for all humanity and for each one of us. Have you this faith?

I think it best to print your article, though with some abbreviation. There are still two objections or questions which I raise; you will make them to me. The first is: What if, by submitting, as I say, to the Zulu and to the