Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/469

 father and mother and brethren and wife and children, he will find a hundred times more here in this world, and houses and fathers and the eternal life besides. "Many that are first shall be last."

Now the second question, directly, involuntarily proceeding from the first: "Now here are you, Lyof Nikolayevitch, preaching and preaching, but how do you fulfil what you preach?"

This question is most natural, and I am all the time asked it, and they always close my mouth triumphantly.

You preach, but how do you live?

And I reply that I do not preach and I cannot preach, though I passionately desire to. I can preach by deed, but my deeds are vile. What I say is not preaching, but is only a refutation of a false conception of the Christian doctrine, and an explanation of its actual significance. Its significance is not the reconstruction of society, in its name, by violent means; its significance is in finding the meaning of life in this world. The fulfilment of the five commandments gives this meaning. If you wish to be a Christian, then you must fulfil these commandments, but if you do not wish to fulfil them, then do not prate about Christianity outside of the fulfilment of these commandments.

But, they say to me, if you find that outside of the fulfilment of the Christian teaching there is no reasonable life, and you love this reasonable life, why do you not fulfil the commandments?

I reply that I am to blame, and vile, and worthy of scorn because I do not fulfil them, but in this respect not so much in the way of exculpation, as in explanation of my inconsistency, I say: "Look at my former life and look at my life now, and you will see that I am trying to fulfil them. I have not fulfilled one ten thousandth part, it is true, and I am to blame; but I have not fulfilled them, not because I have not wanted to, but because I could not. Teach me how to disentangle myself from the net of temptations in which I am caught; help me, and I will fulfil them; but even