Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/471



"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, till thou returnest unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken."— iii. 19.

UCH is the title and such the epigraph to the work of Timofeï Mikhaïlovitch Bondaref. This work I read in manuscript.

Timofeï Mikhaïlovitch Bondaref's work seems to me very notable, as well for the force and clearness and beauty of the style in which it is written, as for the sincerity of his conviction manifest in every line, and especially for the importance, truth, and depth of the fundamental thought.

The fundamental thought of this work is as follows: In all terrestrial affairs the thing of importance is, not to know what is particularly fine and necessary, but out of all fine and necessary things or actions to know what is of first importance, what of second, what of third, and so on.

If this is important in terrestrial affairs, much so is it important in the matter of faith, which determines a man's obligations.

Tatian, a teacher in the early days of the Church, declares that the unhappiness of men comes not so much from the fact that they do not know God, as from the fact that they acknowledge a false God, they consider as God that which is not God. The same thing may be said also concerning the obligations of men. The unhappiness and wrong-doing of men come not so much from the fact that they do not know what their obligations are, as from the fact that they acknowledge