Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/482

 And therefore the man penetrated with love will make no mistake, and will always do first of all what love for men demands—that which supports the life of the cold, the hungry, and the despondent;—he does not support the life of the cold, the hungry, and the despondent, but the struggle, the out and out struggle with nature, does. Only the man that wishes to deceive himself and others can in the time of danger and men's battle with necessity turn aside from aiding them, augment the necessity of men, and persuade himself and those that are perishing before his eyes, that he is occupied in devising for them means of salvation.

No genuine man who applies his life to the service of others will say this. And if he says this, never will he find in his conscience any support for his mistake; he will find it only in the crafty doctrine of the division of labor.

In all expressions of genuine popular wisdom from Confucius to Mohammed he will find one thing, will find it with especial force in the Gospels, will find the demand for the service of men, not according to the theory of the subdivision of labor, but in the simplest, most natural, and only necessary way, will find the need of serving the sick, the imprisoned, the cold, and the starving. But to extend aid to the sick, the imprisoned, the cold, and the starving is impossible otherwise than by one's immediate instant labor, because the sick, the cold, and the hungry will not wait, but will die of cold and hunger. To the man who fulfils the teaching of the truth, his life, consisting in service of others, points to this fundamental law expressed in the first book of Genesis: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, which Bondaref calls fundamental and makes mandatory.

This law is really such for men who do not acknowledge that significance of life which Christ made evident to men, and such it was for men before Christ's day, and such it remains for men who do not acknowledge Christ's teaching. It demands that every man, according to God's will, expressed both in the Bible and in