Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/496

 and consider what they ought to be. All great revolutions in the life of men commence in thought. Let but a change take place in men's thoughts, and action will follow the direction of the thought as certainly as the ship follows the direction of the rudder.

the words of His first sermon Christ did not tell men to love one another (He taught this to His disciples later on), but, like John the Baptist before Him, He preached repentance,, that is to say, a change of opinion with regard to life: , change your conception of life, said He, or you will all perish. The meaning of your life cannot consist in the pursuit of your personal well-being, or in that of your family or your nation, because that well-being can be attained only by detriment of that of your neighbor. Know then that the meaning of your life can lie only in fulfilling the will of Him who sent you into this life, and who demands from you, not the pursuit of your personal interests, but the accomplishment of His own purpose: the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven.

, change your conception of life, or you will all perish, said He, eighteen hundred years ago; and, to-day, this is incessantly urged by all the contradictions and all the ills of our time, results of the fact that men have not heeded, and have not accepted the conception of life which he proposed to them. , said He, or you will all perish. And the alternative is still the same. The only difference is that now it is more pressing. If, two thousand years ago, at the time of the Roman Empire, even at the time of Charles V., or even before the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, it was possible not to see the vanity, I will even say the absurdity, of attempting to insure personal happiness, the welfare of the family, the nation, or the State, by struggling against all who seek the same thing,—that illusion has now become absolutely impossible to any man who