Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/525



N this book, besides stories in which veritable events are described, there are collected histories, traditions, tales, legends, fables, fairy tales of the kind composed and written for the edification of the people.

We have selected such as we consider consonant with the teaching of Christ, and therefore consider good and true.

Many persons and especially children, in reading a story, a fairy tale, a legend, or a fable, ask, first of all: Is what is written true? and, frequently, if they find that what was described could not have happened, they say: That is an idle invention and it is not true.

Persons who judge in this way judge unjustly.

It is not he who knows only what has been, what is, and what will be, that knows the truth, but he who knows what should be in accordance with God's will.

It is not he who only describes how a thing was, and what this, that, and the other man did, that writes the truth, but he that shows what men are doing well, that is to say, in accordance with God's will, and what men are doing ill, that is, against God's will.

The truth—that is the way. Christ said: I am the way and the truth and the life.

And therefore it is not the man that keeps his eyes