Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/33

 chastity; the earlier the better. I know no other method. Above all, in order to be capable of using both the one and the other means successfully one should strengthen one's connection with god, remember oftener that one has come from Him and will return to Him, and that all the object and meaning of this life is to fulfill His will. The more you remember Him, the more will He help you. One more point: Do not lose heart if you fall. Do not think you have perished, -that after this you need no longer guard yourself but may let yourself go. On the contrary, if you have fallen, then, with so much the more energy must you resume the struggle.

Attacks of sexual lust engender confusion of thought. The absence of thought rather. The whole world darkens. Man loses his relation to it. Chance, blackness, failure!

You have suffered very much poor fellow, from this dreadful passion, especially when you have let it loose and give it headway. I know how it overshadows everything, destroys temporarily all by which the heart and reason live. But the one deliverance is to know that it is a dream, an allurement, which will pass and you will return to true life, to the point at which it seized you. This you can know even during the moments of its power. God help you.

Thou shouldst never forget that thou hast never been and wilt never be completely chaste, but that thou art at a certain degree of approach to chastity and thou shouldst never lose heart in this