Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/72

 one should not live with one's family should leave one's wife and children, as Jesus has said, but I think that this may be done only with mutual consent, and that there is another word of Christ's and a more binding one: "Men and wife are not two but one flesh"; and "whom God has joined man shall not separate." Men like you and others, happy and strong should not marry: but, having married and got children, should not put aside what has been done (one cannot wipe out a sin), but should bear its consequences. And I think that to demand or advise husbands to abandon their wives is a great sin. It is true it appears that the work of God will gain from the circumstance that without a wife you will accomplish much more than you do now, but very often this only seems so. (If you could be completely pure, completely sinless, then this might be so) One should not demand or advise separation, moreover, because according to this view people who have sinned, i.e., married, would appear to themselves and others, in a hopeless position; and this is not good; I think that sinful and weak man can also serve God. Once having sinned by marriage one should bear the consequence of one's sin in the best, most Christian way, and not free oneself from this sin by committing another, but in this position should serve God with all one's strength.

Yes, the ideal of Christ's service of the Father is a service which primarily excludes the care of life and the continuation of the race. Hitherto, the attempts to free oneself from those cares has not destroyed the human race. What will happen further I do not know.

I do not like in general to speak of the peculiarities of "our time," but in the relations between husbands and wives, men and