Page:Tolstoy - Christianity and Patriotism.djvu/12

 and varnished lacquer that covered the worm-eaten wood of the political and social order, seemed, in the four years between his death and the European War, somehow to have become vieux jeu.

Suddenly the European volcano rumbled and went up in smoke and flame of war. The great Russian prophet had spoken truly. The whole scheme of ideas, political and patriotic, by which the deception of the peoples is made possible by their Governments, had opened before the nations a frightful abyss—an abyss into which whole countries and classes have since been hurled. The immunity Great Britain has enjoyed owing to her insular position from invading armies, from scenes of horror and desolation, of famine and bankruptcy that the afflicted peoples of the most unfortunate States have faced, with their black legacy to-day, may still veil from the British consciousness the extraordinary prophetic insight shown in "Christianity and Patriotism." But the logic of his conclusions is irrefutable:

"It is a terrible thing to say, but there is not, and there never has been, a combined act of violence by one set of people upon another set of people which has not been perpetrated in the name of patriotism. In the name of patriotism the Russians have waged war on the French and the French on the Russians. And in the name, too, of patriotism the Russians are now preparing with the French to make war on the Germans, and in the name of patriotism the Germans