Page:Tolstoy - Christianity and Patriotism.djvu/58

 involves the murder of men; and Christianity not only forbids every sort of murder, but requires active benevolence to all men, looking upon all nationalities without discrimination as brothers. A Christian state, we said, to be consistent ought, on entering upon a war, not merely to remove the crosses from the churches, to turn the churches themselves into buildings for other purposes, to give the clergy other duties, and, above all, to prohibit the Gospel—but ought to renounce every precept of morality which follows from the Christian law. "C'est à prendre on à laisser," we said. Until such time as Christianity is abolished, men can only be drawn into war by cunning and deception, as is always done now.

We see this cunning and deception, and so we cannot give in to it. Since on this occasion there was no band, nor champagne, nor anything to intoxicate us, our visitor merely shrugged his shoulders, and, with the politeness peculiar to the French, said that he was very grateful for the kind welcome he had received in our house, but greatly regretted that his ideas had not met with the same reception.