Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/196

180 reason, and (3) by my heart, i.e., by the highest aspiration of my nature.

Tradition (the collective wisdom of our greatest forerunners) tells me that I should do unto others as I would that they should do unto me.

My reason shows me that only by all men acting thus is the highest happiness for all men attainable.

Only when I yield myself to that intuition of love which demands obedience to this law, is my own heart happy and at rest. And not only can I then know how to act, but I can and do discern the work to co-operate in which my activity was designed and is required.

I cannot fathom God's whole design, for the sake of which the universe exists and lives; but the Divine work which is being accomplished in this world and in which I participate by living is comprehensible to me.

This work is the annihilation of discord and strife among men and among all creatures, and the establishment of the highest unity and concord and love.

It is the fulfilment of the promises of the Hebrew prophet who foretold a time when all men should be taught by truth, when spears should be turned into reaping-hooks, swords be beaten to ploughshares, and the lion lie down with the lamb.

So that a man of Christian intelligence not only knows what he has to do, but he also understands the work he is doing.

He has to act so as to co-operate towards the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. For this a man must obey his intuition of God's will, i.e., must act lovingly towards others, as he would that others should act towards him.

Tims the intuitive demands of man^s soul coincide with the external aim of life which he sees before him.

According to Christian teaching, man in this world is God's labourer. A labourer does not know his master's whole design, but he does know the immediate object which he is set to work at. He receives definite