Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/205

 XIII

HOW TO READ THE GOSPELS, AND WHAT IS ESSENTIAL IN THEIVI

Therk is so much that is strange, improbable, unin- telligible, and even contradictory, in what professes to be Christ's teaching, that people do not know how to understand it.

It is very differently understood by different people. Some say Redemption is the all-important matter ; others say the all-important thing is grace, obtainable through the Sacraments ; others, again, that submission to the Church is what is really essential. But the Churches themselves disagree, and interpret the teach- ing variously. The Roman Catholic Church holds that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, that the Pope is infallible, and that salvation is obtain- able chiefly through works. Tlie Lutheran Church disagrees, and considers that faith is what is chiefly needed for salvation. The Orthodox Russo-Greek Church considers that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only, and that both works and faith are necessary to salvation. And the Anglican and other Episcopalian Churches, the Presbyterian and the Methodist, not to mention hundreds of others, each interpret Christ's teaching in their own way.

Young men and men of the people, doubting the truth of the Church teaching in which they have been brought up, often come to me and ask what my teach- ing is, and how / understand Christ's teaching } Such questions always grieve and even shock me.

Christ, who the Churches say was God, came on [ 189 ]