Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/300

284 murder (executions and wars), and that the teaching of non-resistance to evil has with Satanic ingenuity been invented by the enemies of Christ.

What is most terrible is that people to whom it is profitable, not only deceive adults, but (having power to do so) deceive children also—those very children concerning whom Jesus pronounced woe on him who deceives them. It is terrible that these people for such petty advantages do such fearful harm, by hiding from men the truth that was revealed by Jesus, and that gives blessings such as are not counterbalanced even to the extent of a one-thousandth part by the advantages these men secure for themselves. They behave like a robber who killed a whole family of five or six people to carry off an old coat and tenpence in money. They would willingly have given him all their clothes and all their money not to be killed; but he could not act otherwise.

So it is with the religious deceivers. It would be worth while keeping them ten times better, and letting them live in the greatest luxury, if only they would refrain from ruining men with their deceptions. But they cannot act differently. That is what is awful. And, therefore, we not only may, but should, unmask their deceptions. If there be a sacred thing, it is surely not what they call Sacraments, but just this very duty of unmasking their religious deceptions when one detects them.

When a Tchouvash smears his idol with sour cream, or beats it, I can refrain from insulting his faith, and can pass by with equanimity, for he does these things in the name of a superstition of his own, foreign to me, and he does not interfere with what to me is holy. But when, with their barbarous superstitions, men (however numerous, however ancient their superstitions, and however powerful they may be) in the name of the God by whom I live, and of that teaching of Christ's which has given life to me and is capable of giving life to all men, preach gross sorcery, I cannot endure it pas-