Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/373

 AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY 357

and much else, is not true ; how then can you teach it to little children and to ioi-norant adults, who look to you for true enlightenment ?

Ask yourself, with your hand on your heart, do you believe what you preach ? If you really ask yourself that question, not before men but before God, remem- bering the approaching- hour of death, you cannot but answer, 'No, I do not believe it.' You do not believe in the inspiration by God of the whole of those writings which you call sacred : you do not believe all the horrors and wonders of the Old Testament, you do not believe in hell, you do not believe in an immaculate conception, in the resurrection and ascension of Christ, you do not believe in the physical resurrection of the dead, and in the triune personality of God — not only do you not belie^e all the articles of the creed which expresses the essence of your faith, but many of you do not even believe a single one of them.

Disbelief, if but in a single dogma, involves disbelief in the infallibility of the Church which has set' up the dogma you do not believe. But if you have not faith in the Church, you will not believe in the dogmas she set up.

If you do not believe, if even you have any doubts, think what you are doing in preaching as divine, un- questionable truth — what you do not yourselves believe : and in preaching it by methods which are exceptional and unfair : methods such as you employ. And do not say you cannot take on yourselves the responsibility of depriving people of intimate union with the great or small number of your co-religionists. That is not fair. By instilling into them your special faith, you are doing just what you say you do not wish to do : you are de- priving people of their natural union with all mankind, and are confining them within the narrow limits of your single sect, thereby involuntarily and inevitably placing them, if not in a hostile, at least in an alien attitude towards everyone else.

I know that you do not consciously do this terrible thing. 1 know that you yourselves, for the most part,