Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Tolstoi’s Table Talk
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
doctrines, and that “except a man so believe he cannot be
saved,” but it is remarkably like what Christ required of men
Himself. And of the two, this simple faith, this earnest
endeavour to be and to do right, costs a man far more than the
effort merely to think right.
Moreover, judged by the standard of dogma, Tolstoi could
not be a Christian, according to one division of Christians,
without being a heretic according to the others, but in sight of
this attempt to live his life in harmony with the teaching of
Christ, he is at one with all earnest and sincere men of every
denomination whatever.
It is true that Tolstoi can no more avoid dipping into
doctrine occasionally than the rest of us, and his recently
published book on “The Four Gospels” shows that he, too,
can be led by the use of subjective methods to critical results
that can hardly stand the test of objective facts. It is true
that in his “Kingdom of Heaven is Within You” he uses
arguments that seem to many of us to be invalid, and draws
inferences from Christ’s words that strike us as unwarranted,
and that in his books generally he expresses opinions that are
no more certainly true than other men’s opinions; and, of
course, he believes in them, as we all believe in our own, and
very rightly, so long as we really think them, and do not merely
reflect the opinions of those about us.
This is no more than to say that Tolstoi is human; that he
is not himself the Truth, but only a disciple seeking to find and
obey the Truth; that he is not the Light himself, but one who
is earnestly trying to open out his whole life to the Light, that
under its vivifying rays he may grow as God meant him to
grow, that the dark places of wrong within him may be
purified by the Light, and all that is good bear much fruit.
Only a disciple, yet, with all his faults and errors, of which
probably no one is more conscious than himself, nearer the
Master by far than many of us who wisely sit in judgment
on them; a disciple who, by his renunciation of the riches,
power, and dominion of the world that came to him by birth,
by his sturdy and uncompromising struggle against what he
honestly believes to be evil, by his self-sacrificing deeds
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
