Imatges de pàgina
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Wt . VVv^ Nvov\c\ mot^ \^lllf *Tf- B«t in reality

-r I * ^ * one li^e ?l °f Christ

'#1 \ tx^Ws it has been **lCuIa, "sf'an martyrs, 6ut « ^o,ooo coring eighteen h **edj fhe/r number

Vvv^ «Nt Vumu'ts to the world, f0r eTM ^ears. But if we ^^2ciC&\ «=>\va\\ fvtvd. a thousand martyrs to th"^ martyr to &\\ftex\vvgs \\ave been a hundredfold greater g C *vorid' whose sXotv^ AvLxucve, t\\e present century have fallen tu- < Cath ,n vvars nvenl" lrty miUi^ of

In the first place, there is a slur of doubt as to th <^hx\st\an martyrs. In the second place, there is no d• °f Vexation between "martyrs of the world;" those who die of'SCj,m tarily self-contracted and loathsome diseases; those who vol"""

tarily choose the life of public murderers in the arm,„

, . *v <** nnes and

navies of the world; those who are murdered by other niurd
ere, and those who murder themselves—all these unfortunate
tout voluntary and cowardly and demoniac so-called martyrs
dying in the basest forms of human filth and darkness are
compared without any discrimination with the Christian martyrs
-who have been dragged by Emperors and Kings and the people
from their chaste, select and peaceful ways of life to be torn by
-vv-ild beasts for the amusement of the crowd, or, as in our own
infamous and recent war with Spain, have been brutally rnur
dercd in cold blood by water cure and other methods, executed
t>y American army officers and men. And yet men of so-called
intelligence say that this indiscriminate babbler is a glorious.
Christian, and others that our government is the most benefi-
cent ever given unto men.

I tell you that there was. and there is, more civilized Chris-
tianity and more manly power in the holy life blood of the
martyr, Father Augustine, of Philippine fame, than ever .was in

McKinley and Roosevelt combined, plus the total amount ci the entire American Congress, army and navy, and that until you get some such view of the value of Christ and one of His little ones your civilization is not worth the ink spilled over it, not to speak of the money spent on it and the lives sacrificed for it, and I tell you, moreover, that it is not from Tolstoy, but Christ and His Church alone, in all God's universe, that you can learn these lessons that will enable you to see truth, and, above all, to follow it.

Here is a page in the pamphlet "How I Came to Believe." Chapter X, "Blessed are the Poor," which is worth reproducing, alike for its direct religious teaching as well as to point out again the author's lack of discrimination.

"I began to draw nearer to the believers among the poor, the simple and the ignorant, the pilgrims, the monks, the sectaries and the peasants. The doctrines of these men oi the people, like those of the pretended believers of my own class, were Christian. Here, also, much that was superstitious was mingled with the truths of Christianity, but with this difference, that the superstition of the believers of my own class was not needed by them, and never influenced their lives beyond serving as a kind of epicurean distraction, while the superstition of the believing laboring class was so interwoven with their lives that it was impossible to conceive them without it—it was a necessary condition of their living at all. The whole life of the believers of my own class was in flat contradiction with their faith, and the whole life of the believers of the people was a confirmation of the meaning of life which their faith gave them.

"Thus I began to study the lives and the doctrines of the people, and the more I studied the more I became convinced that a true faith was among them, that their faith was for them a necessary thing, and alone gave them a meaning in life and a possibility of living. In direct opposition to what I saw in my own circle—the possibility of living without faith, and not one in a thousand who professed himself a believer—among the people there was not in thousands a single unbeliever. In direct opposition to what I saw in my own circle—a whole life spent in idleness, amusement and dissatisfaction with life—I saw among the people whole lives passed in heavy labor and unrepining content. In direct opposition to what I saw in my own 9 ?Vw^ ^vv«eir^sS^ ^ 3 C^ b aa*thc Waning Qf ing his numerous wives and concubines, only they have not his inheritance or his wit or his wisdom.

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ktfW* O\ „A\ lot us and f0r of all. These

, //MvU^, ^mence the highest ha~°°m°"makes oniv
*&J*& \ \oo\ced more carefully and mT ''" amo""t

rlf!\st,\ gttu&sA. the \wes of the past and contempor^^ around
YmtracvVtv, and. \ saw that, not two or three, not7^ masses o{
dr«^., WV thousands and millions had so understood" th * h"-"
ix\g ol Wie, that they were able both to live and to di mea"~
-*\vese men, infinitely divided by manners, powers of minj'"
-^atAon and position, all alike in opposition to my ignorance
vje\\ acquainted with the meaning of life and of death quietly
labored, endured privation and suffering, lived and died and
saw in all this not a vain but a good thing."

This comes the nearest to the spirit and fact of Christianity
of anything I have ever found in Tolstoy, but no credit is given
to the source whence this power and resignation and insight
of the soul came to them and comes to every soul who has it
It is the "people's faith;'- and who taught it to the people? it
is an old doctrine inculcated by the Hebrew prophets. It js tj,
frlory of Christianity that it has or had impregnated the poor
of the race with this idea of noble living and enduring for
Christ's sake as Christ had also suffered, but will Tolstoy find
this among the successful, progressive poor of the labor unions
of our ideal times? Does John Mitchell preach or practice the
faith that Tolstoy here extols. Has Tolstoy himself aided to
spread this faith among the poor of Russia or the world? Are
the Nihilists and Socialists in Russia, Germany and the coal
regions of Pennsylvania inspired with this doctrine?

They all want to become Solomons in every respect, includ

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Tolstoy is good-hearted but crooked-headed, jealous of true Christian priests, unwilling to recognize the good there is in church and state, and, above all, without the heroism to follow the best inclinations of his own soul.

Perhaps the latter remark may be applied in some measure to all classes of men. Every sphere of life, every phase of life has its own difficulties, its own peculiar burdens. Is France, all told, in better shape to-day than it was before the French Revolution? I, for one, do not think so. Would Russia be better off with Tolstoy as Czar than she is with her present ruler. I do not think so. I think that Russia, with Tolstoy as Czar, would be a bedlam of universal Anarchy inside of a dozen years. Is this country in better shape to-day than it was before the American Revolution or than it would have been by this time had the American revolution never existed? My answer is, NO, and I have given many articles in this magazine during the last twelve years in proof of the correctness of my answer. All this proves to me that the work of a teacher is not to undermine any existing government or to ridicule am existing faith until he has a better government and a better faith in mind and is willing, if called upon, to die for his preference. This I take to be the only Christian position, and it behooves the man who sets out to be a moral teacher to know well where he stands and why he stands there.

I sometimes think that if Tolstoy had been brought up a good practical Catholic, instead of being a disgruntled member of the Greek Church, he might have made a splendid martyr of the truth. In the Greek Church, as in the English Angelican Church, the ecclesiastical and spiritual are subject to the temporal power, so that in any crucial moment a man is bound to obey man rather than God, but every true Christian teacher has that in him which says, with the Apostles of old, we must obey God rather than man, and every thinker worthy the name, whether Protestant or Catholic, feels and knows in his inmost soul that this is the only true basis of any true religion. The Catholic priest or bishop may err in a crucial test, but he is not apt to, whereas the Anglican or Greek bishop is handicapped by his supreme loyalty to the King or Queen or Presi

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