ghbor and serve him. Then why should I, following
temporary, casual, irrational, and cruel demands, deviate from the known
eternal and changeless law of all my life? If there be a God, He will not
ask me when I die (which may happen at any moment) whether I retained
Chi-nam-po with its timber stores, or Port Arthur, or even that
conglomeration which is called the Russian Empire, which He did not
confide to my care; but He will ask me what I have done with that life
which He put at my disposal;--did I use it for the purpose for which it
was predestined, and under the conditions for fulfilling which it was
intrusted to me? Have I fulfilled His law?

So that to this question as to what is to be done now, when war is
commenced, for me, a man who understands his destiny, whatever position I
may occupy, there can be no other answer than this, whatever be my
circumstances, whether the war be commenced or not, whether thousands of
Russians or Japanese be killed, whether not only Port Arthur be taken,
but St. Petersburg and Moscow--I cannot act otherwise than as God demands
of me, and that therefore I as a man can neither directly nor indirectly,
neither by directing, nor by helping, nor by inciting to it, participate
in war; I cannot, I do not wish to, and I will not. What will happen
immediately or soon, from my ceasing to do that which is contrary to the
will of God, I do not and cannot know; but I believe that from the
fulfilment of the will of God there can follow nothing but that which is
good for me and for all men.

You speak with horror about what might happen if we Russians at this
moment ceased to fight, and surrendered to the Japanese what they desire
from us. But if it be true that the salvation of mankind from
brutalization and self-destruction lies only in the establishment amongst
men of that true religion which demands that we should love our neighbor
and serve him (with which it is impossible to disagree), then every war,
every hour of war, and my participation in it, only renders more
difficult and distant the realization of this only possible salvation.

So that, even if one places oneself on the unstable point of view of
defining actions according to their presumed consequences--even then the
surrender to the Japanese by the Russians of all which the former desire
of us, besides the unquestionable advantage of the cessation of ruin and
slaughter, would be an approach to the only means of the salvation of
m