lasted until he went to church one day, during the
last Russo-Turkish war, when prayers were offered for the success of the
Russian army. It suddenly struck him that it was inconsistent with "Love
your enemies," "Love one another," "Do not kill," that prayers should be
offered for the death of enemies. From that day forth he ceased to go to
church, as he had also perceived that the practice of religious forms
did not, in reality, bring him much nearer to the peasants, and that one
must live among them, work among them, to appreciate their point of
view.

The only surprising thing about this is that he should never have
noticed that the army is prayed for, essentially in the same sense, at
every church service. After the petitions for the Emperor and the
imperial family, the liturgy proceeds, "And we pray for the army, that
Thou wilt assist Them [that is, the Imperial family and its army], and
subdue all foes and enemies under Their feet." Perhaps these familiar
words came home to him with special force on that particular day, as
familiar words sometimes do. Possibly it was a special prayer. In any
case, the prayer was strictly logical. If you have an army, pray for it;
and the only prayer that can be offered is, obviously, not for its
defeat. That would be tantamount to praying for the enemy; which might
be Scriptural, in one way, but would be neither natural, popular, nor
further removed from objections of murder than the other.

But Count Tolstoy was logical, also, in another way. Once started on
this train of thought, most worldly institutions of the present day,
beginning with the army, appeared to him opposed to the teaching of
Christ, on which point no rational man will differ from him. As to the
possibility of living the life of Christ, or even the advisability of
trying it, at this period of the world, that is quite another matter.

It is not necessary for me to recapitulate here that which all the world
knows already,--the minute details of his belief in personal property,
labor, the renunciation of art and science, and so forth. We discussed
them. But I neglected my opportunities to worry him with demands for his
catechism, which his visitors delight in grinding out of him as though
from a machine, when the reading public must be sufficiently informed on
that score already. I have endeavored to set down only the special
illustrations of his doctrines, out of the rich mass of his
conversation.

Those who ha