"Fear God! Here you have begun to fight over these same little
girls, and they have forgotten all about it long ago, and are
playing together again in love--the dear little things. They
are wiser than you!"

The men looked at the little girls, and felt ashamed of
themselves; and then the peasants began to laugh at themselves,
and went off to their houses.

"Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the
kingdom of heaven."

It is a pity that Count Tolstoy, the greatest literary genius of his
time, should put his immense talent to such a use as to provoke, on his
contradictions of himself, comment like the following, which is quoted
from a work by V. S. Solovieff, an essayist and argumentative writer,
who quotes some one on this subject, to this effect:

"Sometimes we hear that the most important truth is in the
Sermon on the Mount; then again, we are told that we must till
the soil in the sweat of our brows, though there is nothing
about that in the Gospels, but in Genesis--in the same place
where giving birth in pain is mentioned, but that is no
commandment at all, only a sad fate; sometimes we are told that
we ought to give everything away to the poor; and then again,
that we never ought to give anything to anybody, as money is an
evil, and one ought not to harm other people, but only one's
self and one's family, but that we ought to work for others;
sometimes we are told that the vocation of women is to bear as
many healthy children as possible, and then, the celibate ideal
is held up for men and women; then again, eating no meat is the
first step towards self-perfection, though why no one knows;
then something is said against liquor and tobacco, then against
pancakes, then against military service as if it were the worst
thing on earth, and as if the primary duty of a Christian were
to refuse to be a soldier, which would prove that he who is not
taken into service, for any reason, is already holy enough."

This may be a trifle exaggerated, but it indicates clearly enough the
utter confusion which the teachings of Count Tolstoy produce on
ordinary, rational, well-meaning persons.[47] In short, he should be
judged in his proper sphere as one of the most gifted authors of any age
or country, and judged by his legitimate works in his legitimate
province, the novel, as