ist. His
mind became occupied with social and religious problems. He ceased to be
a man of the world and became a Christian; and his being a most sincere
nature, endowed with a certain large simplicity which is characteristic
of the Russian mind, he did not rest in ecclesiastical Christianity. He
embraced the religion of Christ, and began working it out to legitimate
issues. To him the Sermon on the Mount is divine teaching, not in a
metaphorical sense, but in its literal significance. Accordingly he
tells the Christian world, in such volumes as _My Religion_ and _My
Confession_, that it is all astray from the religion of Christ. He
points to what its Savior said, takes his words in their honest meaning,
and brands as un-Christian the whole framework of Christian society,
with its armies, its police, its law courts, its wealth, and its
institution of property. The Bishop of Peterborough and Count Tolstoi
are at one in believing that if the Sermon on the Mount were carried out
the State would go to ruin; only the Bishop of Peterborough shrinks from
this, and jesuitically narrows the scope of Christ's teaching, while
Count Tolstoi accepts it loyally and calls on Christians to square their
practice with their profession.

Mirabeau said of Robespierre, "He is in earnest, he will go far." This
is what we felt with respect to Count Tolstoi. Sooner or later he was
certain to follow Jesus to the bitter end. After property comes the
institution of marriage, upon which the teaching of Jesus may be
found in the gospels. Count Tolstoi now insists on this teaching being
practised. He has written a novel, _The Kreutzer Sonata_, to show the
evils, not only of marriage, but of all sexual relations. Since then he
has written a sober article to justify the sentiments of the hero, or
the protagonist, of that terrible story. It is no longer possible to
say that Pozdnischeff's ideas are those of a person in a drama. Count
Tolstoi accepts the full responsibility of them, and presses them still
further. He is now the un-blenching apostle of real Christianity--not
the Christianity of the Churches, but the Christianity of Christ; and
his new evangel will alarm the growing army of "advanced Christians,"
who are always canting, in their sentimental way, the very phrase which
he develops in all its terrific meaning. To be a Christian, he tells
them, is to crucify the body, to kill the animal passions, to live the
pure life of the spirit, and, in s