cludes chastity in marriage and out of it."

"There is not and cannot be such an institution as Christian
marriage.... This is what was always taught and believed by true
Christians of the first and following centuries.... In the eyes of a
Christian, sexual relations in marriage not only do not constitute
a lawful, right, and happy state, as our society and our churches
maintain, but, on the contrary, are always a fall, a weakness, a sin."

"Such a thing as Christian marriage never was and never could be. Christ
did not marry, nor did he establish marriage; neither did his disciples
marry."

"A Christian, I say, cannot view sexual intercourse otherwise than as
a deviation from the doctrine of Christ--as a sin. This is clearly laid
down in Matt. v. 28, and the ceremony called Christian marriage does not
alter its character one jot. A Christian will never, therefore, desire
marriage, but will always avoid it."

"In the Gospel it is laid down so clearly as to make it impossible to
explain it away, that he who is already married when he discovers and
accepts the truth, must abide with her with whom he has been living,
i.e., must not change his wife, and must live more chastely than before
(Matt. v. 32, xix. 8-12), that he who is single should remain unmarried
and continue to live chastely (Matt. xix. 10, 12), and that both the one
and the other, in their yearning and striving after perfect chastity,
are guilty of sin if they look on a woman as an object of pleasure
(Matt. v. 28, 29)."

Pozdnischeff, at the close of the _Kreutzer Sonata_, clinches all this
by saying--"People should understand the true significance of the words
of St. Matthew as to looking upon a woman with the eye of desire; for
the words apply to woman in her sisterly character--not only to another
man's wife, but also, and above all, to one's own."

If this view of marriage prevailed, and perfect chastity obtained,
the human race would come to an end. Tolstoi says he cannot help that.
Carnal love perpetuates the race, and spiritual love will extinguish
it. But what if it does? It is a familiar religious dogma that the world
will have an end, and science tells us that the sun is losing its heat,
the result of which must in time be the extinction of the human race.

The great Russian does not shrink from the logic of Christ's teaching.
He follows Christ as St Paul did; as St. Peter did, who forsook his
wife; as the Fathers did in crying up virginity a