righting the wrongs of society, and that is in the well-to-do
descending to the lowly and starting life anew with them on a common
level, and rising with them step by step to the higher planes. And
to prevent a relapse to the old iniquitous state, he advocated the
eradication of capital, which he held responsible for many of the
inequalities and tyrannies and miseries of society. Let the rich, said
he, convert their money into land and parcel it out among the poor,
and claim for themselves no more than an equal share with the others.
Merely wishing the poor well, and yet continuing the old state of
affairs, is like sitting on a man's neck and crushing him down, yet all
the time assuring him and others that we are sorry for him, and wish
to ease his condition by every means in our power except by getting
off his back. Or it is like entering an orchard, and barring the door
behind, and gathering its fruit for ourselves, and wishing others might
have as much yet continuing to keep the door barred and gathering for
ourselves alone.[5]
[5] See his book "_What To Do?_" and his essay "_Money_."
If we really wish to see the lot of the poor improved, said he, we
must not look for a miracle to effect it nor trust to some future age
to bring it about. We must do it ourselves, and we must do it now. And
we must do it at the cost of self-sacrifice. If people really wish to
improve the condition of their brother men, and not merely their own,
they must be ready not only to alter the way of life to which they
are accustomed, but they must be ready for an intense struggle with
themselves and their families.[6]
[6] "_The Slavery of Our Times._"
Society will never be at peace, said he, until man will have learned
the service of sacrifice. And man will never be happy until he will
have learned to find his happiness in making others happy.[7]
[7] "_Cossacks._" "_Christ's Christianity._"
My Visit to Tolstoy
(_Concluded._)
A DISCOURSE, AT TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL,
BY
RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D.
Philadelphia, January 8th, 1911.
Tolstoy's fatal
flight.
The world was amazed, a few weeks ago, at the news that Tolstoy had
fled from his family and home, with the resolve to retire to some
wilderness, there to await his end. Guesses as to the cause were many,
and the opinion was quite general that extreme old age had affected his
reason.
Explained in light of
last article of his.
I could not subscribe to this conclusion, neither could I see anything
strange in his sudden departure. I knew of a number of similar flights
in his life, and the reasons for them, and, therefore, I was little
surprised. And as to suspecting him of failing mentality, I had but a
short time before read the latest of his writings, entitled "_Three
Days in a Village_," in which I had seen no sign of a lessening of his
power of mind and heart and soul. And it is obvious that the Russian
government, likewise, saw no lessening of his mentality, for it
promptly suppressed the publication of it. An enterprising newspaper
man, however, succeeded in forwarding a copy to our country, which
enterprise not only rescued for us the last of Tolstoy's writings but
also furnished us an explanation of his sudden and fatal flight.
Divided into three
parts.
The article, a comparatively short one, was divided into three parts,
each a heart-rending recital of miseries in villages neighboring the
count's estate.
First part described
peasant poverty.
The first part deals with wayfaring men. From six to twelve of them
visit these villages daily in search of bread and clothes, of work and
shelter. Some are blind or lame, some sick or feeble, some are very
old or very young, some are maimed or crippled, dragging with them
hideous memories of the recent Japanese war. Many of them are ignorant
and filthy, but some of them are intelligent and revolutionary, who
look upon the prosperous as thieves, and ask for their share of the
coined blood pressed from the hearts of the poor and down-trodden.
To keep these unceasing streams of wayfaring paupers from becoming a
government charge, they are parcelled out by the authorities among the
poor and helpless peasantry, good care being taken that they are not
loaded upon the landlords, merchants or priests. The wickedness of this
course is fully intelligible only to those who have some conception
of the indescribable poverty and misery of Russian peasants. Stripped
of almost all by taxation and by landlord oppression and by priest
and constable extortion, many of them have scarcely food and room
enough for themselves and cattle, scarcely clothes enough to cover
their nakedness, no money with which to buy the absolutely necessary
farming-implements, or to keep their wretched hovels from toppling
over their heads. And yet, notwithstanding their appalling misery,
Tolstoy saw their hearts go out in pity to these wandering paupers,
and religiously dividing their crust with those yet more unfortunate
than they, not knowing how soon they themselves might be in a similarly
wretched plight.
Second part described
peasant misery.
The second part of the article bears the sub-title "_Living and
Dying_." Upon entering the village accompanied by his physician, the
count was entreated for aid by a woman. Upon inquiry he learned that
her husband had been drafted into the army, and that the family was
starving. Upon asking the village authority why the law had been
violated in taking from a family its sole supporter, he was told that
the husband's brother was quite capable of supporting the family. Next
he met a little orphan girl twelve years old, who was the head of a
family of five children. Her father had been killed in a mine; her
mother had dropped dead from exhaustion, a few weeks after; poor but
kind-hearted neighbors kept their eyes on the children, whilst the
oldest went about begging the means for their support. In another hovel
he found a man in his death-throes with pneumonia. The room was damp
and cold; there was no fuel for the stove; no food, no medicine, no
mattress, no pillow, for the dying man.
Contrasted with
extravagance in his
own family.
Saddened by what he had seen and heard the count drove home. In front
of his house he saw a carpeted sleigh, drawn by magnificent horses,
driven by a coachman attired in heavy fur-coat and cap. It was the
conveyance of the count's son, who had come on a visit to his father.
There were ten at the table, who partook of a dinner of four courses,
spiced by two kinds of wine. Two butlers were in attendance, and costly
flowers were on the table. "Whence came these orchids?" asked the
son, to which the mother replied that they had come all the way from
St. Petersburg. "They cost a ruble and a half a piece," said the son,
adding that at a recent concert the whole stage was smothered with
orchids. Another at the table talked of a little recreation trip to
Italy, but thought it troublesome to be obliged to spend thirty-nine
hours in an express train, and regretted that aviation had not
proceeded far enough to make possible a trip to Italy in shorter time.
The count contrasted these table sights and sounds with those he had
seen and heard in the village in the course of the day, and he left the
table even sadder than he was when he came to it.
Third part described
peasant oppression.
The third part of the article deals with the taxation of the villagers.
From one old peasant the tax collectors took his samovar--the brass
kettle for making tea--as indispensable to a Russian as a stove is to
us. From another, a widow, they took a sheep; from another they took
a cow, and so on. One poor woman offered him some linen at the price
of two rubles, the amount she needed for taxes, saying that, if she
failed to make the sale, they will seize not only the linen but also
her chickens, her only means of support. That women play so large a
part in these taxations is due to so many of the men having been killed
in the Japanese war, or serving in the army. Upon remonstrating with
the village authorities, he was told that they were sorry for the
poor people, but helpless, that they had received instructions from
headquarters to be unsparing in the discharge of their duty. Upon
visiting the district chief he was made clearly to recognize that back
of his severity lay his ambition for promotion as a reliable, immovable
government official.
Felt that all his
labors had been in
vain.
Little wonder, that the government suppressed the publication of this
last of Tolstoy's writings. Little wonder, that the three days spent
amid the miseries of the villagers saddened his heart beyond endurance.
And still less wonder, that the government's responsibility for it, and
the world's indifference to it, even his own family's, drove him to
despair, ripened in him the resolve to retire to some wilderness, where
the soul would no longer be harrowed by the sight of human outrages and
sufferings.
In the midst of such miseries as he saw, he must have felt that the
more than half a century of unceasing labors in behalf of the poor
and down-trodden, all his renunciations and sacrifices had all been
in vain. He must have felt that the lot of the peasant was as bad
as ever, that the government was as cruel as before, that all his
writings and all his pleadings for a more equitable division of God's
gifts had failed to make the slightest impression upon the people,
judging by the extravagances within his own family, seeing four
courses of delicacies on his own table, at a single meal, two kinds
of wine, costly orchids, when, at but a short distance away, men and
women, even children, working infinitely harder than any of his own
family, deserving infinitely more than any who lord it over them, were
literally starving for the want of the necessities of life, were dying
in agony for the want of medical care and ordinary comforts, had their
last possession taken from them by pitiless tax-collectors for the
support of a vast army of soldiers and officials, for the maintenance
of a costly and an oppressive autocracy.
Noted his discontent
when in conversation
with him.
Even as far back as 1894, when he was sixteen years younger than he was
at the time of his flight, even then I noted in my conversations with
him an undercurrent of deep sorrow when dwelling on the sufferings of
the people, an occasional outburst of impatience at the slowness of
progress, and now and then a cry of despair, an utter hopelessness of
ever seeing a state of society different from what it was.
Those responsible for
wrongs charged him
with irreligion.
What seemed to vex him most was seeing the very people who were
responsible for these wrongs and outrages considering themselves
religious, and branding as infamous such a man as he whose sole cry
was for justice and right. "Because they mumble so many prayers a
day," said he to me, when speaking of Pobdiedonostzief, "and cross
themselves so many times, and fast so many days in the year, they
consider themselves Christian, as for the rest of their conduct, one
finds it difficult to believe that they had ever heard of the _Sermon
on the Mount_, of the _Golden Rule_ or of the _Mosaic command" "Thou
shall love thy neighbor as thyself."_ Asking me for an explanation of
Reform Judaism, and telling him that is was founded upon an emphasis on
the spirit of religion rather than on its forms, he replied that it
would not be tolerated in Russia, that the mere words Reform and Spirit
were quite sufficient to condemn it. The government knows that they who
seek the Spirit also seek the Truth, and it is afraid that Truth will
overthrow autocracy and hierarchy, blind obedience and stupid ceremony,
and will set men free.
Few men had studied
religion as much as
he.
There are many things in connection with Tolstoy which Russia of
the future will wish to see expunged from the pages of its history,
and chief of these will be its having branded him as infamously
irreligious. Few men have been as genuinely religious as he. Few men
have given religion as much thought as he. Few men have written on
religious subjects as much as he.
Rebelled against
adulteration of
religion.
He studied the Scriptures in the original languages, and carefully he
read Church doctrine and dogmatic theology, and the more he read the
firmer became his conviction that _Christ's Christianity_ was quite a
different thing from _Church Christianity_. He rejected the latter,
and fervently he espoused the former. Three-fourth of what passes for
Christianity, he said, has no historical nor logical nor spiritual
warrant. He saw how its fundamental principle, the equality of all men
as sons of God, had been perverted to give the classes the right to
enslave the masses. He saw how a divine being had been made of Jesus,
and how this enabled the church to say that living the life he lived,
and practicing the precepts he preached was impossible for human
beings. He had read in the Scriptures not to resist evil, and yet had
been taught the soldier's trade, the art of killing. The army to which
he had belonged was called "The Christophile Army," and it was sent
forth with a Christian benediction. One day, he said, he was reading in
Hebrew, with a Rabbi, the fifth chapter of Matthew. After nearly every
verse the Rabbi said "This is in the Old Testament or in the Talmud,"
and showed me the corresponding passages. When we reached the words
"Resist no evil," the Rabbi did not say "This is in the Talmud," but
he asked "Do the Christians obey this command? Do they turn the other
cheek?" "I had nothing to say in reply," said Tolstoy, "for at that
particular time, Christians, far from turning the other cheek, were
smiting the Jews upon both cheeks. I saw the support the church gave to
persecutions and to the death penalty, and my soul cried out against
it."
And his mind rebelled, he said and wrote, against the mythology which
was paraded as theology, such teachings as the immaculate conception,
the heaven opening and the angels singing, Christ's flying through the
air and into the sky, and seating himself at the right hand of God. He
denounced as blasphemous such teachings as that by partaking of the
Sacrament God's body becomes assimilated with that of man, or that of
God being three Gods in one, being still angry at man for the sin of
Adam, and sending His only son on earth to be crucified so that by the
son's blood the father's wrath may be appeased. He regarded as unworthy
even of heathens such teachings as that salvation for sin depended on
being baptized, and that God will visit eternal punishment on those who
do not believe in His divinely begotten son. He professed a sincere
belief in God as the author of all existence, and as the source of all
love. He believed that death meant a new and higher birth. He believed
that God's will was most clearly expressed in the teachings of the man
Jesus, whom to consider and pray to as God he regarded as blasphemous.
Compressed
religion into five
commandments.
He compressed the teachings of Jesus into the following commandments:
I. "Do not be angry. II. Do not lust. III. Do not give away the control
of your future actions by taking oaths. IV. Do not resist evil. V. Do
not withhold love from any one." These five commandments he developed
into a comprehensive moral philosophy, and by it he conscientiously
endeavored to guide his life and thought.[8]
[8] See his books "_My Confession_," "_My Religion_," and Aylmer
Maude's _The Life of Tolstoy_.
Was indebted for his
faith to peasants.
And for that strong and simple faith of his, which is destined, in the
not distant future, to inaugurate an era in the religious world similar
to that which Luther inaugurated four centuries earlier in Germany, he
was indebted to the peasants. During the libertine life of his early
years, he had lost the little faith that had been taught him in his
childhood. He had returned to his estate an avowed atheist, and as such
had he continued for some time, until, one day, he inquired into what
it was that made the wretchedly poor and ignorant and hard-working
peasants contented with their lot, resigned to their fate, bearing
hardships and sufferings unmurmuringly, and looking happily forward
to the end. He found it in their faith. "Surely," said he, "a state
of mind that can do so much for the poor is worth having by all." And
he devoted himself to a diligent study of their religion. He found
it burdened with foreign accretions, contaminated with a putrid mass
that had been gathered during centuries of darkness and superstition,
adulterated with all kinds of conscious and unconscious inventions.
Stripping away the foreign and putrid and false, he alighted upon a
rational, satisfying faith, the faith which he believed to have been
that of the Rabbi of Nazareth, and, henceforth, consecrated his life to
the propagation of it.
Gave them his life
and labor in return.
And more yet than what the peasants gave to him he gave to them in
return. He gave them himself, and, in the end, he sacrificed even his
life for them. He found them down-trodden serfs, he endeavored to make
free men of them. He found them cowed and bowed, he taught them to
walk and stand erect. He found them unbefriended, he became a brother
to them. He found them wretchedly poor, he renounced pleasure and
treasure, luxury and ease, to lessen as much as he could the distance
between them and himself. He dressed as they dressed, and labored as
they labored, and, as far as permitted, ate the kind of food they
ate. He found them stalking in darkness, he brightened their way for
them. He found them ignorant and at the mercy of priest and government
official, he became their advocate, dared to brave an all-powerful
autocracy in the defense of their rights. He started schools for them.
He gave up writing for the thousands of select readers that he might
write for the millions of illiterate peasants and other laborers. He
wrote special booklets for them, and sold them at a loss, at one-half
cent a copy, stories, legends, symbolical tales, moral plays and
religious tracts, all fitted for their minds and stations, and intended
to deepen in them the law of love and right.
Died believing he had
failed.
To have sacrificed and renounced and dared as much and as long as
he had, and, in the end, to find what he found, in his three days
observation of village miseries and outrages, was more than his great
heart could stand. It broke. He was eighty-two years old. He could no
longer continue the fight. He could no longer look upon the suffering
of the unfortunates, nor upon the wrongs of the world, nor upon the
extravagances even within his own family. He regarded his whole
life-work a dismal failure. He knew of no other balm for his bleeding
heart than flight from the world to some secluded spot, there, as a
hermit, to await the end, which he knew was not far distant. Truly
pathetic were his farewell lines to his wife:
"I cannot continue longer to live a life of ease and luxury while
others starve and suffer. Like many other old men, I retire from the
world to await my end in solitude. I ask that you do not seek my
place of sojourn, and that you do not come to it if it be discovered.
I beg forgiveness for the grief that I may cause you."
Characteristic of
great reformers.
He was not the first of the world's great reformers and lovers of
humanity to lose heart and to experience spells of despair. Moses and
Elijah and Jesus and others had their hours of agony, and prayed that
the end might come, and deliver them from their hopeless labors. And
many who, like Tolstoy, closed their eyes in the belief that they had
utterly failed loomed large in subsequent ages among the greatest of
the world's benefactors.
Succeeded better than
he knew.
Tolstoy has not failed. He succeeded better than he knew. His pathetic
death revealed the vast number of followers he had in his own country
and in all parts of the world. And had he cared to inquire, he might
have known it before his death. He could have seen it from the fact
that more books of his were sold than of all other Russian authors
combined. He could have seen it in the vast crowds that gathered all
along the line, to catch a glimpse of him, when on his journey, a few
years ago, to the Crimea, in search of health. He could have seen it
in the deputations of sympathizers that waited upon him, and in the
streams of congratulatory letters and telegrams that rushed in upon
him--till suppressed--after his excommunication. He could have seen it
in the Tolstoyan societies among the students of almost all the Russian
universities and among other bodies. He could have seen it among the
considerable number of landlords, who made conscientious efforts at
following his life, and at adopting his mode of dealing with peasants
and laborers. Were the yoke of autocracy removed, there would arise
in Russia an army of Tolstoyans as vast and mighty as the host which
Ezekiel in his vision saw in the valley of dry bones.
Religion of future
will be largely
Tolstoyan.
The religion of Russia of the future will be largely that which Tolstoy
lived and taught, and it will be the religion of a large part of the
rest of the world. Time's sifting process will eliminate whatever is
untenable in his system of moral and social and economic philosophy,
which sprang more from a flaming heart than from a cool, calculating
mind. He had neither the time nor the inclination to work out a
synthetic philosophy. He wrote as the spirit moved him, and whenever it
moved him, the keynote of all his writing having been, as he said to
me, "the hastening of the day when men will dwell together in the bonds
of love, and sin and suffering will be no more."
There are in the Tolstoyan system of religion the elements of the
long-dreamed of universal creed. It will take time for the rooting of
it. Mormonism and Dowieism spring up, like Jonah's gourd, and pass away
as speedily as they came. A system as rational and radical as that of
Tolstoy requires an age for germination. But, once it takes root, it
takes root forever; once it blossoms, it blossoms for eternity.
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