{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_49203/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_49203","id":"gutenberg_49203","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49203","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910"],"text":"Transcriber's Notes:\n\n  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by\n  =equal signs=.\n\n  Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase.\n\n  Blank pages have been eliminated.\n\n  Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the\n  original.\n\n\n\n\n                         \"My Visit to Tolstoy\"\n\n                            Five Discourses\n\n\n                                  By\n\n\n                     Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D. D.\n\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n\n                             Philadelphia\n                                 1911\n\n\n\n\n                         My Visit to Tolstoy.\n\n                A DISCOURSE, AT TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL,\n\n                                  BY\n\n                     RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D.\n\n                  Philadelphia, December 11th, 1910.\n\n\n                                                  My visit to Russia\n                                                  and its purpose.\n\nIn the summer of 1894 I visited Russia for the purpose of proposing\nto the Czar a plan that might end or lessen the terrible persecution\nof the Jews in his realm. The plan intended was a removal of the\npersecuted Jews to unoccupied lands in the interior, there to be\ncolonized on farms, and to be maintained, until self-supporting, by\ntheir correligionists of other parts of the world.\n\n\n                                                  Refused admission by\n                                                  Russian government.\n\nLearning that, because a Jew, I would not be admitted into Russia,\nI conferred with President Cleveland and Secretary Gresham, both\nof whom heartily endorsed my plan and resolved to intervene. The\nRussian Minister at Washington declaring his powerlessness to _vis\u00e9_\nmy passport, our Secretary of State cabled to the American Minister\nat St. Petersburg to obtain the desired permission from the foreign\noffice, only to receive as reply the words \"_Russian government deeply\nregrets its inability to accede to request in behalf of Reverend Jewish\ndivine_.\"\n\n\n                                                  Determined to test my\n                                                  citizenship right.\n\nThe injustice of the reply determined me more than ever to enter\nRussia, if only to make a test case of my citizenship rights. The\ntreaty between the United States and Russia guarantees to every\nAmerican citizen the right of entry on Russian soil, and as an American\ncitizen that right was mine; my religion being my private affair and\nno concern of Russia's. The determination to test the supremacy of\ninternational law over national prejudice aroused a large part of the\nAmerican press to a vigorous endorsement of my position. A bill was\nintroduced in Congress to the effect that the treaty between the two\ncountries be declared abrogated if an American citizen be turned back\nfrom the gates of Russia by reason of his religion.\n\n\n                                                  Was admitted.\n\nIn the height of the agitation I departed for Russia, knocked at the\ngates of St. Petersburg--and was admitted. Russia had evidently come to\nthe conclusion that it was better policy to admit me and to keep her\neyes on me than to allow the agitation and the indignation to continue\nin our country.\n\n\n                                                  Met distinguished\n                                                  Russians.\n\nWhile within the Russian borders, I was privileged to come in contact\nwith many prominent Russians, one of them M. Witte, who at that time\nwas Minister of Finance and practically at the head of the empire,\nthe Czar, Alexander III, being critically ill in the Crimea, where he\nshortly after died.\n\n\n                                                  Tolstoy most\n                                                  distinguished of all.\n\nBut of all the men I met none made the impression that was left upon me\nby my visit to Count Leo Tolstoy. It was made possible by Mr. Andrew\nD. White, the distinguished scholar and statesman, who at that time\nrepresented our country at St. Petersburg. He had written and asked\nthe count to meet me and to learn of the mission that brought me to\nRussia. The count's daughter, Tatiana, replied that her father would\nbe pleased to have me visit him, adding that he was just then engaged\nin hay-making, and, therefore, had not much leisure. To take as little\nof his time as possible I arranged to arrive in the court-yard of his\nmanor-house at Yasnaya Polyana, late in the afternoon. Approaching a\ngroup of peasants that stood at a well drinking water and mopping their\nbrows, my travelling-companion, a young Russian lawyer, asked them\nwhere we might find the count. One of them stepped out of the group,\nand, lifting his cap, said most courteously that he was Tolstoy, and,\nlearning my name, he bade me a hearty welcome.\n\n\n                                                  Held me captive from\n                                                  first meeting.\n\nFrom the moment I first gazed upon him he held me captive, and, by\na strange psychic power, he has held me enthralled ever since. No\nwish of mine has been more fondly cherished in the sixteen years that\nhave since passed by than that of some day visiting Russia again, and\nonly for the purpose of seeing once more that strangely fascinating\npersonality, of listening again to his marvelous flow of wisdom.\n\n\n                                                  His personality.\n\nI had often wondered how a Moses, an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, a Socrates,\nlooked and talked, denounced and dreamed, the moment I saw and heard\nTolstoy I knew. One hour's talk with him seemed equal to a whole\nuniversity course in political and social science; one walk with him on\nhis estate stored up in the listener more knowledge of moral philosophy\nthan could be crowded into a year's seminary instruction. Great as was\nthe power of his pen, immeasurably greater was the power of his living\nword. In some mysterious way the flow of his speech seemed to exercise\nan hypnotic spell upon the speaker as much as upon the listener. The\nspeaker seemed at times translated into a super-human being, seemed\ninspired, seemed to speak words not his own, as one of the ancient\nprophets of Israel must have spoken when he said the words: \"Thus saith\nthe Lord,\" while the listener seemed scarcely capable of thought or\nspeech, felt his being almost lose its identity and become merged with\nthat of the speaker.\n\nAt times his voice would sound as Elijah's voice must have sounded\nwhen he said to Ahab, the king, \"Thou art he who troubleth Israel,\"\nand at times it would seem as sweet as the voice of one of Russia's\nnightingales. At times his strong, rugged, bearded face would resemble\nthat of the pictured Jupiter in wrath, and then it would rival in\nserenity one of Raphael's saints. At times he would seem to carry on\nhis shoulders all the woe of the world, resembling one of the mediaeval\npictures of the martyr of Nazareth, and then again he would seem as\ncare-free and happy as a little babe. He had never learned the art of\nconcealing his thoughts and emotions. His face and voice were as a\nmirror that revealed with microscopic exactness his innermost self.\nWhat he felt moved to speak he spoke; what he felt urged to do he did;\nhe never stopped to consider whether it will please or displease,\nwhether it will bring praise or censure upon him. Like a piece of\nliving, weather-beaten New England granite he looked in his home-spun\ncrash blouse, his jean trousers girded at the waist with a rope, his\ncoarse woolen shirt open at the neck, his well-worn bast shoes. He\nseemed, indeed, a composite of the looks and traits and thoughts that\ncharacterized the Puritans in the early history of the New England\nstates.\n\nHe lived his life according to his own light. Excepting God, he bowed\nto no master. His conscience was his sole rule of right. His law was\nhis own. His creed was his own. His style of dress, his mode of living\nwere of his own choosing. His was above all else himself, not an echo\nof another. He was the freest man in the most enslaved of lands. His\nwas the brightest mind in darkest Russia, the most democratic spirit\nin the most autocratic of realms. His peasant garb could not hide the\nnoble man, ennobled by exalted thought and achievement and not by the\nwill of potentate. His peasant labor could not hide the man born to\ncommand, not by means of knout or sword or prison but by the law of\nlove and right and truth.\n\n\n                                                  As severe with the\n                                                  world so gentle with\n                                                  his own.\n\nAs fearless as he was in his denunciations of the wrong-doings of\ngovernment and church and society, and as bold as he was in his reform\npropositions, so gentle and simple-minded was he at his family table.\nI had read that two kinds of meals were served at his table, a frugal\none for himself and a sumptuous one for the rest of his family. The\nmeal of which I partook was a frugal one for all. I was, however,\nlittle conscious of what I ate. I was held spell-bound by the count's\nconversation which dominated the table, and which was carried on in\nEnglish, occasionally passing into German or French or Russian.\n\n\n                                                  A table incident.\n\nHe was in an especially happy mood that evening. In the mail that\nhad been brought to the table there were a number of papers. Opening\none of these, the London _Standard_, I believe, he observed that an\narticle of his had been severely censored by the Russian government.\nLarge parts of it had been smeared over with black ink. What amused\nhim was that the parts that were left uncensored were worse than\nthose that had been blackened out, revealing the stupidity of the\ncensor. Turning to me, who sat at his right, he said that had the\narticle been a panegyric on the Czar, it would probably have received\nthe same treatment, for no matter what he writes, it is daubed over,\nhere and there, on the general principle that, having been written by\nTolstoy, it must of necessity be revolutionary. Continuing, he told\nme that that particular article was one of a series on the subject\nof \"_Christianity and Patriotism_,\" which, not being permitted to be\npublished in Russia, appeared in translation in England. In it he\nendeavored to show that Christianity and patriotism were incompatible,\nthat the latter was an artificial creation, skilfully nourished by\nrulers for selfish purposes. On account of it wars are waged, evils are\nwrought, sufferings are inflicted by Christians upon Christians, who\nare _religiously_ taught to love one another, to forgive one another,\nto do good to each other, and who are _patriotically_ trained to hate\nand overreach each other. Humanity, he said, must be put in the place\nof patriotism. The latter is both stupid and unmoral, _stupid_ because\nit leads each nation to regard itself the superior of all others, and\n_unmoral_ because it lures nations to possess themselves of advantages\nat the cost of others, thus violating the fundamental law of morality,\nthat of not doing to others what they would not have others do to them.\nHumanity makes the whole world every man's country, and every man each\nman's brother.\n\n\n                                                  His home over-run by\n                                                  visitors.\n\nWhen first introduced to the family I felt that their welcome was not\nquite as hearty as was that of the count. I could easily understand the\nreason. The presence of guests was almost a daily occurrence, and quite\na burden on the household. The count denied himself to none who had a\ngenuine purpose for seeking him. But he was out of patience with mere\ncuriosity seekers or newspaper writers, who sought to rob him of his\nvaluable time in order to fill a column or two with sensational matter.\nOne such writer, a lady journalist, came one day for the sole purpose\nof having him give her the menu of his vegetarian diet, to tell her\nwhether his undergarments were of as coarse a fabric as were his outer\nclothes, and whether an equally picturesque peasant-garb might not be\ndesigned for women.\n\n\n                                                  Special incident\n                                                  wins for me family's\n                                                  special welcome.\n\nMy first impression that I was classed with the other afflictions of\nthe count's universal popularity soon wore off, however, by reason of\na letter to the family which I brought with me from a distinguished\nprofessor. This gentleman had, a short time before, been dismissed from\nthe university of St. Petersburg because he had published an essay on\n_The Ethics of the Talmud_, in which he had endeavored to show the\nlofty moral teachings of the Jews. I had made his acquaintance while\nin St. Petersburg, and before leaving that city he called on me, and\nasked me whether I would not take a letter from him, of an entirely\nuncompromising nature, to Tolstoy, inasmuch, as at that particular\ntime, a letter mailed to the count did not, for easily accountable\nreasons, always reach him. I readily consented, and that little\nservice, the professor having been a great favorite of the count, made\nme a welcome guest also to the family.\n\n\n                                                  Approves of stand\n                                                  taken to gain\n                                                  admission.\n\nSupper over, the count invited my companion and myself to join him on\na walk and to tell him of what service he could be to me. I told him\nof the mission that brought me to Russia and of the difficulties that\nwere placed in the way of my admission. He approved of the stand I had\ntaken, but asked me to blame the governments for it, mine as well as\nhis, and not the Russians, who are a kindly people.\n\n\n                                                  If United States\n                                                  would take bolder\n                                                  stand Russia would\n                                                  yield.\n\nHe entered at length upon an exposition showing that if the United\nStates would refuse to countenance discriminations between her citizens\non account of religious belief, Russia would be obliged to yield. I\ntold him of the audience which Mr. White and myself had had with M.\nWitte, and that the latter had said that, the Czar being sick, nothing\ncould be done without his consent, that I should state my request\nin the form of a petition, written in English and Russian, and that\nhe would present it to the Czar with his approval upon the latter's\nreturn, and that I had complied with the advice given. The count\nhad little faith that my petition would ever reach the eyes of the\nCzar--and it never did, for the Czar never returned alive. And he had\nlittle faith in all official promises. The men in power at that time he\nbelieved to be either fanatics or cowards. The former sought to secure\nfor themselves a soft berth in heaven, the latter sought it on earth.\nThese were afraid to speak out their honest thought and to deal an\nhonest blow for right and justice. They were afraid of losing caste or\nposition or of being condemned to penal servitude, as if better persons\nthan they had not suffered martyrdom before, or were not now paying in\nSiberia the price for exercising their right to liberty of thought and\nspeech.\n\n\n                                                  Approves of my\n                                                  mission but has\n                                                  little hope.\n\nHe warmly approved of my mission but saw no present possibility of\nits realization. Even if the Czar were to feel kindly disposed toward\nmy plan, Pobiedonostzeff, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, would\ninterpose his objections to permitting Jews rooting themselves on\nRussian soil.\n\nThe policy of the Procurator, he said, was to root out the Jews, to\ndrive them either into the Greek Catholic Church or into exile or\nstarvation, stupidly attributing the evils of Russia to her tolerance\nof non-orthodox-Christian faiths and seeing relief only in their\nextinction within the empire. And that miscreant considered himself the\nofficial head of the Russian church, and the administrator of its creed\nin the name of Jesus, of him who bade man to love even his enemy, to do\ngood even to those who do evil, to forgive even those who offend, to\nbless even those who curse.\n\n\n                                                  Asks my attitude\n                                                  toward Jesus, and\n                                                  defines his.\n\nStopping suddenly, and turning his face full upon me, he asked \"What\nis your belief respecting Jesus?\" I answered that I regard the Rabbi\nof Nazareth as one of the greatest of Israel's teachers and leaders\nand reformers, not as a divine being who lived and taught humanly but\nas a human being who lived and taught divinely. \"Such is my belief,\"\nsaid he, and he continued \"Your belief, however, is not that of the\nJews in Russia. Many of them have little knowledge of Jesus, and more\nof them, I fear, have little love for him. And who can blame them?\"\nhe continued, \"they have been made to suffer so much in his name that\nit would be little short of a miracle if they loved him. Mohamed was\nmore honest, he gave to people the choice between the Koran and the\nsword. Christians profess love, and practice hatred.\" I told the count\nthat through the mediation of Mr. White, the Procurator had consented\nto grant me an audience, but not till after the lapse of seven weeks,\nafter his return from some monastery to which he had retired for\nprayer, penance and meditation. \"Well may he meditate,\" said the count,\n\"on the wrongs he has committed, and even were he to do penance seven\ntimes seven weeks or seven times seven months or seven years, he could\nnot blot out the guilt that stains his soul, and that has darkened and\ncursed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent human beings.\"\n\n\n                                                  Tells why he escaped\n                                                  Siberia.\n\nAmazed at the freedom with which he exposed his condemnation of the\nmost powerful officials of the realm, and convinced that as he spoke to\nme he must have spoken often to others, and that the government could\nnot possibly be ignorant of it, I asked how it was that he had escaped\nseizure, exile or imprisonment, to which he replied: \"I am not yet\nsure that I shall not end my days in Siberia. That I have escaped thus\nfar is due to the government's sensitiveness of the world's opinion.\nIt knows of the hold my publications have gained for me on civilized\npeople. It fears the cry of outrage that would be raised at the\nbanishment or imprisonment of a man as old as I.\"\n\nHe was at that time sixty-six years old. I have since read, that when\nthe Czar was one day approached by one of the grand dukes with a\nrequest for the banishment of Tolstoy on the ground that he incited\nrebellion against the government and the church, the Czar is said to\nhave replied, \"_Je ne veux pas ajouter a sa gloire une couronne d' un\nmartyr_\"--_I do not wish to add to his glory the martyr's crown_--words\nused by Louis XIV of France, when a similar request was made of him.\n\n\n                                                  Under the Poverty\n                                                  Tree.\n\nAfter that statement, he walked silently, lost in deep thought,\nperhaps picturing to himself his declining days among fellow martyrs\nin far-away Siberia, perhaps thinking of the agonies and tortures\nand untimely deaths that had been inflicted by a cruel or misguided\ngovernment on thousands of Russia's noblest sons and daughters.\n\nSilently he led the way toward a tree that stood near the house, upon a\nslight eminence. It was the _Poverty Tree_ that was destined to afford\nhim beneath its wide spreading branches his last resting place. It\nderived its name from the custom of poor peasants laying there their\ntroubles before the count. Seating himself on a bench beneath the tree\nhe beckoned to us to seat ourselves along side of him. He continued\nsilent for some time, while the setting sun bathed his lionine face and\nhair in crimson and golden light, and gave him an appearance not unlike\none of the old Norse gods or vikings which the artist's brush has made\nfamiliar to us. At last he resumed his speech.\n\n\n\n\n                         My Visit to Tolstoy.\n\n                            (_Continued._)\n\n                A DISCOURSE, AT TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL,\n                                  BY\n                     RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D.\n\n                  Philadelphia, December 18th, 1910.\n\n  [Resum\u00e9--Discourse I: Reason for my visit to Russia and for my\n  calling on Tolstoy. Description of his appearance and personality.\n  Some of his views on Russia, its statesmen, its religion, its\n  misgovernment. A pause under _Poverty Tree_ beneath which he now lies\n  buried.]\n\n\n                                                  Tolstoy recalled\n                                                  aid sent from\n                                                  Philadelphia to\n                                                  famine-stricken in\n                                                  Russia.\n\nThe first question count Tolstoy put to me, after his long silence,\nwas from what part of the United States I hailed. Upon my telling\nhim that Philadelphia was my home, he expressed himself as much\npleased. He recalled the two shiploads of food we sent from our port,\ntwo years earlier, for the relief of the famine-stricken of Russia,\nand of the distribution of which he had had personal charge, and he\nspoke with pleasure and appreciation of Mr. Francis B. Reeves, our\nfellow-townsman, who had accompanied the food-relief.\n\n\n                                                  Said first aid came\n                                                  from Sacramento\n                                                  synagogue.\n\nWith even keener delight he recalled that the first aid received from\nthe United States was from the Jewish congregation of Sacramento,\nCalifornia, which to him was all the more remarkable from the fact\nthat the district stricken was, through governmental restriction,\nuninhabited by Jews. The expression of pleasure turned to one of\nsorrow when he remarked that Russia had little deserved such generous\ntreatment at the hands of Jews,--and he lived to see the manner in\nwhich it was repaid in Kishineff and other places.\n\n\n                                                  Was fond of Quakers.\n\nReverting to our city, he said that the name of Philadelphia had always\nhad a pleasant sound for him, partly because of its meaning \"_Brotherly\nLove_,\" and partly because it was founded by William Penn. He expressed\na high admiration for Quakers, and asked how strong they were\nnumerically and whether they are still as opposed to war and resistance\nas their founders were. Upon answering his question to the best of my\nability, he asked: \"Why is it that war, which is the greatest curse\nof mankind, has so many advocates, and peace, the greatest of all\nblessings, so few?\" After some discussion we both agreed that it was\ndue to that strange perversity of human nature that sees the right and\napproves of it, and yet often willfully chooses the wrong.\n\n\n                                                  Blamed school for\n                                                  many of present-day\n                                                  wrongs.\n\nHe blamed the schools for many of the errors that obtain in society,\nand claimed that there was too much education of the wrong kind, and\ntoo little of the right. In discussing this statement of his, I chanced\nto mention that education in the lower grades was compulsory with us.\nTo this he strongly objected. All compulsion, he said, was wrong. Man\nmust be gotten to do right by the law of love and not by the rule of\nforce. Upon my telling him that but for compulsory education some\nparents would never send their children to school, he said: \"What of\nit? The children would probably be no less moral and no less happy\nthan those of highest education. I have associated with the learned\nand the ignorant, and I have found more honor and honesty, more fear\nof the Lord and more true happiness, among the unlettered than among\nthe lettered. The more of education we cram into the heads of the\npeople the more of the fear of God is crowded out of them. The world\nlives by the love of God and not by the primer or the multiplication\ntable.\" \"What, if you had had no education?\" I ventured to ask. Quickly\nand feelingly came the answer \"The world would have been none the\nworse, and I would have been the happier.\" \"What if Jesus and the other\nprophets had had no schooling?\" I asked. To which he replied \"It was\nnot what they got out of their schools that made them the spiritual and\nmoral powers they became, but what they got out of their hearts. God\nputs more education into the human heart than man has ever been able to\nput into the head. Some of the wisest and best people hereabouts are\npeasants who have never seen the inside of a school, and who do not\nknow one letter from another.\" \"What of Paul,\" I asked, \"who certainly\nenjoyed the benefits of the Greek schools of his day?\" To which he\nreplied \"The schools made of Paul a theologian, and Christianity would\nhave been the better without the theology of Paul.\"\n\n\n                                                  Warped by unfavorable\n                                                  surroundings.\n\nOther objections to some of his paradoxical views on education\nsuggested themselves to me, but I left them unsaid. I perceived that\nwhile tolerant of objections, his opinions were fixed. He apparently\njudged of world-conditions from the view-point of his limited and\nunfavorable horizon. Under different conditions, some of his opinions\non education, and on a number of other subjects which we discussed,\nwould probably have been quite different.\n\n\n                                                  Well informed of\n                                                  political and social\n                                                  conditions in United\n                                                  States.\n\nThe conversation turned to social conditions in the United States, and\non these matters he displayed an amount of knowledge that was amazing.\nThe more I listened the more I wondered, till finally I could not\nbut ask him how he who wrote and worked so much could find time to\nkeep himself so well informed of a country so far away as the United\nStates. To which he replied \"Your country has interested me even more\nthan mine. I have lost hope in mine; all my hope was, at one time,\ncentered in yours. But yours is a disappointment as much as mine. You\ncall yourselves a Republic; you are worse than an autocracy. I say\nworse because you are ruled by gold, and gold is more conscienceless,\nand therefore, more tyrannical than any human tyrant. Your intentions\nare good; your execution is lamentable. Were yours the free and\nrepresentative government you pretend to have, you would not allow it\nto be controlled by the money powers and their hirelings, the bosses\nand machines, as you do. I have read _Progress and Poverty_ by Henry\nGeorge, and I know what Mr. Bryce says about you in his _The American\nCommonwealth_, and I have read and heard even worse things about your\nmisgovernment than what they say.\"\n\n\n                                                  Deplored rule of gold\n                                                  and growth of cities.\n\nWe were all right, he continued, as long as we were an agricultural\npeople. Our modes of life, then, were simple, and our ideals were high.\nPolitics then was a religion with us and not a matter of barter and\nsale. We became prosperous; prosperity brought luxury, and luxury, as\nalways, brings corruption. The thirst of gold is upon us, and, in our\neagerness to quench it and to gratify our lust of luxury, our one-time\nlofty principles and aspirations are dragged down and trampled in\nthe mire. We build city upon city, and pride ourselves in making one\ngreater than the other, and, in the mean time, we wipe out village\nafter village, whence have come our strength and moral fibre. The price\nof real estate in the cities is soaring to the skies, while farms are\ndeserted and farm-houses decay. We tempt the farmer's son and daughter\nfrom field to factory, and when we have exhausted them of their\nhealth and morals we think ourselves charitable when we prolong their\nmiserable existence in hospitals or reformatories. We forget that our\ngreatness lay in the pursuit of husbandry, and we seek our salvation in\ncommerce and in the industries.\n\n\n                                                  Prophesied war of\n                                                  classes.\n\nWith all our stupendous wealth, our slums are as bad, if not worse, as\nthose of European cities, and we are building up a proletariat class\nwhich will some day prove our undoing. Our rich become degenerates,\nand our poor become desperates, and in the struggle to come the\ndesperate will rise up and slay the degenerate. We keep things quiet\nby throwing crumbs of charity to those who are in need of justice more\nyet than they are in need of bread. Some day they will tire of crumbs,\nand will ask their full share of what the rich eat and have, and, if\ndenied, they will make short work of it. Our origin and our destiny\nshould have warned us against repeating the fatal errors of the past.\nBut for our colossal resources, we would long since have been dashed\nagainst the rocks. We may yet save ourselves by going back to the farm,\nand taking up anew the life and labors of our fathers.\n\n\n                                                  Disagreed, yet kept\n                                                  silent.\n\nIn this strain he continued for quite awhile, and the longer he spoke\nthe sadder grew his speech and the more prophetic became his look. At\nlength he ceased speaking, and an oppressive quiet ensued. I recognized\nthat he was deeply moved, and I therefore did not care to contradict\nsome of his statements which were obviously based on error. In other\nof his statements I fully agreed with him, yet, loyalty to my country\nforbade my seconding the gloomy prospect he held out for us.\n\n\n                                                  Description of his\n                                                  relationship with\n                                                  wife and family.\n\nA fortunate interruption relieved the situation. His wife approached\nwith a letter or manuscript in hand. He arose, proceeded toward her,\nand, for a while, the two conferred together. In all probability it\nwas a manuscript of his which she was translating or revising. I was\ntold that she was always doing something of that sort. She was his\nconsultant, his reviser, his translator, while his daughter, Tatiana,\nwas his correspondent in a number of different languages. It is said\nthat his wife copied twenty-one times the four large volumes of his\nnovel _War and Peace_, and that there has been no novel nor little else\nof his writing, since their marriage in 1862, that did not pass through\nher hands. He found in her, in the fullest sense of the word, his\nhelp-mate, a woman of great culture as well of great practical sense,\nwho looked after his literary interests no less than after those of the\nhousehold, and who often found it no easy task to be, as has been well\nsaid, \"the patient wife of an impatient genius.\" She bore him thirteen\nchildren, six of whom passed away in their early youth. She fairly\nidolized him and skilfully managed to slip, unknown to him, those\nlittle comforts into his life which he required for his well-being and\nwhich he had renounced. Neither she nor the children shared his view\nrespecting the distribution among the peasantry of his estate and other\nproperty, and keeping for himself no more than an equal share with all\nthe others. The family believed in availing themselves of the benefits\nof civilization, and for that they required the income of the farm\nand the royalty of his books. There was quite a wrangle, for a time,\nbetween the family and its head, but it was amicably disposed of in the\nend, the count agreeing to their living as they chose, on the condition\nthat they permitted him to live as he pleased. And so in his Moscow\nhome as well as in that at Yasnaya Polyana, while the family rooms are\nsaid to be comfortably furnished, his own were poorly fitted out, and\nwhile they have servants and butlers and footmen, he attended to his\nown wants, fetched his own water, cobbled his own shoes, and, in summer\ntime, labored in the field, from morn to night, alongside the commonest\npeasant.\n\n\n                                                  Description of his\n                                                  working room.\n\nStopping suddenly in his conversation with his wife, and begging us to\nexcuse him for leaving us, I asked him whether he knew where my bag\nwas put, as I wanted to get to my writing material for the purpose of\ndropping a line to the American Minister. Mr. White had feared that,\nnot being wanted in Russia, I might get into trouble soon after leaving\nthe protection of our embassy in St. Petersburg, and he had enjoined\nupon me that I keep in constant touch with him, as well as with the\nAmerican consuls, while in the interior. The count informing me that\nmy bag had been placed into his working-room, on the ground floor of\nthe house, I had a glimpse of the room in which some of the greatest\nwritings of our time, of all times, first saw the light of day. It\nwas a small room with an ordinary, bare floor somewhat the worse for\nwear, with a vaulted ceiling, and with very thick walls that gave it\nthe aspect of a mediaeval cloister cell. I have since read that at\none time it was a storeroom, and that from the hooks in the ceiling\nwere formerly suspended the ham supply for the family. Besides a crude\nwriting-desk and a few chairs, there seemed to be no other furniture\nin the room, and its only ornaments, as far as I can recall, were some\nfarm implements, tools, and seed bags. The desk was littered over with\nbooks and papers, and showed the kind of disorder one would expect of a\ngenius like Tolstoy.\n\n\n                                                  Favored suppression\n                                                  of lawyers.\n\nUpon my return to the tree, I found the count in conversation with my\ncompanion, who told me later that upon Tolstoy's asking him what his\noccupation was, and upon his replying that he had graduated from the\nlaw-school of the University of Moscow, and that, owing to restrictive\nlaws against Jews, he was not permitted to practice, the count had\nremarked that the government had done at least one good thing, it had\ndiminished the number of lawyers.\n\n\n                                                  Amazed at the amount\n                                                  of poverty in New\n                                                  York.\n\nResuming my seat alongside of him, he asked me whether it was true\nthat New York expended as much as one hundred thousand dollars daily\nin public charity. I told him that it probably was true. He then\nreturned to his discussion on the appalling contrast between the very\nrich and the very poor of the large cities in Europe and America. The\nrich, he said, would never be as rich as they are nor the poor as poor\nif the latter were scattered as farmers over the land. It is their\ncongregating in large numbers in the cities, he said, that makes\npossible the extensive industries and commercial enterprises which\nenslave them, and which build up the great fortunes of the rich.\n\n\n                                                  Belittled his own\n                                                  novels.\n\n\"Have you read my book _What To Do_?\" he suddenly asked me. I was\nobliged to answer \"No.\" I have read it since, and several times, and\nprofitably, too, but, though I had read quite a number of his books\nbefore I met him, it was exceedingly embarrassing to be questioned\nconcerning the particular book which I had not read. Not to appear\naltogether ignorant of his writings, I proceeded to tell him that I\nhad read his \"War and Peace,\" \"Anna Kar\u00e9nina,\" etc., etc., and started\ntelling him how much I admired them, when, with an impatient look and\ngesture, he interrupted me, saying \"These works are all chaff, chaff,\nplay-toys, amusing gilded youth and idle women. It is my serious\nwritings which I want the world to read. I have ceased publishing\nnovels because readers do not know the meaning of them. They look for\nentertainment and not instruction, and even though I write only for the\nuplift of man, for the purification of society, they, like the hawk,\nseek out only the carrion. They neither recognize themselves under the\nfictitious name I adopt, nor do they see their share in the wrongs and\nvices and injustices depicted, neither do they perceive that it is for\ntheir co-operation that the novelist appeals when he pleads for the\nkingdom of heaven on earth.\"\n\n\n                                                  Spoke of his book\n                                                  _What To Do_.\n\nReturning to his book _What To Do_, he said, \"even if you have not\nread it, you have read the Prophets, and having read them, you know\nmy teachings. The book is an appeal for pity for the submerged,\nfor justice for the wronged, for liberation of the oppressed and\npersecuted, and for the application of the only remedy--a return to the\nsimple life and labor on the soil. As our subsistence comes from the\nsoil so can justice and right and happiness come from it alone. Help\ncan never come from wealth, for wealth is the creator of poverty and\ninequality and injustice. It can not come from the government for that\nexists largely for the purpose of keeping up inequality and injustice.\nIt cannot come from the church, for she fears the Czar more than she\nfears God. It cannot even come from the schools which tend to train a\nclass of people who think themselves too good for manual labor.\"\n\n\n                                                  Saw solution of\n                                                  Jewish problem only\n                                                  in agriculture.\n\n\"Your plan to lead your people back to the soil,\" he continued, \"back\nto the occupation which your fathers followed with honor in Palestinian\nlands, is of some encouragement to me. It shows that the light is\ndawning. It is the only solution of the Jewish problem. Persecution,\nrefusal of the right to own or to till the soil, exclusion from the\nartisan guilds, made traders of the Jew. And the world hates the\ntrader. Make bread-producers of your people, and the world will honor\nthose who give it bread to it.\"\n\n\n                                                  Made a request of me.\n\n\"There is little chance at present,\" he continued, \"for a Jewish\ncolonization scheme in Russia. The government does not want to see the\nJews rooting themselves on Russian soil, and spreads the report that\nthey are unfit for agricultural labor, though I have been reliably\ninformed that in the few Jewish agricultural colonies that have been\ntolerated on the steppes from the time of Alexander I they are as\nsuccessful farmers as are the best.\" And he asked me as a favor that\nI make a special trip to those colonies and report to him, preferably\nin person, the result of my observations. I was only too anxious to\nconsent to his request.\n\nAnd yet another promise he asked of me, and which I gave no less\ncheerfully. But of this I shall speak in my next discourse.\n\n\n\n\n                         My Visit to Tolstoy.\n\n                            (_Continued._)\n\n                A DISCOURSE, AT TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL,\n                                  BY\n                     RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D.\n\n                  Philadelphia, December 25th, 1910.\n\n  RESUM\u00c9--_Discourse I_: Reasons for my visit to Russia and for my\n  calling on Tolstoy. His appearance and personality. Some of his views\n  on Russia, its statesmen, religion, misgovernment. A pause under the\n  Poverty Tree--his burial place.\n\n  _Discourse II_: Recalled food-relief for famine-stricken in Russia\n  from Philadelphia and from Jewish congregation in California. Admired\n  Quakers for their opposition to war. Blamed schools for many social\n  wrongs. Severely criticised political and economical evils of our\n  country. Ascribed them to growth of cities and to farm-desertions.\n  His relationship with wife and family. His working-room. Against\n  lawyers. Belittled his novels. Spoke of his book _What To Do?_ Saw\n  solution of Jewish problem in agriculture only.\n\n\n                                                  Tolstoy suggests\n                                                  school for training\n                                                  American lads in\n                                                  agriculture.\n\nAt the conclusion of my last discourse I made mention of yet another\nrequest count Tolstoy made of me. It was in connection with his\nprediction that the Russian government would not look favorably upon\nmy proposition to colonize Russian Jews upon unoccupied farm-lands in\nthe interior. \"If the plan cannot be entered upon in Russia,\" he asked,\n\"why can it not be made successful in the United States? What are you,\nAmericans, doing to prevent a Jewish problem in your own country? How\nlong before the evils that are harrowing your people in the old world\nmay be harrowing them in the new? Your people are crowding into your\nlarge cities by the thousands and tens of thousands. You have built\nup Ghettoes worse than those of Europe. There is excuse for it in\nRussia; there is no excuse for it in the United States. Yours is the\nright to own land and the best of it, and to till as much of it as you\nplease. Granted that ages of enforced abstention from agricultural\nlabor have weaned the elder generation from a love of country life and\nfarm-labor, why may not a love for it be instilled in the young? Lead\nyour young people to the country and to the farm. Start agricultural\nschools for them. Teach them to exchange the yard-stick for the hoe,\nthe peddler's pack for the seed-bag, and you will solve the problem\nwhile it may yet be solved. You will see the lands tilled by them\noverflow, as of old, with milk and honey. You will see them give of\ntheir plenty to the people of the land, and receive in return goodly\nprofit and esteem. And once again there will arise from among Jewish\nhusbandmen prophets, lawgivers, inspired bards and teachers to whom the\ncivilized world will do homage.\"\n\nAt yet greater length he spoke on this subject, and the more he spoke\nthe more he quickened within me the resolve to do as he wished it to be\ndone.\n\n\n                                                  Founding of Farm\n                                                  School promised.\n\nAnd there, under _The Poverty Tree_, it was where I gave Tolstoy the\nsolemn promise that upon my return home the earliest task I would enter\nupon would be the establishment of an agricultural school for Jewish\nlads, and other lads. And the existence of the _National Farm School_,\nnear Doylestown in this state, is testimony that I kept my promise. I\nhad gone to Russia to see the Czar, and I saw a greater man instead.\nI had gone with a plan for colonizing Russian Jews in Russia, and I\nreturned with a plan for teaching agriculture chiefly to Russian Jewish\nlads in the United States. Verily, \"man proposes and God disposes.\" And\nthe hundreds of young men who have received their agricultural training\nat the National Farm School, and the hundreds of others, young and\nold, who, directly and indirectly, have been encouraged by that school\nto forsake the congested cities and to take up the farmer's life, owe\ntheir escape from the miseries of the Ghetto, and their enjoyment of\nhealth and happiness, to the promise asked of me by that noblest of all\nfarmers, count Tolstoy.\n\n\n                                                  Promise kept under\n                                                  difficulties.\n\nThe establishment of the school was not an easy task, nor is its\nmaintenance easy even now, notwithstanding the excellent record it has\nmade. The bulk of our people have not yet acquired that profound grasp\nof the seriousness of our problem, and of its only possible solution,\nthat Tolstoy had, sixteen years ago. Therefore is the support of that\nschool still so meagre. Therefore has it still less than a hundred\nstudents in attendance when it easily could have a thousand, and more,\nif it had the means. And, therefore, are our Ghettoes more crowded than\never, and a greater drain than ever on our charities. That despite\nindifference and even hostility the school has persevered is due, to\na very large extent, to the determination to keep sacred a promise\nsolemnly given to one of the best of men.\n\n\n                                                  Parting from Tolstoy.\n\nIt was late that night when I took leave of the count and of some of\nthe members of his family. Before departing, it was agreed that I\nenter at once upon my journey to the Jewish agricultural colonies in\nthe interior, that I might see them at work during the height of their\nharvesting, and a peasant and his wagon were engaged to take me on that\ntrip. The count bade me a hearty God-speed, and repeatedly urged me to\nmake my report personally to him, and I promised that I would avail\nmyself a second time of his proffered hospitality, if my way should\nlead me back again to Moscow or St. Petersburg.\n\n\n                                                  Never heard from him\n                                                  again.\n\nUnfortunately, after my inspection of the Jewish agricultural colonies,\nwhich fully confirmed the favorable reports the count had received of\nthem, my investigations led me to the Southern and Polish provinces,\nand consumed so much of my limited time that a return North was\nimpossible. And so I never got to see the count again. And I never\nheard from him. Neither my report, which I sent to him in writing, nor\nmy other communications to him, written in Russia and outside of it,\nhave brought from him a reply. Never a line from him even in answer to\nthe information sent him that the National Farm School, which he had so\nstrongly urged, had been founded. Never an acknowledgment from him of\nthe early annual reports of the School that were sent him to show the\nheadway it was making.\n\n\n                                                  Probable reason of\n                                                  silence.\n\nThe heartiness of his reception of me, his almost affectionate\nfarewell, his deep interest in my mission and his earnest invitation\nthat I repeat my visit to him, preclude the thought that I was\nforgotten by him or became indifferent to him after my departure.\nThere is but one explanation--an explanation strengthened by similar\nexperiences of others in connection with him--none of my communications\never reached him. I was not wanted in Russia. I was a _persona non\ngrata_ to the government; my name was blacklisted, and my mail fell\nunder the ban of the censor.\n\n\n                                                  With him in spirit\n                                                  under Poverty Tree.\n\nBut, if my mail has never reached him, my thoughts have been with him\noften. Many a time have I sat with him, in spirit, under that _Poverty\nTree_. And yet more often will I sit with him there in the future, now\nthat that site has become _Holy Ground_.\n\n\n                                                  Has become his grave.\n\nGladly do I forgive the church of Russia many an outrage or blunder\nshe has perpetrated or permitted to be perpetrated, for the one good\nact she has performed--that of refusing Tolstoy sepulture in what\nshe is pleased to call \"consecrated ground.\" She thus obliged him to\ndesignate as his last resting-place a spot that was one of the dearest\non earth to him, a spot that was intimately associated with his life's\nphilosophy, a spot located within a confine wherein he ruled more\nmightily and more exaltedly than any Czar that ever wielded scepter\nin vast Russia, where he wrote those epochal books of his which are\ndestined some day to become of the basal elements of the religion of\nthe future.\n\n\n                                                  No Czarian funeral\n                                                  more solemn than\n                                                  Tolstoy's.\n\nAnd even though no priest was nigh when the last rites over his remains\nwere performed, there were present, besides his family, those who were\nmore sacred in his eyes than priests or metropolitan, more honorable\nthan even the Procurator of the Holy Synod--his dearly beloved\npeasants. It was these who followed him to his last resting place.\nIt was these who sang the mortuary hymn _Everlasting Memory_, at his\nopen grave. It was these, the \"orphaned peasantry,\" as they called\nthemselves because of his death, who gave his burial a distinction such\nas no Czarian funeral procession had ever enjoyed, notwithstanding\necclesiastical pomp or military display. It was these whose labors and\noutlook he had sought to soften and to brighten, who delivered the\nbriefest and most eloquent eulogy that has, perhaps, ever been spoken:\n\"_His heart has burst because of his unbounded love for humanity. The\nlight of the world is extinguished._\"\n\n\n                                                  In spite of herself\n                                                  church has made a\n                                                  saint of him.\n\nIn refusing religious sepulture to the holiest man in Russia, the\nGreek orthodox church performed the crowning feat in her long series\nof stupidities. And yet, by that act she did, in despite of herself,\nthe very thing she did not wish to see done. Like Mephistopheles in\nGoethe's _Faust_ who, in response to the question who he is, says:\n\"_Ich bin ein Theil von jener Kraft, die stets das B\u00f6se will, und stets\ndas Gute schafft_,\" so did she prove herself the power that sought the\nevil and yet performed the good. By her act of intolerance she gave\na new saint to Russia, and perhaps the only one she has. By it she\nfurnished a sanctuary to that country, one that may be destined to make\na Mecca of Yasnaya Polyana, one that may be more piously sought in the\nfuture, and by larger numbers, than any shrine or sanctuary of her own\ncreation. By that act she shed a halo of immortal glory around the head\nof him whom she sought to cover with infamy.\n\n\n                                                  Has two ways of\n                                                  making saints.\n\nThe church has two ways of conferring saintships, a lesser and a\nhigher one. The lesser distinction she confers upon lesser luminaries,\ngenerally upon those made famous by myth or legend for great endurance\nin fasting or penance, or for conquering imaginary devils, for working\nfancied miracles, or for displaying fiendish cruelty in persecuting and\nexterminating heretics. The higher distinction she confers generally\nat the stake or on the gallows, within prison walls or in the torture\nchamber, upon men of great minds or great hearts, upon lovers of truth\nand fearless enunciators of it, upon men who because of their love of\nhumanity defy the power that interdicts God's greatest gift to man: the\nright to think and the right to believe and speak in accordance with\nthe canons of reason and with the dictates of conscience.\n\n\n                                                  Still makes of\n                                                  intolerance an act of\n                                                  piety.\n\nIn asking me the difference between reform and orthodox Judaism in\nAmerica, and between American Reform Jews and Russian Karaitic Jews,\nand in replying that the difference exists mainly in the synagogue,\nthat outside of it there is little or no difference in life and in\nsocial relationship, Tolstoy replied: \"Our church has not yet arrived\nat the stage of tolerance of different religious beliefs. That is the\nreason why such people as the Jews and Doukhobors and Stundists are\npersecuted, and such men as I are in ill repute. Our church still makes\nof religious hatred an act of piety. It still measures God by the\npassions of man. Had the church the power in our days which it at one\ntime had, and were the age of martyrdom not past, she would long since\nhave silenced me for rebelling against her irrational teaching and for\ndenouncing her craven supineness in the midst of outrageous wrongs\nand injustices, as now they silence men in our country for rebelling\nagainst unjust enactments of the government.\"\n\n\n                                                  Tolstoy hoped for the\n                                                  reign of universal\n                                                  good-will.\n\nUpon my saying that it was fortunate for us of the present day that all\nchurches have been deprived of their one-time all-controlling power,\nsince no church has yet been known to have possessed power and not\nto have abused it, he replied: \"That is true of all power, temporal\nas well as of ecclesiastic, and it would be more fortunate still if\ngovernments were as restricted in their power as is the church, if\nall power, all authority, were to cease, if the good that is inherent\nin every human being were to be given a chance to germinate and to\nflourish, and every man learn to live in complete harmony with the\nhighest of all laws, the law of peace and good-will, which God has\nwritten into the human heart. There would then be no need of armies\nand armaments, of courts and police, of prisons and jails, no need of\nimpoverishing the masses through heavy taxation for the support of\nmillions of soldiers and officers in idleness, who ought to raise their\nown bread by their own handiwork.\"\n\n\n                                                  Believed that the\n                                                  Messiah is still to\n                                                  come.\n\n\"On that day,\" said I, \"the Messianic Age, for which the Jews have\nhoped and prayed, will surely have dawned.\" To which he answered: \"You,\nJews, are right, the Messiah is still to come, or, if he has come, his\nmessage has not yet entered the hearts of men.\"\n\nRecalling this remark of Tolstoy, on this Christmas morn, suggests\nthe question: How many Christmas days will yet have to come and go\nbefore its gospel of peace and good-will will govern the hearts of\nall who call themselves Christians as it governed that of the Russian\npeasant-saint.\n\n\n                                                  Lessening of church\n                                                  power shown by\n                                                  failure of Tolstoy's\n                                                  excommunication.\n\nAnd vividly I recalled his remarks on the shorn power of the church,\nwhen, six years later, the papers brought the news that Tolstoy had\nbeen excommunicated by the Russian church. I could picture to myself\nthe expression of sorrow or disgust on his face when that church decree\nwas conveyed to him. Its ecclesiastical wrath, could have meant only\nhollow sounds to him. None knew better than he that the metropolitans\nwho issued this excommunication merely grasped at a shadow, that\nthe substance was gone, that that age was happily passed when the\npronouncement of the ecclesiastical _anathema_ deprived its victim\nof all association with friend or foe, deprived him of intercourse\neven with the closest members of his family, prevented them, under\nthe penalty of like punishment, from providing him even with food,\nshelter and raiment. When during his flight from home, shortly before\nhis death, he knocked at the doors of a monastery, and said \"I am\nthe excommunicated and anathematized Leo Tolstoy,\" the reply was \"It\nis a duty and a pleasure to offer you shelter.\" The life of Tolstoy\npassed on as serenely, in the midst of his family and friends, after\nhis excommunication as before. And the world's esteem of him grew even\ngreater than it had been, by reason of the charges upon which the\nexcommunication was based, namely:\n\n  \"In his writings on religious questions he clearly shows himself\n  an enemy of the Russian Orthodox Church. He does not recognize God\n  in three persons (or three persons in one God), and he calls the\n  Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, a mortal human being.\n  He scoffs at the idea of Incarnation. He perverts the text of the\n  Gospel. He censures the Holy Church and calls it a human institution.\n  He denies the Church Hierarchy and ridicules the Holy Sacraments and\n  the rites of the Holy Orthodox Church. Therefore, the Holy Synod\n  has decreed that no priest is to absolve Count Tolstoy, or give\n  him communion. Nor is he to be given burial ground, unless, before\n  departing this life he shall repent, acknowledge the Orthodox Church,\n  believe in it, and return to it.\"\n\n\n                                                  Died unreconciled\n                                                  with church.\n\nHe never recanted. He never changed his attitude towards the errors\nand wrongs of the Russian orthodox church. And no one who ever stood\nand talked with him, face to face, could ever have believed that\nthat modern Prometheus, that stern and fearless personality, that\nre-incarnation of Mattathias of old, and of his valiant sons, the\nMaccabees, could ever swerve from a position once taken by him.\nWhen upon his death-bed, he was frequently importuned to return as\na penitent to the mother-church; he spurned every mention of it. He\nwas still in the possession of his senses, he said, he still knew\nand believed that twice two equals four, and as long as he knew and\nbelieved this so long would he continue to know and to believe that\nwhat he had said and written concerning the errors and wrongs of the\nchurch was the truth.\n\n\n                                                  Never a truer\n                                                  follower of Jesus\n                                                  than he.\n\nIt is noteworthy, and quite in keeping with the general tenor of the\nRussian orthodox church, that no cognizance was taken by the church\nof the many noble things Tolstoy had said and written and done; no\ncognizance of the self-sacrificing efforts he had made to live the\nlife which Jesus had lived and had enjoined upon his followers; no\ncognizance of his having conscientiously endeavored to square his life\nwith the teachings of the _Sermon on the Mount_; no cognizance of his\nhaving brought light to those in darkness and comfort to those in\nsorrow, of his having consorted and labored with the poor and lightened\ntheir burden, of his having thirsted and hungered after righteousness,\nof his having sought peace and protested against war, and preached the\ngospel of the wrongfulness of all physical resistance, of his having,\nthough of the oldest nobility, spurned luxury and ease and even money,\nhaving regarded these the source of corruption and the root of many of\nthe evils in society.\n\n\n                                                  Yet refused Christian\n                                                  burial.\n\nSuch a person, and one even but half as good as this, should have been\nentitled to sepulture in the most sacred of Christian cemeteries, and\nthe most eminent of priests should have deemed it a privilege to have\nbeen permitted to perform the last rites over his mortal remains. So\nwould it have happened among rational people, but so could it not have\nhappened in Russia. There, because he could not subscribe to doctrines\nand rites and ceremonies for which he found neither scriptural nor\nrational warrant, priests felt themselves disgraced, and in danger of\neternal damnation, even when their names were associated with that of\nTolstoy.\n\n\n                                                  Priest objected\n                                                  to his name being\n                                                  associated with\n                                                  Tolstoy's.\n\nA striking illustration of this was given, seven years ago, at the\nuniversity of Dorpat, at the occasion of the celebration of its\nhundredth anniversary. In commemoration of that event the institution\nelected as honorary members of the corporation a number of Russians\ndistinguished in literature, science and art, one of these was Tolstoy,\nanother was Ivan, the miracle-working priest of Cronstadt, elected to\nallay the church's indignation at the choice of Tolstoy. Ivan, the\npriest, refused the honor, and in the following letter to the Rector of\nthe University:\n\n  \"YOUR EXCELLENCY--I have read your estimable and respectful letter\n  to me, which is so full of subtle delicacy--I decline absolutely\n  the honor of the membership to which I have been elected. I do not\n  wish to become connected, in any way, with a corporation--however\n  respectable and learned--which, by some lamentable misunderstanding,\n  has put me side by side with that atheist Leo Tolstoy--the most\n  malignant heretic of our unfortunate age--who, in presumption and\n  arrogance, surpasses all previous heretics of any age. I do not wish\n  to stand beside Antichrist. I am surprised furthermore, to see with\n  what indifference the University Council regards that satanic author,\n  and with what slavishness it burns incense to him.\"\n\n       IVAN SERGEIEF, _Prior and Archpriest of the Cronstadt Cathedral_.\n\nThis letter tells of the attitude of the church towards Tolstoy better\nthan any words of mine can tell. And this same Ivan, it is said,\napproved of the massacre of the petitioners of St. Petersburg on that\nmemorable White Sunday, and when petitioned to protect the Jews against\nthreatening massacres, treated the appeal with silent contempt.\n\n\n                                                  Government hatred\n                                                  back of that of the\n                                                  church.\n\nIt is to be remembered, however, that over and back of the Church of\nRussia stands the government. The Czar is the head of the church. Whom\nthe government favors the church favors; whom the government hates, the\nchurch hates. The church hated Tolstoy because the government hated\nhim, and why it hated him we shall be told in the next discourse of\nthis series.\n\n\n\n\n                         My Visit to Tolstoy.\n\n                            (_Continued._)\n\n                A DISCOURSE, AT TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL,\n                                  BY\n                     RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D.\n\n                   Philadelphia, January 1st, 1911.\n\n\n                                                  Government used\n                                                  church for\n                                                  discrediting Tolstoy.\n\nSpeaking in our last discourse of the church's excommunication of\nTolstoy, and of its refusing a resting place to his remains in what she\ncalls \"consecrated ground,\" we said that the Czar is the spiritual as\nwell as the temporal head of the Church of Russia, and that the hated\nof the church is yet more the hated of the government. This statement\nexplains what otherwise is difficult to understand, namely, how so good\na man as Tolstoy, who, for more than two score years, strove to square\nhis life with the teachings of the _Sermon on the Mount_, could have\nincurred the hatred of the Russian orthodox Church. The government\nhad far more reason to hate Tolstoy than had the church. Finding it\nimpolitic to proceed directly against him, it availed itself of the\nchurch for discrediting Tolstoy in the eyes of the credulous populace.\n\n\n                                                  Before giving reason\n                                                  why.\n\nBefore entering upon a discussion as to why the government feared\nTolstoy, we must first have a glimpse of his earlier years, and\nbriefly follow his heroic self-extrication from the corruption of the\naristocratic society into which he was born, and his gradual rise to\nthe exalted station of greatest reformer in the history of Russia.\n\n\n                                                  Must hear story of\n                                                  his life.\n\nHe was born eighty-two years ago of an ancient noble family. His\nchildhood years were spent in the midst of the gay military life of\nMoscow. Yet more gay and more corrupt was the society that surrounded\nhim during his university life. Experiencing a revulsion of feeling\nagainst the kind of life he was leading, he fled from the university\nbefore graduation, returned to his family estate at Yasnaya Polyana and\ntook up the life of a farmer.\n\nThis impetuous flight, and a later one of which we shall hear\npresently, may throw some light upon his last flight, a few weeks ago,\nwhich came to a pathetic end, and of which we shall speak in our next\ndiscourse.\n\n\n                                                  His early glory and\n                                                  shame.\n\nFive years long he lived the life of a peasant, when a call to arms\nlanded him on the battlefields of the Crimea, where he soon won\ndistinction for heroic service. But the dissoluteness of campaign-life\nsoon disclosed that the Tartar in him was not yet dead. He returned\nto the debaucheries of his former years, and, according to his own\nconfession, with all the greater zest, because of the double glory that\nhad come to him, that of a distinguished soldier and of a brilliant\nauthor. He had taken to story-writing, and displayed in it a talent\nthat made success instantaneous. He became the lion of his day, and\nwas courted by high and low. And the greater his glory the more\nunrestrained grew his libertinism.[1]\n\n       [1] See his book \"_My Confession_.\"\n\n\n                                                  His reform.\n\nBut there were lucid intervals, now and then, during which he held up\nto himself the lofty ideals of his former peasant life, and bitterly\nhe denounced himself, and even portrayed himself unsparingly in the\ncharacter-sketches of some of his novels. His better self acquired\nmastery at last; he threw off the yoke that had held him fast to the\ncorrupt society of his day, and for the second time he fled to his\nestate.\n\nHe himself told of the circumstance that led to that flight. He had\nattended a ball at the home of a prominent nobleman, and passed the\nnight in dancing and feasting, leaving his peasant-coachman waiting for\nhim outside, in an open sleigh, in a bitter cold night. When at four in\nthe morning he wished to return home, he found the coachman seemingly\nfrozen dead, and it required several hours of strenuous effort to\nrestore him to consciousness and to save his life. \"Why,\" he asked\nhimself, \"should I, a rich, young aristocrat, who has done nothing for\nsociety, spend the night amid warmth and luxuries and feastings, while\nthis peasant who represents the class that has built our cities, given\nus our food and clothing and other necessities, be kept outside to\nfreeze?\" He resolved, then and there, to dedicate the remainder of his\nlife to the righting of this and other wrongs. And he kept his promise.\n\nHow strong an impression this incident made upon him may be gathered\nfrom an indirect allusion to it, in his novel \"_Master and Man_,\"\npublished some two score years later.\n\n\n                                                  Consecrates life to\n                                                  peasant.\n\nIt was discouraging work at first. The people whom he desired to\nbenefit had no faith in him. They could not conceive of an aristocrat,\nto whom the serfs had been no more than worms to be trod upon, becoming\nsuddenly interested in their welfare. There were long spells of utter\ndisheartenment. A number of times he found himself at the brink of\nsuicide. He sought relief and diversion in travel, but returned more\nconvinced than ever of the corruptions and evils of society, of the\ntyranny of the classes and of the sufferings of the masses.\n\nMarriage opened at last a new vista of life to him. Aided and\nstimulated by his cultured and companionable wife he entered upon his\nreform work by directing a powerful search-light on the goings-on among\nthe high and the low, in a series of novels that secured for him at\nonce rank among the greatest novelists of his age.\n\n\n                                                  Aided by his writings.\n\nIn the second discourse of this series, I spoke of his having\ndeprecated his novels, and of his having expressed his preference for\nhis ethical and religious and sociological and economical and political\nwritings. I ventured to say to him that but for his novels he would\nhave gotten but comparatively few people to look into his other\nwritings, that his fiction had secured a world-wide audience, that they\ncontained many of the teachings of his other books, and that the public\nswallows a moral pill easiest when offered in the form of a novel. To\nwhich he replied \"Most readers swallow the sugar-coating and leave the\npill untouched, or, if they swallow it, it remains unassimilated.\"\n\n\n                                                  His novels criticized.\n\nAnd he was right. I have heard much criticism of Tolstoy's novels.\nSome find him too realistic, too plain spoken, even coarse. A certain\nmagazine that had begun publishing his \"_Resurrection_\" was obliged to\ndiscontinue the story, because of complaints by many of its readers. It\nwas a sad commentary, not on the morals of the writer but on the lack\nof morals, or on the false modesty, of the readers, for that novel has\nbeen declared by eminent critics to be \"the greatest and most moral\nnovel ever written.\" Others again value his realism for whatever spice\nthey might find therein, little heeding the serious purpose for which\nthe story was written.\n\n\n                                                  Few know meaning of\n                                                  novel in Russia.\n\nAt best, few people understand the meaning of a novel in such a\ncountry as Russia, where free press, free pulpit, free platform and\nfree speech are unknown, where the novelist attempts to do the work of\nall of these, under the guise of fiction, the only form of literature\nthat has a chance to pass the eye of the censor. Whole systems of\npolitical and social and moral reform are crowded between the covers\nof a novel, which, if published in any other form of literature, would\ncondemn the author to life-long imprisonment in the Siberian mines. The\nnovelist in Russia does not look upon himself as an entertainer nor as\na money-maker, neither is he looked upon as such. He is the prophet,\nthe leader, the teacher, the tribune of the people, the liberator--the\nemancipation of the Russian serfs, for instance, was entirely due to\nthe novel. He has serious work to do, and he does it seriously. His\neye is not upon rhetoric nor upon aesthetics, but upon the evil he has\nto uproot, on the corruption he has to expose, on the reform he has to\ninstitute, on the philosophy of life he has to unfold, and to do that\nmeans the production of a novel like \"_Anna Kar\u00e9nina_\" or of a play\nlike \"_The Power of Darkness_.\" He speaks not to English or American\npuritans, but to Russians, whose receptivity of strong, plain speech is\nhealthier than ours.\n\n\n                                                  Spoke as a prophet\n                                                  and reformer.\n\nSuch a novelist was Tolstoy. His fiction is as powerful as is the art\nof the Pre-Raphaelites. It is all sincerity. Nothing escapes him. What\nthe X-Ray does in the physical world that his penetrating eye does\nin the field of morals. He sees the sin through a thousand layers of\npretense and hypocrisy, and he describes it as he sees it. Disagreeable\nas are some of the subjects of which he treats, there is not a line\nthat may not be read without a blush by the pure-minded. Like a\nsurgeon, who cuts into the sore for the purpose of letting out the\npoison, he lays bare the wrongs and rottenness of church and government\nfor the purpose of affecting the needed cure. As a prophet he speaks\nthe language of prophets. As a reformer he tells the truth as reformers\ntell it, unvarnished and ungarnished. He spares others as little as he\nspared himself in his book \"_My Confession_.\" He wants others to do as\nhe has done, to subject the lusts and appetites and greeds to the rule\nof conscience, if the kingdom of God is ever to be established on earth.\n\n\n                                                  Opposed by government.\n\nRadical in his reform propositions from the first, he attracted\nattention at once. The world was amazed at the daring of his thought\nand at the plainness of his speech, and hailed him as a new prophet.\nThe government, however, looked upon him as a revolutionist, and gave\nhim clearly to understand that he would be silenced if he did not\nchange his views and style of writing. Instead of complying with its\nwish, he became all the more daring in thought and all the plainer\nin speech. The humblest peasant could understand as clearly as the\nshrewdest diplomat what he was after. And it was not long before the\ngovernment was after him. The publication and sale of certain of his\nbooks were prohibited. They were read all the more outside of Russia,\nand by the thousands of copies within Russia. And the more they were\nread the larger loomed his world-fame, till he became too large for\nbanishment or prison, for fortress or Siberian mine.\n\n\n                                                  Challenged government\n                                                  to do its worst.\n\nWith all the fiery zeal of an ancient Jewish prophet, he challenged the\ngovernment to do its worst, \"to tighten the well-soaped noose about his\nthroat\" as it tightened it about the throats of thousands of better men\nthan any that are in the service of the autocrat or of his hirelings,\nthe bureaucrats. Theirs was a government, he said, by might not by\nright, by gallows and knout, not by law.\n\n\n                                                  His political demands.\n\nHe demanded the abolition of the throne and of capital punishment,\nthe disbanding of the army, and the discontinuance of trial by\ncourt-martial. He demanded liberty of speech and freedom of conscience.\nHe demanded the surrender to the people of lands and rights that\njustly belonged to them, and scathingly he denounced those who wasted\nin riotousness what had been painfully gotten together with the\nheart's blood of the laboring-people. He denounced the government for\nits cruelty toward the Jews, and charged it with having instigated\nthe massacres of them. He held the government responsible for every\nmisfortune that befell the country--war, famine, pestilence, intense\npoverty, hopeless misery, appalling ignorance. In burning words he\ncharged the slaughter of tens of thousands of husbands and fathers and\nsons, in the Japanese war, to the greed of the mighty. He depicted\nthe Duma as the laughing stock of the world, as composed of people\nso stupid as not even to recognize what fools they were making of\nthemselves. In his \"_Resurrection_\" he held up to the view of the world\nRussia's courts of law, and her iniquitous prison-system, the blocking\nof justice, the shocking judicial indifference and laxities in cases\ninvolving life-long sentences to penal servitude, the \"lives that are\nshed like water upon the ground\" during the transport to Siberia, and\nthe crimes and rebellions that are systematically bred by such crying\ninjustice.\n\nLittle wonder that the government had no love for Tolstoy, and that\nit suppressed publication after publication of his, and maintained a\nspecial corps of censors and spies to watch him. Little wonder that it\nprohibited demonstrations of sorrow at the announcement of his death,\nand made use of the church as a cat's paw for holding him up as the\nAnti-Christ, and arch-fiend, as the enemy of the Czar, Church and\npeople.[2]\n\n       [2] See his essay \"_Church and State_.\"\n\n                                                  His demands of the\n                                                  people.\n\nPlain and fearless as was his speech to the government it was yet more\nso to the people. Not a wrong in society, public or private, which he\ndid not know, and which he did not castigate as only he knew how to\ncastigate. Louder and louder, as he grew older, he preached the Law of\nGod against the law of degenerate society. Art and science, commerce\nand industry were to him as nothing in comparison with the Moral Law,\nwithout which he saw no future for mankind.\n\n\n                                                  His views respecting\n                                                  marriage and society.\n\nThe sanctity of the marriage tie, the sobriety and industry of the\nhusband, the domesticity of the wife, were among the most constant of\nhis themes. He loathed the self-exhibiting society woman; in his eyes\nshe was no better than the street-woman. Great to him was the womanly\nwoman, greater the domestic wife, greatest of all the mother, and so\nmany more times greater the more times she was mother.[3]\n\n       [3] See his essays \"_Man and Woman, Their Respective\n       Functions_;\" and \"_The Mother_,\" and his book \"_What To Do?_\"\n\n\n                                                  His views respecting\n                                                  labor and capital.\n\nThe sad lot of the poor and the riotous extravagances of the rich were\nconstantly recurrent subjects of discussion with him. \"We speak of the\nabolition of slavery,\" said he, \"but we have abolished only the word,\nthe poor are enslaved as much as ever. We need a new emancipation,\nthe emancipation of the rich from the tyranny of their money, from\nthe thraldom of the false view of themselves and of society. With\nwhat right do men speak of the abolition of slavery, when every time\nthey look into the mirror they see a slave-driver, when they live in\nidleness, and fatten on the heart's blood of the down-trodden, when\nthey indulge their stomachs with the choicest of dainties, and wrap\ntheir bodies in silks and broad cloths and furs, while those, whose\nslavish toil provides these luxuries and comforts, have not enough food\nto keep body and soul together, nor enough of raiment and shelter to\nkeep from freezing?\"\n\nIn an article, published a few years ago in the _North American\nReview_, Tolstoy spoke of a group of peasants standing aside to let\na picknicking party of rich folks drive by. One of the ladies' hats\n\"has cost more than the horse with which the peasant plows the field,\"\nand for the gentleman's riding stick has been paid a week's wages of\nan underground workman. \"Everywhere, two or three men in a thousand\nlive so that, doing nothing for themselves, they eat and drink in\none week what would have fed hundreds for a year; they wear garments\ncosting thousands of dollars; they live in palaces, where thousands of\nworkmen could have been housed; and they spend upon their caprices the\nfruits of thousands and tens of thousands of working days. The others,\nsleepless and unfed, labor beyond their strength, ruining their moral\nand physical health for the benefit of these few chosen ones.\" It is\nnatural that the rich should not object to this arrangement, said\nhe, the surprising thing is that the poor take it so complacently.\n\"Why do all these men, strong in physical vigor, and in the habit of\nlabor--the enormous majority of humanity--why do they submit to and\nobey a handful of feeble men, generally incapable of anything?\" Tolstoy\nfinds the answer very simple. It is because the minority have money,\nand the workingmen need the money to feed their families. Millions of\nworkingmen submit \"because one man has usurped the factory, another\nthe land, and a third the taxes collected from the workmen.\" Were the\nmillions, who now slave for the rich, to get their food from the soil,\nthe rich, to keep alive, would be obliged to raise their own food,\nand the double redemption would have begun. It is because the number\nof workers who produce the prime necessities of life is diminishing\nthat the number of those who use luxuries is increasing. Under such\nconditions, the health of society, wrote he, is as little possible as\nis the health of that person, whose body is continually growing heavier\nin weight, and his legs are continually growing thinner and weaker.\nWhen the support vanishes the body must fall.[4]\n\n       [4] See also his book \"_What To Do?_\" and his essay \"_The\n       Russian Revolution_.\"\n\n\n                                                  His Remedy.\n\nAs a bitter opponent of violent measures, he saw but one way for\nrighting the wrongs of society, and that is in the well-to-do\ndescending to the lowly and starting life anew with them on a common\nlevel, and rising with them step by step to the higher planes. And\nto prevent a relapse to the old iniquitous state, he advocated the\neradication of capital, which he held responsible for many of the\ninequalities and tyrannies and miseries of society. Let the rich, said\nhe, convert their money into land and parcel it out among the poor,\nand claim for themselves no more than an equal share with the others.\nMerely wishing the poor well, and yet continuing the old state of\naffairs, is like sitting on a man's neck and crushing him down, yet all\nthe time assuring him and others that we are sorry for him, and wish\nto ease his condition by every means in our power except by getting\noff his back. Or it is like entering an orchard, and barring the door\nbehind, and gathering its fruit for ourselves, and wishing others might\nhave as much yet continuing to keep the door barred and gathering for\nourselves alone.[5]\n\n       [5] See his book \"_What To Do?_\" and his essay \"_Money_.\"\n\nIf we really wish to see the lot of the poor improved, said he, we\nmust not look for a miracle to effect it nor trust to some future age\nto bring it about. We must do it ourselves, and we must do it now. And\nwe must do it at the cost of self-sacrifice. If people really wish to\nimprove the condition of their brother men, and not merely their own,\nthey must be ready not only to alter the way of life to which they\nare accustomed, but they must be ready for an intense struggle with\nthemselves and their families.[6]\n\n       [6] \"_The Slavery of Our Times._\"\n\nSociety will never be at peace, said he, until man will have learned\nthe service of sacrifice. And man will never be happy until he will\nhave learned to find his happiness in making others happy.[7]\n\n       [7] \"_Cossacks._\" \"_Christ's Christianity._\"\n\n\n\n\n                          My Visit to Tolstoy\n\n                            (_Concluded._)\n\n                A DISCOURSE, AT TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL,\n                                  BY\n                     RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D.\n\n                   Philadelphia, January 8th, 1911.\n\n\n                                                  Tolstoy's fatal\n                                                  flight.\n\nThe world was amazed, a few weeks ago, at the news that Tolstoy had\nfled from his family and home, with the resolve to retire to some\nwilderness, there to await his end. Guesses as to the cause were many,\nand the opinion was quite general that extreme old age had affected his\nreason.\n\n\n                                                  Explained in light of\n                                                  last article of his.\n\nI could not subscribe to this conclusion, neither could I see anything\nstrange in his sudden departure. I knew of a number of similar flights\nin his life, and the reasons for them, and, therefore, I was little\nsurprised. And as to suspecting him of failing mentality, I had but a\nshort time before read the latest of his writings, entitled \"_Three\nDays in a Village_,\" in which I had seen no sign of a lessening of his\npower of mind and heart and soul. And it is obvious that the Russian\ngovernment, likewise, saw no lessening of his mentality, for it\npromptly suppressed the publication of it. An enterprising newspaper\nman, however, succeeded in forwarding a copy to our country, which\nenterprise not only rescued for us the last of Tolstoy's writings but\nalso furnished us an explanation of his sudden and fatal flight.\n\n\n                                                  Divided into three\n                                                  parts.\n\nThe article, a comparatively short one, was divided into three parts,\neach a heart-rending recital of miseries in villages neighboring the\ncount's estate.\n\n\n                                                  First part described\n                                                  peasant poverty.\n\nThe first part deals with wayfaring men. From six to twelve of them\nvisit these villages daily in search of bread and clothes, of work and\nshelter. Some are blind or lame, some sick or feeble, some are very\nold or very young, some are maimed or crippled, dragging with them\nhideous memories of the recent Japanese war. Many of them are ignorant\nand filthy, but some of them are intelligent and revolutionary, who\nlook upon the prosperous as thieves, and ask for their share of the\ncoined blood pressed from the hearts of the poor and down-trodden.\nTo keep these unceasing streams of wayfaring paupers from becoming a\ngovernment charge, they are parcelled out by the authorities among the\npoor and helpless peasantry, good care being taken that they are not\nloaded upon the landlords, merchants or priests. The wickedness of this\ncourse is fully intelligible only to those who have some conception\nof the indescribable poverty and misery of Russian peasants. Stripped\nof almost all by taxation and by landlord oppression and by priest\nand constable extortion, many of them have scarcely food and room\nenough for themselves and cattle, scarcely clothes enough to cover\ntheir nakedness, no money with which to buy the absolutely necessary\nfarming-implements, or to keep their wretched hovels from toppling\nover their heads. And yet, notwithstanding their appalling misery,\nTolstoy saw their hearts go out in pity to these wandering paupers,\nand religiously dividing their crust with those yet more unfortunate\nthan they, not knowing how soon they themselves might be in a similarly\nwretched plight.\n\n\n                                                  Second part described\n                                                  peasant misery.\n\nThe second part of the article bears the sub-title \"_Living and\nDying_.\" Upon entering the village accompanied by his physician, the\ncount was entreated for aid by a woman. Upon inquiry he learned that\nher husband had been drafted into the army, and that the family was\nstarving. Upon asking the village authority why the law had been\nviolated in taking from a family its sole supporter, he was told that\nthe husband's brother was quite capable of supporting the family. Next\nhe met a little orphan girl twelve years old, who was the head of a\nfamily of five children. Her father had been killed in a mine; her\nmother had dropped dead from exhaustion, a few weeks after; poor but\nkind-hearted neighbors kept their eyes on the children, whilst the\noldest went about begging the means for their support. In another hovel\nhe found a man in his death-throes with pneumonia. The room was damp\nand cold; there was no fuel for the stove; no food, no medicine, no\nmattress, no pillow, for the dying man.\n\n\n                                                  Contrasted with\n                                                  extravagance in his\n                                                  own family.\n\nSaddened by what he had seen and heard the count drove home. In front\nof his house he saw a carpeted sleigh, drawn by magnificent horses,\ndriven by a coachman attired in heavy fur-coat and cap. It was the\nconveyance of the count's son, who had come on a visit to his father.\nThere were ten at the table, who partook of a dinner of four courses,\nspiced by two kinds of wine. Two butlers were in attendance, and costly\nflowers were on the table. \"Whence came these orchids?\" asked the\nson, to which the mother replied that they had come all the way from\nSt. Petersburg. \"They cost a ruble and a half a piece,\" said the son,\nadding that at a recent concert the whole stage was smothered with\norchids. Another at the table talked of a little recreation trip to\nItaly, but thought it troublesome to be obliged to spend thirty-nine\nhours in an express train, and regretted that aviation had not\nproceeded far enough to make possible a trip to Italy in shorter time.\nThe count contrasted these table sights and sounds with those he had\nseen and heard in the village in the course of the day, and he left the\ntable even sadder than he was when he came to it.\n\n\n                                                  Third part described\n                                                  peasant oppression.\n\nThe third part of the article deals with the taxation of the villagers.\nFrom one old peasant the tax collectors took his samovar--the brass\nkettle for making tea--as indispensable to a Russian as a stove is to\nus. From another, a widow, they took a sheep; from another they took\na cow, and so on. One poor woman offered him some linen at the price\nof two rubles, the amount she needed for taxes, saying that, if she\nfailed to make the sale, they will seize not only the linen but also\nher chickens, her only means of support. That women play so large a\npart in these taxations is due to so many of the men having been killed\nin the Japanese war, or serving in the army. Upon remonstrating with\nthe village authorities, he was told that they were sorry for the\npoor people, but helpless, that they had received instructions from\nheadquarters to be unsparing in the discharge of their duty. Upon\nvisiting the district chief he was made clearly to recognize that back\nof his severity lay his ambition for promotion as a reliable, immovable\ngovernment official.\n\n\n                                                  Felt that all his\n                                                  labors had been in\n                                                  vain.\n\nLittle wonder, that the government suppressed the publication of this\nlast of Tolstoy's writings. Little wonder, that the three days spent\namid the miseries of the villagers saddened his heart beyond endurance.\nAnd still less wonder, that the government's responsibility for it, and\nthe world's indifference to it, even his own family's, drove him to\ndespair, ripened in him the resolve to retire to some wilderness, where\nthe soul would no longer be harrowed by the sight of human outrages and\nsufferings.\n\nIn the midst of such miseries as he saw, he must have felt that the\nmore than half a century of unceasing labors in behalf of the poor\nand down-trodden, all his renunciations and sacrifices had all been\nin vain. He must have felt that the lot of the peasant was as bad\nas ever, that the government was as cruel as before, that all his\nwritings and all his pleadings for a more equitable division of God's\ngifts had failed to make the slightest impression upon the people,\njudging by the extravagances within his own family, seeing four\ncourses of delicacies on his own table, at a single meal, two kinds\nof wine, costly orchids, when, at but a short distance away, men and\nwomen, even children, working infinitely harder than any of his own\nfamily, deserving infinitely more than any who lord it over them, were\nliterally starving for the want of the necessities of life, were dying\nin agony for the want of medical care and ordinary comforts, had their\nlast possession taken from them by pitiless tax-collectors for the\nsupport of a vast army of soldiers and officials, for the maintenance\nof a costly and an oppressive autocracy.\n\n\n                                                  Noted his discontent\n                                                  when in conversation\n                                                  with him.\n\nEven as far back as 1894, when he was sixteen years younger than he was\nat the time of his flight, even then I noted in my conversations with\nhim an undercurrent of deep sorrow when dwelling on the sufferings of\nthe people, an occasional outburst of impatience at the slowness of\nprogress, and now and then a cry of despair, an utter hopelessness of\never seeing a state of society different from what it was.\n\n\n                                                  Those responsible for\n                                                  wrongs charged him\n                                                  with irreligion.\n\nWhat seemed to vex him most was seeing the very people who were\nresponsible for these wrongs and outrages considering themselves\nreligious, and branding as infamous such a man as he whose sole cry\nwas for justice and right. \"Because they mumble so many prayers a\nday,\" said he to me, when speaking of Pobdiedonostzief, \"and cross\nthemselves so many times, and fast so many days in the year, they\nconsider themselves Christian, as for the rest of their conduct, one\nfinds it difficult to believe that they had ever heard of the _Sermon\non the Mount_, of the _Golden Rule_ or of the _Mosaic command\" \"Thou\nshall love thy neighbor as thyself.\"_ Asking me for an explanation of\nReform Judaism, and telling him that is was founded upon an emphasis on\nthe spirit of religion rather than on its forms, he replied that it\nwould not be tolerated in Russia, that the mere words Reform and Spirit\nwere quite sufficient to condemn it. The government knows that they who\nseek the Spirit also seek the Truth, and it is afraid that Truth will\noverthrow autocracy and hierarchy, blind obedience and stupid ceremony,\nand will set men free.\n\n\n                                                  Few men had studied\n                                                  religion as much as\n                                                  he.\n\nThere are many things in connection with Tolstoy which Russia of\nthe future will wish to see expunged from the pages of its history,\nand chief of these will be its having branded him as infamously\nirreligious. Few men have been as genuinely religious as he. Few men\nhave given religion as much thought as he. Few men have written on\nreligious subjects as much as he.\n\n\n                                                  Rebelled against\n                                                  adulteration of\n                                                  religion.\n\nHe studied the Scriptures in the original languages, and carefully he\nread Church doctrine and dogmatic theology, and the more he read the\nfirmer became his conviction that _Christ's Christianity_ was quite a\ndifferent thing from _Church Christianity_. He rejected the latter,\nand fervently he espoused the former. Three-fourth of what passes for\nChristianity, he said, has no historical nor logical nor spiritual\nwarrant. He saw how its fundamental principle, the equality of all men\nas sons of God, had been perverted to give the classes the right to\nenslave the masses. He saw how a divine being had been made of Jesus,\nand how this enabled the church to say that living the life he lived,\nand practicing the precepts he preached was impossible for human\nbeings. He had read in the Scriptures not to resist evil, and yet had\nbeen taught the soldier's trade, the art of killing. The army to which\nhe had belonged was called \"The Christophile Army,\" and it was sent\nforth with a Christian benediction. One day, he said, he was reading in\nHebrew, with a Rabbi, the fifth chapter of Matthew. After nearly every\nverse the Rabbi said \"This is in the Old Testament or in the Talmud,\"\nand showed me the corresponding passages. When we reached the words\n\"Resist no evil,\" the Rabbi did not say \"This is in the Talmud,\" but\nhe asked \"Do the Christians obey this command? Do they turn the other\ncheek?\" \"I had nothing to say in reply,\" said Tolstoy, \"for at that\nparticular time, Christians, far from turning the other cheek, were\nsmiting the Jews upon both cheeks. I saw the support the church gave to\npersecutions and to the death penalty, and my soul cried out against\nit.\"\n\nAnd his mind rebelled, he said and wrote, against the mythology which\nwas paraded as theology, such teachings as the immaculate conception,\nthe heaven opening and the angels singing, Christ's flying through the\nair and into the sky, and seating himself at the right hand of God. He\ndenounced as blasphemous such teachings as that by partaking of the\nSacrament God's body becomes assimilated with that of man, or that of\nGod being three Gods in one, being still angry at man for the sin of\nAdam, and sending His only son on earth to be crucified so that by the\nson's blood the father's wrath may be appeased. He regarded as unworthy\neven of heathens such teachings as that salvation for sin depended on\nbeing baptized, and that God will visit eternal punishment on those who\ndo not believe in His divinely begotten son. He professed a sincere\nbelief in God as the author of all existence, and as the source of all\nlove. He believed that death meant a new and higher birth. He believed\nthat God's will was most clearly expressed in the teachings of the man\nJesus, whom to consider and pray to as God he regarded as blasphemous.\n\n\n                                                  Compressed\n                                                  religion into five\n                                                  commandments.\n\nHe compressed the teachings of Jesus into the following commandments:\nI. \"Do not be angry. II. Do not lust. III. Do not give away the control\nof your future actions by taking oaths. IV. Do not resist evil. V. Do\nnot withhold love from any one.\" These five commandments he developed\ninto a comprehensive moral philosophy, and by it he conscientiously\nendeavored to guide his life and thought.[8]\n\n       [8] See his books \"_My Confession_,\" \"_My Religion_,\" and Aylmer\n       Maude's _The Life of Tolstoy_.\n\n\n                                                  Was indebted for his\n                                                  faith to peasants.\n\nAnd for that strong and simple faith of his, which is destined, in the\nnot distant future, to inaugurate an era in the religious world similar\nto that which Luther inaugurated four centuries earlier in Germany, he\nwas indebted to the peasants. During the libertine life of his early\nyears, he had lost the little faith that had been taught him in his\nchildhood. He had returned to his estate an avowed atheist, and as such\nhad he continued for some time, until, one day, he inquired into what\nit was that made the wretchedly poor and ignorant and hard-working\npeasants contented with their lot, resigned to their fate, bearing\nhardships and sufferings unmurmuringly, and looking happily forward\nto the end. He found it in their faith. \"Surely,\" said he, \"a state\nof mind that can do so much for the poor is worth having by all.\" And\nhe devoted himself to a diligent study of their religion. He found\nit burdened with foreign accretions, contaminated with a putrid mass\nthat had been gathered during centuries of darkness and superstition,\nadulterated with all kinds of conscious and unconscious inventions.\nStripping away the foreign and putrid and false, he alighted upon a\nrational, satisfying faith, the faith which he believed to have been\nthat of the Rabbi of Nazareth, and, henceforth, consecrated his life to\nthe propagation of it.\n\n\n                                                  Gave them his life\n                                                  and labor in return.\n\nAnd more yet than what the peasants gave to him he gave to them in\nreturn. He gave them himself, and, in the end, he sacrificed even his\nlife for them. He found them down-trodden serfs, he endeavored to make\nfree men of them. He found them cowed and bowed, he taught them to\nwalk and stand erect. He found them unbefriended, he became a brother\nto them. He found them wretchedly poor, he renounced pleasure and\ntreasure, luxury and ease, to lessen as much as he could the distance\nbetween them and himself. He dressed as they dressed, and labored as\nthey labored, and, as far as permitted, ate the kind of food they\nate. He found them stalking in darkness, he brightened their way for\nthem. He found them ignorant and at the mercy of priest and government\nofficial, he became their advocate, dared to brave an all-powerful\nautocracy in the defense of their rights. He started schools for them.\nHe gave up writing for the thousands of select readers that he might\nwrite for the millions of illiterate peasants and other laborers. He\nwrote special booklets for them, and sold them at a loss, at one-half\ncent a copy, stories, legends, symbolical tales, moral plays and\nreligious tracts, all fitted for their minds and stations, and intended\nto deepen in them the law of love and right.\n\n\n                                                  Died believing he had\n                                                  failed.\n\nTo have sacrificed and renounced and dared as much and as long as\nhe had, and, in the end, to find what he found, in his three days\nobservation of village miseries and outrages, was more than his great\nheart could stand. It broke. He was eighty-two years old. He could no\nlonger continue the fight. He could no longer look upon the suffering\nof the unfortunates, nor upon the wrongs of the world, nor upon the\nextravagances even within his own family. He regarded his whole\nlife-work a dismal failure. He knew of no other balm for his bleeding\nheart than flight from the world to some secluded spot, there, as a\nhermit, to await the end, which he knew was not far distant. Truly\npathetic were his farewell lines to his wife:\n\n  \"I cannot continue longer to live a life of ease and luxury while\n  others starve and suffer. Like many other old men, I retire from the\n  world to await my end in solitude. I ask that you do not seek my\n  place of sojourn, and that you do not come to it if it be discovered.\n  I beg forgiveness for the grief that I may cause you.\"\n\n\n                                                  Characteristic of\n                                                  great reformers.\n\nHe was not the first of the world's great reformers and lovers of\nhumanity to lose heart and to experience spells of despair. Moses and\nElijah and Jesus and others had their hours of agony, and prayed that\nthe end might come, and deliver them from their hopeless labors. And\nmany who, like Tolstoy, closed their eyes in the belief that they had\nutterly failed loomed large in subsequent ages among the greatest of\nthe world's benefactors.\n\n\n                                                  Succeeded better than\n                                                  he knew.\n\nTolstoy has not failed. He succeeded better than he knew. His pathetic\ndeath revealed the vast number of followers he had in his own country\nand in all parts of the world. And had he cared to inquire, he might\nhave known it before his death. He could have seen it from the fact\nthat more books of his were sold than of all other Russian authors\ncombined. He could have seen it in the vast crowds that gathered all\nalong the line, to catch a glimpse of him, when on his journey, a few\nyears ago, to the Crimea, in search of health. He could have seen it\nin the deputations of sympathizers that waited upon him, and in the\nstreams of congratulatory letters and telegrams that rushed in upon\nhim--till suppressed--after his excommunication. He could have seen it\nin the Tolstoyan societies among the students of almost all the Russian\nuniversities and among other bodies. He could have seen it among the\nconsiderable number of landlords, who made conscientious efforts at\nfollowing his life, and at adopting his mode of dealing with peasants\nand laborers. Were the yoke of autocracy removed, there would arise\nin Russia an army of Tolstoyans as vast and mighty as the host which\nEzekiel in his vision saw in the valley of dry bones.\n\n\n                                                  Religion of future\n                                                  will be largely\n                                                  Tolstoyan.\n\nThe religion of Russia of the future will be largely that which Tolstoy\nlived and taught, and it will be the religion of a large part of the\nrest of the world. Time's sifting process will eliminate whatever is\nuntenable in his system of moral and social and economic philosophy,\nwhich sprang more from a flaming heart than from a cool, calculating\nmind. He had neither the time nor the inclination to work out a\nsynthetic philosophy. He wrote as the spirit moved him, and whenever it\nmoved him, the keynote of all his writing having been, as he said to\nme, \"the hastening of the day when men will dwell together in the bonds\nof love, and sin and suffering will be no more.\"\n\nThere are in the Tolstoyan system of religion the elements of the\nlong-dreamed of universal creed. It will take time for the rooting of\nit. Mormonism and Dowieism spring up, like Jonah's gourd, and pass away\nas speedily as they came. A system as rational and radical as that of\nTolstoy requires an age for germination. But, once it takes root, it\ntakes root forever; once it blossoms, it blossoms for eternity.\n\n\n\n\nPublications of Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D. 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Bound in cloth,                              1.00     .10\n\n  =_Old Truths in New Books._=--Eight Discourses\n  in pamphlet form,                                    .50     .05\n\n  =_Society and its Morals._=--Seven Discourses,\n  handsomely bound,                                   1.00     .08\n\n  =_Prejudice, its Genesis and Exodus._=--Eight\n  Discourses.                                          .50     .05\n\n  =_My Visit to Tolstoy._=--Five Discourses            .35     .05\n\n  =_The Service Manual._=--A book of _Prayers_,\n  _Meditations_, _Responses_, and _Hymns_\n  differing each Sabbath and each Holiday.\n  Complete for the entire year, in one volume.\n  400 pages.\n    Bound in Cloth,                                   1.50     .12\n    Morocco,                                          2.50     .12\n\n  =_The Service Hymnal._=--Containing the\n  Service for Friday Evening, Sunday Morning and\n  the Sabbath School also the Music for all the\n  Hymns of the Service Manual.\n    Bound in Cloth,                                    .50     .08\n    Bound in Morocco,                                 1.50     .08\n\n  =_The Mourner's Service._=--A book of Prayers\n  at the house of mourning, or at the\n  anniversary of the departed,                         .25     .05\n\n  =_Sunday Discourses._=--Bound in Cloth, from\n  1887 to 1910. Per Volume,                           1.50     .12\n\n\n                              FOR SALE BY\n\n                            OSCAR KLONOWER,\n\n                                   Keneseth Israel Temple.","title":"\"My Visit to Tolstoy\": Five Discourses","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":16840}