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Bethink Yourselves! - Leo Tolstoy · Science Fiction Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of Bethink Yourselves. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Bethink
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  Speaker 1: Yourselves by Leo Tolstoy, translated by V. Chertkoff. Bethink Yourselves.
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  Speaker 1: This is your hour and the power of darkness Luke,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty two, Verse fifty three. Chapter one again, war again,
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  Speaker 1: sufferings necessary to nobody, utterly uncalled for again, fraud again,
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  Speaker 1: the universal stupefaction and brutalization of men, men who are
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  Speaker 1: separated from each other by thousands of miles, hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: thousands of such men. On the one hand, Buddhists, whose
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  Speaker 1: law forbids the killing not only of men but of animals.
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  Speaker 1: On the other hand, Christians, professing the law of brotherhood
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  Speaker 1: and love, like wild beasts on land and on sea,
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  Speaker 1: are seeking out each other in order to kill, torture,
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  Speaker 1: and humiliate each other in the most cruel way. What
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  Speaker 1: can this be? Is it a dream or a reality?
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  Speaker 1: Something is taking place which should not cannot be. One
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  Speaker 1: longs to believe that it is a dream and to
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  Speaker 1: awake from it. But no, it is not a dream,
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  Speaker 1: it is a dreadful reality. One could yet understand how
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  Speaker 1: a poor, uneducated, defrauded Japanese torn from his field and
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  Speaker 1: taught that Buddhism consists not in compassion to all that lives,
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  Speaker 1: but in sacrifices to idols. And how a similar poor,
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  Speaker 1: illiterate fellow from the neighborhood of Tula or Nizhny Novgorod,
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  Speaker 1: who had been taught that Christian Zianity consists in worshiping Christ,
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  Speaker 1: the Madonna, saints and their icons. One could understand how
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  Speaker 1: these unfortunate men, brought by the violence and deceit of
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  Speaker 1: centuries to recognize the greatest crime in the world, the
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  Speaker 1: murder of one's brethren, as a virtuous act, can commit
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  Speaker 1: these dreadful deeds without regarding themselves as being guilty in
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  Speaker 1: so doing. But how can so called enlightened men preach war,
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  Speaker 1: support it, participate in it, and, worst of all, without
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  Speaker 1: suffering the dangers of war themselves incite others to it,
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  Speaker 1: sending their unfortunate, defrauded brothers to fight. These so called
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  Speaker 1: enlightened men cannot possibly ignore, I do not say the
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  Speaker 1: Christian law if they recognize themselves to be Christians. But
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  Speaker 1: all that has been written, is being written, has and
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  Speaker 1: is being said about the cruelty, futility, and senselessness of war.
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  Speaker 1: They are regarded as enlightened men precisely because they know
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  Speaker 1: all this. The majority of them have themselves written and
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  Speaker 1: spoken about this. Not to mention the Hague Conference which
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  Speaker 1: called forth universal praise, or all the books, pamphlets, newspaper
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  Speaker 1: articles and speeches demonstrating the possibility of the solution of
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  Speaker 1: international misunderstandings by international arbitration, no enlightened man can help
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  Speaker 1: knowing that the universal competition in the armaments of states
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  Speaker 1: must inevitably lead them to endless wars, or to a
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  Speaker 1: general bankruptcy, or to both the one and the other.
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  Speaker 1: They cannot but know that, besides the senseless, purposeless expenditure
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  Speaker 1: of milliards of roubles, that is, of human labour on
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  Speaker 1: the preparation for war, during the wars themselves, millions of
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  Speaker 1: the most energetic and vigorous men perish in that period
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  Speaker 1: of their life which is best for productive labor. During
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  Speaker 1: the past century, wars have destroyed fourteen million men. Enlightened
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  Speaker 1: men cannot but know that occasions for war are always
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  Speaker 1: such as are not worth not only one human life,
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  Speaker 1: but not one hundredth part of all that which is
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  Speaker 1: spent upon wars. In fighting for the emancipation of the negroes,
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  Speaker 1: much more was spent than it would have cost to
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  Speaker 1: redeem them from slavery. Every One knows and cannot help
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  Speaker 1: knowing that above all wars calling forth the lowest animal passions,
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  Speaker 1: deprave and brutalize men. Every One knows the weakness of
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  Speaker 1: the arguments in favor of war, such as were brought
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  Speaker 1: forward by Demet Moltke and others, for they are all
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  Speaker 1: founded on the sophism that in every human calamity it
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  Speaker 1: is possible to find an advantageous element, or else upon
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  Speaker 1: the utterly arbitrary assertion that wars have always existed and
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  Speaker 1: therefore always must exist, as if the bad actions of
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  Speaker 1: men could be justified by the advantages or the usefulness
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  Speaker 1: which they realize, or by the consideration that they have
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  Speaker 1: been committed during a long period of time. All so
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  Speaker 1: called enlightened men know all this. Then suddenly war begins,
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  Speaker 1: and all this is instantly forgotten. And the same men
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  Speaker 1: who but yesterday were proving the cruelty, futility and senselessness
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  Speaker 1: of wars. Now think, speak, and write only about killing
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  Speaker 1: as many men as possible, about ruining and destroying the
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  Speaker 1: greatest possible amount of the productions of human labor, and
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  Speaker 1: about exciting much as possible the passion of hatred in
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  Speaker 1: those peaceful, harmless, industrious men who by their labor feed, clothe,
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  Speaker 1: maintain these same pseudo enlightened men who compel them to
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  Speaker 1: commit those dreadful deeds contrary to their conscience, welfare, and faith.
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  Speaker 1: End of chapter one, Chapter two of Bethink Yourselves by
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  Speaker 1: Leo Tolstoy, translated by V. Chertkoff. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Something is taking place incomprehensible and
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  Speaker 1: impossible in its cruelty, falsehood, and stupidity. The Russians are
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  Speaker 1: the same man who exhorted all the nations in the
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  Speaker 1: course of peace, publicly announces that notwith step and all
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  Speaker 1: his efforts to maintain the peace so dear to his heart,
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  Speaker 1: efforts which express themselves in the seizing of other people's
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  Speaker 1: lands and in the strengthening of armies for the defense
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  Speaker 1: of these stolen lands. He, owing to the attack of
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  Speaker 1: the Japanese, commands that the same shall be done to
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  Speaker 1: the Japanese as they have commenced doing to the Russians,
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  Speaker 1: that is, that they should be slaughtered. And in announcing
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  Speaker 1: this call to murder, he mentions God, asking the divine
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  Speaker 1: blessing on the most dreadful crime in the world. The
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  Speaker 1: Japanese Emperor has proclaimed the same thing in relation to
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  Speaker 1: the Russians. Men of science and of law, Monsieur Moraviev
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  Speaker 1: and Martins strenuously try to prove that in the recent
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  Speaker 1: call of all nations to universal peace and the present
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  Speaker 1: incitement to war because of the seizure of other people's lands,
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  Speaker 1: there is no contradiction. Diplomatists, in their refined French language,
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  Speaker 1: publish and send out circulars in which they circumstantially and
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  Speaker 1: diligently prove, though they know no one believes them, that,
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  Speaker 1: after all its efforts to establish peaceful relations in reality,
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  Speaker 1: after all its efforts to deceive other countries, the Russian
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  Speaker 1: government has been compelled to have recourse to the only
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  Speaker 1: means for a rational solution of the question, that is,
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  Speaker 1: to the murder of men. The same thing is written
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  Speaker 1: by Japanese diplomatists, scientists, historians and philosophers on their side,
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  Speaker 1: comparing the present with the past, deduce from these comparisons
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  Speaker 1: profound conclusions and argue interminably about the laws of the
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  Speaker 1: movement of nations, about the relation between the yellow and
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  Speaker 1: white races, or about Buddhism and Christianity, and on the
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  Speaker 1: basis of these deductions and arguments, justify the slaughter of
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  Speaker 1: those belonging to the Yellow race by Christians, while in
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  Speaker 1: the same way the Japanese scientists and philosophers justify the
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  Speaker 1: slaughter of those of the white race. Journalists, without concealing
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  Speaker 1: their joy, try to outdo each other and not hesitating
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  Speaker 1: at any falsehood, however, impudent and transparent, prove in all
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  Speaker 1: possible ways that the Russians only are right and strong
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  Speaker 1: and good in every respect, and that all the Japanese
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  Speaker 1: are wrong and weak and bad in every respect, and
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  Speaker 1: that all those are also bad who are inimical or
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  Speaker 1: may become inimical toward the Russians, the English, the Americans.
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  Speaker 1: And the same is proved likewise by the Japanese and
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  Speaker 1: their supporters in relation to the Russians. Not to mention
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  Speaker 1: the military, who, in the way of their profession, prepare
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  Speaker 1: for murder crowds of so called ends enlightened people such
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  Speaker 1: as professors, social reformers, students, nobles, merchants, without being forced
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  Speaker 1: there too by anything or anybody, express the most bitter
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  Speaker 1: and contemptuous feelings toward the Japanese, the English, or the Americans,
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  Speaker 1: toward whom but yesterday they were either well disposed or indifferent,
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  Speaker 1: while without the least compulsion, they expressed the most abject
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  Speaker 1: servile feelings toward the Czar, to whom, to say the least,
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  Speaker 1: they were completely indifferent, assuring him of their unlimited love
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  Speaker 1: and readiness to sacrifice their lives in his interests. This unfortunate,
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  Speaker 1: entangled young man, recognized as the leader of one hundred
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  Speaker 1: and thirty millions of people, continually deceived and compelled to
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  Speaker 1: contradict himself, confidently thanks and blesses the troops, whom he
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  Speaker 1: calls his own for murder in defense of lands which,
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  Speaker 1: with yet less right he also calls his own all
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  Speaker 1: present to each other hideous icons in which not only
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  Speaker 1: no one amongst the educated beliefs, but which unlearned peasants
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  Speaker 1: are beginning to abandon all bow down to the ground
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  Speaker 1: before these icons kiss them and pronounce pompous and deceitful
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  Speaker 1: speeches in which no one really believes. Wealthy people contribute
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  Speaker 1: insignificant portions of their immorally acquired riches for this cause
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  Speaker 1: of murder or the organization of help in connection with
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  Speaker 1: the work of murder, while the poor, from whom the
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  Speaker 1: government annually collects two milliards, deem it necessary to do
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  Speaker 1: likewise giving their mights. Also, the government insights and encourages
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  Speaker 1: crowds of idlers who walk about the streets with the
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  Speaker 1: Tsar's portrait, singing shouting Hurrah, and who under pretext of patriotism,
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  Speaker 1: are licensed in all kinds of excess all over Russia,
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  Speaker 1: from the palace to the remotest village. The pastors of churches,
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  Speaker 1: calling themselves Christians, appealed to that God who has enjoined
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  Speaker 1: love to one's enemies, to the God of love himself
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  Speaker 1: to help the work of the devil to further the
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  Speaker 1: slaughter of men, stupefied by prayers, sermons, exhortations by professions,
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  Speaker 1: pictures and newspapers, the canon's flesh, hundreds of thousands of men,
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  Speaker 1: uniformly dressed, carrying diverse deadly weapons, leaving their parents, wives,
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  Speaker 1: children with hearts of agony, but with artificial sprightliness go
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  Speaker 1: where they, risking their own lives, will commit the most
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  Speaker 1: dreadful act of killing men whom they do not know
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  Speaker 1: and who have done them no harm. And they are
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  Speaker 1: followed by doctors and nurses who somehow imagine that at
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  Speaker 1: home they cannot serve simple, peaceful, suffering people, but can
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  Speaker 1: only serve those who are engaged in slaughtering each other.
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  Speaker 1: Those who remain at home are gladdened by news of
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  Speaker 1: the murder of men, and when they learn that many
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  Speaker 1: Japanese have been killed, they thank someone whom they call God.
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  Speaker 1: All this is not only regarded as the manifestation of
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  Speaker 1: elevated feeling, but those who refrain from such manifestations, if
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  Speaker 1: they endeavor to disabuse men, are deemed traitors and betrayers,
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  Speaker 1: and are in danger of being abused and beaten by
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  Speaker 1: a brutalized crowd, which, in defense of its insanity and cruelty,
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  Speaker 1: can possess no other weapon than brute force. End of
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  Speaker 1: chapter two, Chapter three of Bethink Yourselves by Leo Tolstoy,
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  Speaker 1: translated by V. Chertkoff. This LibriVox recording is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. It is as if there had never existed,
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  Speaker 1: either Voltaire or Montaigne, or Pascal, or Swift, or cant
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  Speaker 1: or Spinosa, or hundreds of other writers who have exposed
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  Speaker 1: with great force the madness and futility of war, and
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  Speaker 1: have described its cruelty, immorality, and savagery. And above all,
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  Speaker 1: it is as if there had never existed Jesus and
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  Speaker 1: his teaching of human brotherhood and love of God and
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  Speaker 1: of men. One recalls all this to mind, and looks
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  Speaker 1: around on what is now taking place, and one experiences
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  Speaker 1: horror less at the abominations of war than that which
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  Speaker 1: is the most horrible of all horrors, the conscien useness
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  Speaker 1: of the impotency of human reason, that which alone distinguishes
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  Speaker 1: man from the animal, that which constitutes his merit. His
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  Speaker 1: reason is found to be an unnecessary, and not only
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  Speaker 1: a useless, but a pernicious addition, which simply impedes action,
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  Speaker 1: like a bridle fallen from a horse's head and entangled
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  Speaker 1: in his legs, and only irritating him. It is comprehensible
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  Speaker 1: that a Heathen, a Greek, a Roman, even a medieval Christian,
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  Speaker 1: ignorant of the Gospel and blindly believing all the prescriptions
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  Speaker 1: of the Church, might fight, and fighting pride himself on
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  Speaker 1: his military achievements. But how can a believing Christian or
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  Speaker 1: even a skeptic, involuntarily permeated by the Christian ideals of
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  Speaker 1: human brotherhood and love which have inspired the works of
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  Speaker 1: the philosophers, moralists and artists of our time. Can such
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  Speaker 1: take a gun or stand by a canon and aim
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  Speaker 1: at a crowd of his fellow men, desiring to kill
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  Speaker 1: as many of them as possible. The Assyrians, Romans or
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  Speaker 1: Greeks might be persuaded that in fighting they were acting
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  Speaker 1: not only according to their conscience, but even fulfilling a
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  Speaker 1: righteous deed. But whether we wish it or not, we
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  Speaker 1: are Christians, and however Christianity may have been distorted, its
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  Speaker 1: general spirit cannot but lift us to that higher plane
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  Speaker 1: of reason. Whence we can no longer refrain from feeling
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  Speaker 1: with our whole being, not only the senselessness and the
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  Speaker 1: cruelty of war, but its complete opposition to all that
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  Speaker 1: we regard as good and right. Therefore, we cannot do
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  Speaker 1: as they did with assurance, firmness and peace, and without
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  Speaker 1: a consciousness of our criminality, without the death sperate feeling
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  Speaker 1: of a murderer, who, having begun to kill his victim,
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  Speaker 1: and feeling in the depths of his soul the guilt
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  Speaker 1: of his act, proceeds to try to stupefy or infuriate
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  Speaker 1: himself to be able the better to complete his dreadful deed.
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  Speaker 1: All the unnatural, feverish, hot headed, insane excitement which has
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  Speaker 1: now seized the idle upper ranks of Russian society is
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  Speaker 1: merely the symptom of their recognition of the criminality of
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  Speaker 1: the work which is being done. All these insolent, mendacious
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  Speaker 1: speeches about devotion to and worship of the monarch, about
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  Speaker 1: readiness to sacrifice life, or one should say, other people's
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  Speaker 1: lives and not one's own. All these promises to defend
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  Speaker 1: with one's breast land which does not belong to one,
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  Speaker 1: All these senseless benedictions of each other with various banners
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  Speaker 1: and monstrous icons, All these taedeums, all these preparations of
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  Speaker 1: blankets and bandages, all these detachments of nurses, All these
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  Speaker 1: contributions to the fleet and to the Red Cross presented
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  Speaker 1: to the government, whose direct duty is whilst it has
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  Speaker 1: the possibility of collecting from the people as much money
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  Speaker 1: as it requires having declared war, to organize the necessary
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  Speaker 1: fleet and necessary means for attending the wounded. All these slavonic, pompous,
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  Speaker 1: senseless and blasphemous prayers, the utterance of which in various
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  Speaker 1: towns is communicated in the papers as important news. All
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  Speaker 1: these processions calls for the national hymn cheers. All this dreadful,
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  Speaker 1: desperate newspaper mendacity, which being universal, does not fear exposure.
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  Speaker 1: All this stupefaction and brutalization which has now taken hold
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  Speaker 1: of Russian society, and which is being transmitted by degrees
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  Speaker 1: also to the masses. All this is only a symptom
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  Speaker 1: of the guilty consciousness of that dreadful act which is
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  Speaker 1: being accomplished. Spontaneous feeling tells men that what they are
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  Speaker 1: doing should not be But as the murderer who has
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  Speaker 1: begun to assassinate his victim cannot stop, so also Russian
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  Speaker 1: people now imagine that the fact of the deadly work
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  Speaker 1: having been commenced is an unanswerable argument in favor of war.
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  Speaker 1: War has been begun, and therefore it should go on. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: it seems too simple benighted, unlearned men acting under the
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  Speaker 1: influence of the petty passions and stupefactions to which they
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  Speaker 1: have been subjected in exactly the same way, the most
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  Speaker 1: educated men of our time argue to prove that man
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  Speaker 1: does not possess free will, and that therefore, even were
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  Speaker 1: he to understand that the work he has commenced is evil,
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  Speaker 1: he can no longer cease to do it, and dazed,
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  Speaker 1: brutalized men continue their dreadful work. End of chapter three,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Chapter four of Bethink Yourselves by Leo Tolstoy, translated by V. Chertkoff.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Ask a soldier,
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  Speaker 1: a private, a corporal, a non commissioned officer, who has
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  Speaker 1: abandoned his old parents, his wife, his children, why he
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  Speaker 1: is preparing to kill men whom he does not know?
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: He will at first be astonished at your question. He
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  Speaker 1: is a soldier, he's taken the oath, and it's his
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: duty to fulfill the orders of his commanders. If you
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: tell him that war the slaughter of men does not
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  Speaker 1: conform to the command, thou shalt not kill, he will say,
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  Speaker 1: And how if ours are attacked for the king, for
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  Speaker 1: the Orthodox faith? One of them said, in answer to
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: my question, and how if he attacks that which is sacred?
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  Speaker 1: What do you mean, I asked, why said he the banner?
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  Speaker 1: And if you endeavor to explain to such a soldier
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  Speaker 1: that God's commandment is more important, not only than the banner,
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  Speaker 1: but than anything else in the world, he will become silent,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: or he will get angry and report you to the authorities.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Ask an officer, a general why he goes to war.
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  Speaker 1: He will tell you that he is a military man,
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  Speaker 1: and that the military are indispensable for the defense of
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  Speaker 1: the fatherland. As to murder not conforming to the spirit
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  Speaker 1: of the Christian law, this does not trouble him, as
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  Speaker 1: either he does not believe in this law, or if
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  Speaker 1: he does, it is not in the law itself, but
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  Speaker 1: in that explanation which has been given to this law.
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  Speaker 1: And above all, he, like the soldier, in place of
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  Speaker 1: the personal question what should he do himself, always puts
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  Speaker 1: the general question about the state or the fatherland. At
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  Speaker 1: the present moment, when the fatherland is in danger, one
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  Speaker 1: should act and not argue, he will say. Ask the diplomats, who,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: by their deceits prepare wars, why they do it. They
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  Speaker 1: will tell you that the object of their activity is
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the establishment of peace between nations, and that this object
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: is attained not by ideal unrealisable theories, but by diplomatic
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: action and readiness for war. And just as the military,
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  Speaker 1: instead of the question concerning one's own action, place the
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  Speaker 1: general question, so also diplomatists will speak about the interests
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  Speaker 1: of Russia, about the unscrupulousness of other powers, about the
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  Speaker 1: balance of power in Europe, but not about their own
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  Speaker 1: position and its activities. Ask the journalists why by their
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  Speaker 1: writings they incite men to war? They will say that
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  Speaker 1: wars in general are necessary and useful, especially the present war.
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  Speaker 1: And they will confirm this opinion of theirs by misty
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  Speaker 1: patriotic phrases. And just like the military and diplomatists, to
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  Speaker 1: the question why he a journalist, a particular individual, a
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  Speaker 1: living man acts in a certain way, he will speak
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  Speaker 1: about the general interests of the nation, about the state, civilization,
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  Speaker 1: the white race. In the same way, all those who
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: prepare war will explain their participation in that work. They
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  Speaker 1: will perhaps agree that it would be desirable to abolish
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  Speaker 1: war present, that is impossible at present. They as Russians
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  Speaker 1: and as men who occupy certain positions such as heads
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  Speaker 1: of the nobility, representatives of local self government, doctors, workers
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  Speaker 1: of the Red Cross are called upon to act and
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  Speaker 1: not to argue. There is no time to argue and
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  Speaker 1: to think of oneself, they will say, when there is
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  Speaker 1: a great common work to be done. The same will
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  Speaker 1: be said by the Czar, seemingly responsible for the whole thing. He,
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  Speaker 1: like the soldier, will be astonished at the question where
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the war is now necessary? He does not now even
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: admit the idea that the war might yet be arrested.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: He will say that he cannot refrain from fulfilling that
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: which is demanded of him by the whole nation. That
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: although he does recognize that war is a great evil,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and has used and is ready to use all possible
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: means for its abolition, in the pres case, he could
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: not help declaring war and cannot help continuing it. It
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: is necessary for the welfare and glory of Russia. Every
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: one of these men to the question why he so
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and so? Ivan Peter Nicholas, whilst recognizing as binding upon
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: him the Christian law which not only forbids the killing
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: of one's neighbor, but demands that one should love him,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: serve him, why he permits himself to participate in war,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: that is, in violence, lute murder, will infallibly answer the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: same thing that he is thus acting in the name
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: of his fatherland, or faith, or oath, or honor, or civilization,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: or the future welfare of the whole of mankind in general,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of something abstract and indefinite. Moreover, these men are always
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: so urgently occupied, either by preparation for war or by
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: its organization or discussions about it, that in their leisure
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: time they can only rest from their labors and have
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: not time to occupy themselves with discussions about their life.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Regarding such discussions as idle end of chapter four, chapter
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: five of Bethink Yourselves by Leo Tolstoy, translated by V. Chertkoff.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Men of
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: our Christian world and of our time are like a
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: man who, having missed the right turning. The further he goes,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: the more he becomes convinced he's going the wrong way.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Yet the greater his doubts, the quicker, and the more
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: desperately does he hurry on, consoling himself with the thought
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: that he will arrive somewhere. But the time comes when
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: it becomes quite clear that the way along which he
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: is going will lead to nothing but a precipice which
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: he is already beginning to discern. Before him. In such
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: a position stands the Christian humanity of our time. It
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: is perfectly evident that if we continue to live as
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: we are now living, guided in our private lives as
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: well as in the life of separate states, by the
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: sole desire of welfare for ourselves and for our state,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and will as we do now think to ensure this
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: welfare by violence, then inevitably increasing the means of violence
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: of one against the other and of state against state,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: we shall first keep subjecting ourselves more and more, transferring
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the major portion of our productiveness to armaments, and secondly,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: by killing in mutual wars the best physically developed men,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: we must become more and more degenerate and morally depraved.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: That this will be the case if we do not
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: alter our life is as certain as it is mathematically
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: certain that two non parallel straight lines must meet. But
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: not only is this theoretically certain in our time, it
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: is becoming certain not only to thought, but also to
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the consciousness. The precipice which we approach is already becoming
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: apparent to us, and the most simple, non philosophizing and
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: uneducated men cannot but see that by arming ourselves more
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and more against each other and slaughtering each other in war, we,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: like spiders in a jar, can come to nothing else
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: but the destruction of each other. A sincere rational man
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: can no longer console himself by the thought that matters
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: can be mended, as was formally supposed by a universal
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: empire such as that of Rome, or of Charles the
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Great or Napoleon, or by the medieval spiritual power of
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the Pope, or by holy alliances, by the political balance
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: of the European concert, and by peaceful international tribunals, or
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: as some have thought, by the increase of military strength
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: and the newly discovered powerful weapons of destruction. It is
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: impossible to organize a universal empire or republic consisting of
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: European states, as different nationalities will never desire to unite
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: into one state to organize international tribunals for the solution
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of international disputes. But who will impose obedience to the
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: decision of the tribunal upon a contending party who has
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: an organized army of millions of men to disarm? No
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: one desires it, or will begin it to invent yet
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: more dreadful means of destruction, balloons with bombs filled with
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: suffocating gases, shells which men will shower upon each other
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: from above. Whatever may be invented, all states will furnish
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: themselves with similar weapons of destruction and cannon's flesh as
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: after called weapons. It submitted to bullets and meekly exposed
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: itself to shells, bombs, far reaching guns mitrayeurs mines, so
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: it will also submit to bombs charged with suffocating gases
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: scattered down upon it from balloons. Nothing shows more evidently
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: than the speeches of Monsieur Moraviev and Professor Martin's about
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the Japanese War, not contradicting the Hague Peace Conference. Nothing
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: shows more obviously than these speeches, to what an extent
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: amongst the men of our time the means for the
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: transmission of thought speech is distorted, and how the capacity
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: for clear rational thinking is completely lost. Thought and speech
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: are used for the purpose not of serving as a
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: guide for human activity, but of justifying any activity, however
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: criminal it may be. The Late Boer War and the
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: present Japanese War, which can at any moment pass into
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: a universal slaughter have proved this beyond all doubt. All
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: anti military discussions can as little contribute to the cessation
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: of war as the most eloquent and persuasive considerations addressed
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: to fighting dogs as to its being more advantageous to
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: divide the piece of meat over which they're struggling than
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: to mutilate each other and lose the piece of meat,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: which will be carried away by some passing dog not
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: joining in the fight. We are dashing on toward the
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: precipice cannot stop, and we are approaching its edge. For
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: every rational man who reflects upon the position in which
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: humanity is now placed, and upon that which it is
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: inevitably approaching, it cannot but be obvious that there is
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: no practical issue out of this position, that one cannot
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: devise any combination or organization which would save us from
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the destruction towards which we are inevitably rushing. Not to
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: mention the economical problems which become more and more complex,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: those mutual relations between the states arming themselves against each
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: other and at any moment ready to break out into wars,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: clearly point to the certain destruction towards which all so
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: called civilized humanity is being carried, then what is to
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: be done? End of chapter five, chapter six of Bethink
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Yourselves by Leo Tolstoy, translated by V. Chertkoff. This LibriVox
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Two thousand years ago,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: John the Baptist and then Jesus said to men, the
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Meta nooite bethink yourselves and believe in the Gospel Mark
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: chapter one, verse fifteen. And if you do not bethink yourselves,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you will all perish Luke chapter thirteen, verse five. But
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: men did not listen to them, and the destruction they
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: foretold is already near at hand, and we men of
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: our time cannot but see it. We are already perishing,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: and therefore we cannot leave unheeded that old in time
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: but for us and no means of salvation. We cannot
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: but see that, besides all the other calamities which flow
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: from our bad and irrational life, military preparations alone and
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: the wars inevitably growing from them, must infallibly destroy us.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: We cannot but see that all the means of escape
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: invented by men from these evils are found and must
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: be found to be ineffectual, and that the disastrous position
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: of the nations arming themselves against each other cannot but
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: go on advancing continually. And therefore the words of Jesus
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: refer to us and our time more than to any
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: time or to any one. Jesus said, bethink yourselves. That is,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: let every man interrupt the work he has begun, and
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: ask himself who am I from whence have I peered?
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: And in what consists my destiny? And having answered these
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: questions according to the answer, decide whether that which thou
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: doest is in conformity with thy destiny. And every man
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: of our world and time that is being acquainted with
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the essence of the Christian teaching, needs only for a
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: minute to interrupt his activity, to forget the capacity in
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: which he is regarded by men, be it of emperor, soldier, minister,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: or journalist, and seriously ask himself who he is and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: what is his destiny? In order to begin to doubt
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: the utility, lawfulness, and reasonableness of his actions. Before I
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: am emperor, soldier, minister, or journalist, must say to himself,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: every man of our time and of the Christian world
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: before any of these. I am a man, that is,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: an organic being, sent by the Higher Will into a
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: universe infinite in time and space, in order, after staying
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: in it for an instant, to die, that is, to
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: disappear from it. And therefore all those personal, social, and
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: even universal human aims which I may place before myself,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: and which are placed before me by men, are all
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: insignificant owing to the shortness of my life as well
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: as to the infiniteness of the life of the universe,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: and should be subordinated to that higher aim for the
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: attainment of which I am sent into the world. This
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: ultimate aim, owing to my limitations, is inaccessible to me,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: but it does exist, as there must be a purpose
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: in all that exists, and my business is that of
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: being its instrument. That is my destiny. My vocation is
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: that of being a workman of God, of fulfilling his work.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: And having understood this destiny, every man of our world
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: and time, from emperor to soldier, cannot but regard differently
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: those duties which he has taken upon himself or other
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: men have imposed upon him. Before I was crowned recognized
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: as Emperor. Must the emperor say to himself before I
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: undertook to fulfill the duties of the head of the state. I,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: by the very fact that I live, have promised to
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: fulfill that which is demanded of me by the higher
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Will that sent me into life. These demands I not
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: only know, but feel in my heart. They consist as
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: it is expressed in the Christian law which I profess
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: in that I should submit to the will of God
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: and fulfill that which it requires of me. That I
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: should love my neighbor, serve him, and act towards him
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: as I would wish others to act towards me. Am
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I doing this? Ruling men prescribing violence, executions, and the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: most dreadful of all wars men tell me that I
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: ought to do this, But God says that I ought
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: to do something quite different. And therefore, however much I
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: may be told that as the head of the state,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I must direct acts of violence, the levying of taxes, executions,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: and above all war, that is the slaughter of one's neighbor,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I do not wish to and cannot do these things.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: So must say to himself. The soldier who is taught
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: that he must kill men, and the minister who deemed
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: it his duty to prepare for war, and the journalist
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: who incited to war, and every man who puts to
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: himself the question who is he? What is his destination
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: in life? And the moment the head of the state
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: will cease to direct war, the soldier to fight, the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: minister to prepare means for war, the journalist to incite thereto. Then,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: without any new institutions, adaptations, balance of power, tribunals, their
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: will of itself be destroyed, that hopeless position in which
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: men have placed themselves not only in relation to war,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: but also to all other calamities which they themselves inflict
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: upon themselves, so that, however strange, this may appear. The
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: most effective and certain deliverance of men from all the
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: calamities which they inflict upon themselves, and from the most
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: dreadful of all war, is attainable not by any external
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: general measures, but merely by that simple appeal to the
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: consciousness of each separate man, which nineteen hundred years ago
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: was proposed by Jesus, that every man bethink himself and
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: ask himself who is he, why he lives, and what
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: he should and should not do. End of Chapter six,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Chapter seven of Bethink Yourselves by Leo Tolstoy, translated by V. Tchertkoff.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The evil
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: from which men of our time are suffering is produced
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: by the fact that the majority live without that which
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: alone affords a rational guidance for human activity. Without religion,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Not that religion which consists in belief in dogmas, in
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: the fulfillment of rights, which afford a pleasant diversion, consolation, stimulant,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: but that religion which establishes the relation of man to
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: the all, to God, and therefore gives a general higher
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: direction to all human activity, and without which people stand
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: on the plane of animals, and even lower than they.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: This evil, which is leading men to inevitable destruction, has
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: manifested itself with special power in our time, Because, having
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: lost all rational guidance in life, and having directed all
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: efforts to discoveries and improvements, principally in the sphere of
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: technical knowledge, men of our time have developed in themselves
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: enormous power over the forces of nature. But not having
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: any guidance for the rational adaptation of this power, they
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: naturally have used it for the satisfaction of their lowest
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: and most animal propensities, bereft of religion. Men possessing enormous
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: power over the forces of nature are like children to
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: whom powder or explosive gas has been given as a plaything.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Considering this power which men of our time possess, and
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: the way they use it, one feels that, considering the
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: degree of their moral development, men have no right not
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: only to the use of railways, steam, electricity, telephones, photography,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: wireless telegraphs, but even to the simple art of manufacturing
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: iron and steel. As all these improvements and arts they
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: use only for the satisfaction of their lusts, for amusement, dissipation,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: and the destruction of each other. Then what is to
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: be done to reject all these improvements of life, all
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: this power acquired by humanity, to forget that which it
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: has learned. This is impossible, however perniciously these mental acquisitions
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: are used. They still are acquisitions, and men cannot forget them.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: To alter those combinations of nations which have been formed
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: during centuries, and to establish new ones, to invent such
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: new institutions as would hinder the minority from deceiving and
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: exploiting the majority, to disseminate knowledge. All this has been tried,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: and is being done with great fervor. All these imaginary
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: methods of improvement represent the chief methods of self oblivion
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and of diverting one's attention from the consciousness of inevitable perdition.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: The boundaries of states are changed, institutions are altered. Knowledge
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: is disseminated, but within other boundaries with others organizations. With
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: increased knowledge, men remain the same beasts, ready any minute
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: to tear each other to pieces, or the same slaves
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: they have always been and always will be, while they
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: continue to be guided not by religious consciousness but by passions, theories,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: and external influences. Man has no choice. He must be
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: the slave of the most unscrupulous and insolent amongst slaves,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: or else the servant of God, because for man there
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: is only one way of being free, by uniting his
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: will with the will of God. People bereft of religion,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: some repudiating religion itself, others recognizing as religion those external
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: monstrous forms which have superseded it, and guided only by
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: their personal lusts, fear human laws, and above all by
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: mutual hypnotism, cannot cease to be animals or slaves, and
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: no external efforts can extricate them from this state. For
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: only religion makes a man free, and most of the
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: people of our time are deprived of it. End of
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: chapter seven, Chapter eight of Bethink Yourselves by Leo Tolstoy,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: translated by V. Tchertkoff. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: public domain. But in order to abolish the evil from
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: which we are suffering, those will say, who are preoccupied
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: by various practical activities, it would be necessary that not
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: a few men only, but all men, should bethink themselves,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: and that, having done so, they should uniformly understand the
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: destination of theirs lives in the fulfillment of the will
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: of God and in the service of one's neighbour. Is
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: this possible? Not only possible, do I answer, But it
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: is impossible that this should not take place. It is
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: impossible for men not to bethink themselves. That is impossible
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: that each man should not put to himself the question
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: as to who he is and wherefore he lives. For man,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: as a rational being, cannot live without seeking to know
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: why he lives. And he has always put to himself
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: this question, and always, according to the degree of his development,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: has answered it in his religious teaching. In our time,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: this inner contradiction, in which men feel themselves, elicits this
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: question with special insistence and demands an answer. It is
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: impossible for men of our time to answer this question
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: otherwise than by recognizing the law of life in love
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: to men and in the service of them, this being,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: for our time the only rational answer as to the
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: meaning of human life, and this answer, nineteen hundred years
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: ago has been expressed in the Christian religion and is
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: likewise known to the vast majority of all mankind. This answer,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: in a latent state, lives in the consciousness of all
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: men of the Christian world of our time, but it
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: does not openly express itself and serve as guidance for
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: our life. Only because on the one hand, those who
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: enjoy the greatest authority, so called scientists, being under the
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: coarse error that religion is a temporary and outgrown step
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: in the development of mankind, and that men can live
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: without religion, inculcate this error to those of the masses
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: who are beginning to be educated. And on the other hand,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: because those in power, sometimes consciously but often unconsciously, being
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: under the error that the Church faith is Christian religion
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: endeavor to support and excite in the people crude superstitions
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: given out as the Christian religion. If only these two
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: deceptions were to be destroyed, then true religion, already latent
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: in men of our time, would become evident and obligatory.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: To bring this about, it is necessary that, on the
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: one hand, men of science should understand that the principle
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: of the brotherhood of all men and the rule of
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: not doing unto others what one does not wish for oneself,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: is not one casual idea out of a multitude of
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: human theories, which can be subordinated to any other considerations,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: but is an incontestable principle, standing higher than the rest,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: and flowing from the changeless relation of man, that which
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: is eternal to God and is religion, all religion, and
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: therefore always obligatory. On the other hand, it is necessary
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: that those who consciously or unconsciously preach crude superstitions under
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: the guise of Christianity should understand that all these dogmas, sacraments,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: and rites which they support and preach are not only
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: as they think, harmless, but are in the highest degree pernicious,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: concealing from men, that central religious truth, which is expressed
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: in the fulfillment of God's will in the service of men,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: and that the rule of acting toward others as one
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: would wish others to act toward oneself is not merely
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: one of the prescriptions of the Christian religion, but is
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: the whole of practical religion, as indeed is stated in
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: the Gospels. To bring about that men of our time
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: should year uniformly placed before themselves the question of the
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: meaning of life, and uniformly answer it. It is only
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: necessary that those who regard themselves as enlightened should cease
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: to think and to inculcate to other generations that religion
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: is activism, the survival of a past wild state, and
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: that for the good life of men, the spreading of
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: education is sufficient, that is, the spread of the most
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: varied knowledge, which is in some way to bring men
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: to justice into a moral life. These men should understand
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: instead that for the good life of humanity, religion is vital,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: and that this religion already exists and lives in the
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: consciousness of the men of our time, Men who are
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: intentionally and unintentionally stupefying the people by church superstitions should
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: cease to do so and recognize that what is important
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: and binding in Christianity is not baptism, nor communion, nor
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: profession of dogmas, et cetera, but only love to God
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: and to one's neighbour, and the fulfilling of the commandment
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: of acting toward others as one wishes others to act
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: toward oneself, And that in this lies all the law
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: and the prophets. If only both pseudo Christians and men
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: of science understood and preach to children and to the
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: uneducated these simple, clear and necessary truths, as they now
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: preach their complicated, confused and unnecessary theories, all men would
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: uniformly understand the meaning of their lives and recognize one
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: and the same duties as flowing from this meaning. End
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: of chapter eight, Chapter nine of Bethink Yours by Leo Tolstoy,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: translated by V. Chertkoff. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: public domain. But how are we to act now immediately
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: among ourselves in Russia, at this moment, when our foes
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: have already attacked us, are attacking our people and threatening us.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: What should be the action? I shall be asked of
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: a Russian soldier, officer, general, czar, private, individual? Are we
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: forsooth to allow our enemies to ruin our possessions, to
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: seize the productions of our labors, to carry away prisoners,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: or kill our men? What are we to do now
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: that this thing has begun? But before the work of
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: war was commenced, By whommever it was commenced, every awakened
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: man must answer before all else the work of my
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: life was commenced. And the work of my life has
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: nothing in common with recognition of the rights of the Chinese,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Japanese or Russians to port Arthur. The work of my
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: life consists in fulfilling the will of Him who sent
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: me into this life. This will is known to me.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: This will is that I should love my neighbor and
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: serve him. Then why should I, following temporary, casual, irrational
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: and cruel demands, deviate from the known, eternal and changeless
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: law of all my life? If there be a God,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: he will not ask me when I die, which may
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: happen at any moment, whether I retained Jinampur with its
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: timber stalls, or port Arthur, or even that conglomeration which
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: is called the Russian empire, which he did not confide
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: to my care. But he will ask me what I
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: have done with that life which he put at my disposal?
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Did I use it for the purpose for which it
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: was predestined and under the conditions for fulfilling which it
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: was entrusted to me? Have I fulfilled his law? So
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: that to this question as to what is to be
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: done now when war is commenced, for me, a man
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: who understands his destiny, whatever position I may occupy, there
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: can be no other answer than this. Whatever be my circumstances,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: whether the war be commenced or not, whether thousands of
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Russians or Japanese be killed, whether not only Port Arthur
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: be taken but Saint Petersburg and Moscow, I cannot act
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: otherwise than as God demands of me. And that therefore, I,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: as a man, can neither directly nor indirectly, neither by directing,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: nor by helping, nor by inciting to it, participate in war.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: I cannot, I do not wish to, and I will not.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: What will happen immediately or soon from my ceasing to
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: do that which is contrary to the will of God,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: I do not and cannot know. But I believe that
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: from the fulfillment of the will of God, they can
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: follow nothing but that which is good for me and
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: for all men. You speak with horror about what might
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: happen if we Russians at this moment cease to fight
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: and surrendered to the Japanese what they desire from us.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: But if it be true that the salvation of mankind
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: from brutalization and self destruction lies only in the establishment
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: amongst men of that true religion which demands that we
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: should love our neighbor and serve him, with which it
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: is impossible to disagree, then every war, every hour of war,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: and my participation in it, only renders more difficult and
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: distant the realization of this only possible salvation. So that
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: even if one places oneself in the unstable point of
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: view of defining actions according to their presumed consequences, even
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: then the surrender to the Japanese by the Russians of
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: all which the former desire of us, besides the unquestionable
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: advantage of the cessation of ruin and slaughter, would be
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: an approach to the only means of the salvation of
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: mankind from destruction. Whereas the continuance of the war however
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: it may end, will be a postponement of that only
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: means of salvation. Yet, even if this be so, it
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: is replied, wars can cease only when all men or
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: the majority, will refuse to participate in them. But the
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: refusal of one man, whether he bizarre or soldier, will
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: only unnecessarily and without the slightest profit, to anyone ruin
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: his life. If the Russians are were now to throw
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: up the war, he would be dethroned, perhaps killed, in
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: order to get rid of him. If an ordinary man
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: were to refuse military service, he would be sent to
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: a penal battalion and perhaps shot. Why then, without the
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: slightest use, should one throw away one's life, which may
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: be profitable to society. This is the common question of
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: those who do not think of the destination of their life,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: and therefore do not understand it. But this is not
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: what is said and felt by any man who understands
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: the destination of his life, that is, by any religious man.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Such a man is guided in his activity not by
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: the presumed consequences of his action, but by the consciousness
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: of the destination of his life. A factory man goes
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: to his factory and in it accomplishes the work which
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: has allotted him, without considering what would be the consequences
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: of his labour. In the same way a soldier acts
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: carrying out the will of his commanders, so acts a
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: religious man in fulfilling the work prescribed to him by God,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: without arguing as to what precisely will come of that work. Therefore,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: for a religious man there is no question as to
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: whether many or few men act as he does, or
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: of what may happen to him if he does that
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: which he should do. He knows that besides life and death,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: nothing can happen, and that life and death are in
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: the hands of God, whom he obeys. A religious man
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: acts thus and not otherwise, not because he desires to
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: act thus, nor because it is advantageous to himself or
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: to other men, but because, believing that his life is
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: in the hands of God, he cannot act otherwise. In
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: this lies the distinction of the activity of religious men.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: And therefore it is that the salvation of men from
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: the calamities which they inflict upon themselves can be realized
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: only in that degree in which they are guided in
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: their lives, not by advantage nor arguments, but by religious consciousness.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: End of chapter nine, Chapter ten of Bethink Yourselves by
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Leo Tolstoy, translated by V. Chertkoff. This LibriVox recording is
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. But how about the enemies that
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: attack us? Love your enemies and you will have none,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: is said in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. This
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: answer is not merely words, as those may imagine who
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: are accustomed to think that the recommendation of love to
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: one's enemies is something hyperbolical and signifies not that which
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: is expressed, but something else. This answer is the indication
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: of a very clear and definite activity and of its consequences.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: To love one's enemies, the Japanese, the Chinese, those yellow
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: people toward whom benighted men are now endeavoring to excite
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: our hatred. To love them means not to kill them
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: for the purpose of having the right of poisoning them
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: with opium, as did the English, not to kill them
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: in order to seize their land, as was done by
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: the French, the Russians and the Germans. Not to bury
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: them alive in punishment for injuring roads, not to tie
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: them together by their hair, not to drown them in
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: their river Amur, as did the Russians. A disciple is
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: not above his master. It is enough for a disciple
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: that he be as his master. To love the yellow people,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: whom we call our foes, means not to teach them
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: under the name of Christianity, absurd superstitions about the fall
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: of man, redemption, resurrection, et cetera, not to teach them
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: the art of deceiving and killing others, but to teach
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: them justice, unselfishness, compassion, love, and that not by words,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: but by the example of our own good life. And
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: what have we been doing to them and are still doing.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: If we did indeed love our enemies, If even now
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: we began to love our enemies, the Japanese, we would
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: have no enemy. Therefore, however strange it may appear to
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: those occupied with military plans, preparations, diplomatic considerations, administrative financial,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: economical measures, revolutionary socialistic propaganda, and various unnecessary sciences by
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: which they think to se save mankind from its calamities.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: The deliverance of man not only from the calamities of war,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: but also from all the calamities which men inflict upon
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: themselves will take place not through emperors or kings instituting
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: peace alliances. Not through those who would dethrone emperors kings
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: or restrain them by constitutions or substitute republics for monarchies.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Not by peace conferences, not by the realization of socialistic programs,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: not by victories or defeats on land or sea, not
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: by libraries or universities, nor by those futile mental exercises
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: which are now called science. But only by there being
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: more and more of those simple men, who, like the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Ducubors drogin Olkovic in Russia, the Nazarenes in Austria, Condatier
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: in France, Turvey in Holland, and others, having placed as
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: their object not external alterations of life, but the closest
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: fulfillment in themselves of the will of Him who has
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: sent them into life, will direct all their powers to
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: this realization. Only such people, realizing the Kingdom of God
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: in themselves, in their souls, will establish, without directly aiming
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: at this purpose, that external Kingdom of God, which every
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: human soul is longing for salvation, will come to pass
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: only in this one way, and not in any other. Therefore,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: what is now being done by those who ruling men
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: inspire them with religious and patriotic superstitions, exciting in them exclusiveness, hatred,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: and murder, as well as by those who, for the
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: purpose of freeing men from slavery and oppression, invoke them
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: to violent external revolution, or think that the acquisition by
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: men are very much incidental and for the most part unnecessary,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: information will of itself bring them to a good life.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: All this, by distracting men from what alone they need,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: only removes them further from the possibility of salvation. The
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: evil from which the men of the Christian world suffer
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: is that they have temporarily lost religion. Some people, having
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: come to see the discord between the existing religion and
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: the degree of mental and scientific development attained by humanity
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: at the present time, have decided that in general no
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: religion whatever is necessary. They live without religion and preach
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: the uselessness of any religion of whatever kind. Others holding
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: to that distorted form of the Christian religion which is
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: now preached, likewise live without religion, professing empty external forms
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: which cannot serve as guidance for men. Yet a religion
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: which answers to the demands of our time does exist,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: and is known to all men, and in a latent
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: state lives in the hearts of men of the Christian world. Therefore,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: that this religion should become evident to and binding upon
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: all men. It is only necessary that educated men, the
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: leaders of the masses, should understand that religion is necessary
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: to man, that without religion men cannot live a good life,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: and that what they call science cannot replace religion, and
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: that those in power and who support the old, empty
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: forms of religion should understand that what they support and
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: preach under the form of religion is not only not religion,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: but is the chief obstacle to men's appropriating the true religion,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: which they already know, and which can alone deliver them
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: from their calamities. So that the only certain means of
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: man's salvation consists merely in ceasing to do that which
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: hinders men from assimilating the true religion which already lives
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: in their consciousness. End of chapter ten, Chapter eleven of
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Bethink Yourselves by Leo Tolstoy, translated by V. Tchertkoff. This
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. I had finished
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: this writing when news came of the destruction of six
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: hundred innocent lives opposite Port Arthur. It would seem that
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: the useless suffering and death of these unfortunate, deluded men,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: who have needlessly and so dreadfully perished, ought to disabuse
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: those who were the cause of this destruction. I'm not
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: alluding to Makharoff and other officers. All these men knew
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: what they were doing and wherefore, and they voluntarily, for
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: personal advantage, for ambition, did as they did, disguising themselves
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: in pretended patriotism, a pretense not condemned merely because it
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: is universal. I allude rather to those unfortunate men, drawn
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: from all parts of Russia, who, by the help of
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: religious fraud and under fear of punishment, have been torn
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: from an honest, reasonable, useful, laborious family life, driven to
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: the other end of the world, placed on a cruel,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: senseless machine for slaughter, and torn to bits, drowned along
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: with this stupid machine in a distant sea, without any
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: need or any possibility of advantage from all their privations,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: efforts and sufferings, or from the death which overtook them.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty, during the Polish War, the Adjutant Villaginsky
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: sent to Saint Petersburg by Klopitsky in a conversation held
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: in French with Dibysch an answer to the latter's demand
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: that the Russian troops should enter Poland and said to him,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Monsieur le Marechal, I think that in that case it
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: will be quite impossible for the Polish nation to accept
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: this manifesto. Believe me, the Emperor will make no further concessions.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: Then I foresee that unhappily there will be war, that
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: much blood will be shed, There will be many unfortunate victims.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Do not think so. At most there will be ten
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: thousand who will perish on both sides. And that is all,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: said Dibitch in his German accent, quite confident that he,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: together with another man as cruel and foreign to Russia
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: and Polish life as he was himself, Nicholas the First,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: had the right to condemn or not to condemn to
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: death ten or one hundred thousand Russians and Poles. One
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: hardly believes that this could have been so senseless and
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: dreadful as it, And yet it was. Sixty thousand maintainers
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: of their families lost their lives owing to the will
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: of those men, And now the same thing is taking
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: place in order not to let the Japanese into Manchuria
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: and to expel them from career. Not ten thousand, but
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: fifty and more thousand will, according to all probability, be necessary.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: I do not know whether Nicholas the second and Kurupatkin say,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: like Dibitch in so many words, that not more than
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand lives will be necessary for this on the
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: Russian side alone only and only that. But they think it.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: They cannot but think it, because the work they are
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: doing speaks for itself. That ceaseless stream of un unfortunate,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: deluded Russian peasants now being transported by thousands to the
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: far East. These are those same not more than fifty
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: thousand live Russian men whom Nicholas Romanov and Alexis Kuropatkin
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: have decided they may get killed, and who will be
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: killed in support of those stupidities, robberies, and every kind
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: of abomination which were accomplished in China and Korea by immoral,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: ambitious men, now sitting peacefully in their palaces and expecting
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: new glory and new advantage and prophet from the slaughter
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: of these fifty thousand unfortunate, defrauded Russian working men, guilty
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: of nothing and gaining nothing by their sufferings and death.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: For other people's land to which the Russians have no right,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: which has been criminally seized from its legitimate owners, and
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: which in reality is not even necessary carry to the Russians,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: and also for certain dark dealings by speculators who in
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: career wish to gain money out of other people's forests.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: Many millions of money are spent. That is a great
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: part of the labour of the whole of the Russian people.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: While the future generations of this people are bound by debts,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: Its best workmen are withdrawn from labour, and scores of
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: thousands of its sons are mercilessly doomed to death. And
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: the destruction of these unfortunate men is already begun. More
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: than this, the war is being managed by those who
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: have hatched it so badly, so negligently. All is so unexpected,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: so unprepared, that, as one paper admits, Russia's chief chance
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: of success lies in the fact that it possesses inexhaustible
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: human material. It is upon this that those rely who
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: send to death scores of thousands of Russian men. It
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: is frankly said that the regrettable reverses of our fleet
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: must be compensated on the land. In plain language, this
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: means that if the authorities have badly directed things on sea,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: and by their negligence have destroyed not only the nation's millions,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: but thousands of lives, we can make it up by
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: condemning to death on land several more scores of thousands.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: When crawling locusts cross rivers, it happens that the lower
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: layers are drowned, until from the bodies of the drowned
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: is formed a bridge over which the upper ranks can pass.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: In the same way are the Russian people being disposed of.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: Thus the first lower layer is already beginning to drown,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: indicating the way to other thousands, who will all likewise perish,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: And are the original directors and supporters of this dreadful
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: work beginning to understand their sin, their crime. Not in
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: the least. They are persuaded that they have fulfilled and
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: are fulfilling their duty, and they are proud of their activity.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: People speak of the loss of the brave Makaroff, who,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: as all agree, was able to kill men very cleverly.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: They deplore the loss of a drowned excellent machine of slaughter,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: which had cost so many millions of roubles. They discussed
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: the question of how to find another murderer as capable
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: as the poor, benighted Makaroff. They invent new, still more
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: efficacious tools of slaughter. And all the guilty men engaged
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: in this dreadful work, from the Czar to the humblest journalist,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: all with one voice, call for new insanities, new cruelties,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: for the increase of brutality and hatred of one's fellow men. Quote.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: Makaroff is not the only man in Russia, and every
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: admiral placed in his position will follow in his steps
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: and will continue the plan and the idea of makarov
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: who has nobly perished in the strife, writes the novel
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: of Remier. Quote, let us earnestly pray God for those
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: who have laid down their lives for the sacred Fatherland,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: without doubting for one moment that the Fatherland will give
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: us new sons equally virtuous for the further struggle, and
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: will find in them an inexhaustible store of strength for
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: a worthy completion of the work, writes the Saint Petersburg
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: via Domosty quote. A ripe nation will draw no other
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: conclusion from the defeat, however unprecedented, than that we should
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: continue develop and conclude the strife. Therefore, let us find
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: in ourselves new strength. New heroes of the spirit will arise,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: writes the Ross, and so forth. So murder and every
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: kind of crime go on with greater fury. People enthusiastically
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: admire the martial spirit of the volunteers, who, having come
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: unexpectedly upon fifty of their fellow men, slay all of them,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: or take possession of a village and slaughter all its population,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: or hang or shoot those accused of being spies, that is,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: of doing the very same thing which is regarded as
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: indispensable and is constantly done on our side. News about
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: these crimes is reported in pompous telegrams to their chief director,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: the Czar, who in return sends to his virtuous troops
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: his blessing on the continuation of such deeds. Is it
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: not evident that if there be a salvation from this position,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: it is only one that one which Jesus teaches. Seek
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: you first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, that
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: which is within you, and all the rest that is
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: all that practical welfare toward which man is striving will
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: of itself be realized. Such is the law of life.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: Practical welfare is attained not when man strives toward this
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: practical welfare. Such striving, on the contrary, for the most part,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: removes man from the attainment of what he seeks. But
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: only when man, not thinking of the attainment of practical welfare,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: strives toward the most perfect fulfillment of that which, before God,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: before the source and law of his life, he regards
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: as right. Then only incidentally is practical welfare also attained.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: So that the true salvation of men is only one thing,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: the fulfillment of the will of God by each individual
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: man within himself, that is, in that portion of the
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: universe which alone is subject to His power. In this
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: is the chief, the only destiny, and duty of every
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: individual man. And at the same time, this is the
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: only means by which every individual man can influence others.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: And therefore to this, and to this only, should all
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: the efforts of every man be directed. May the second
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: nineteen oh four end of chapter eleven, chapter twelve of
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: Bethink Yourselves by Leo Tolstoy, translated by v. Chertkoff. This
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. I had only
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: just dispatched the last of the preceding pages of this
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: paper when the dreadful news came of a new iniquity
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: committed in regard to the Russian people by those light
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: minded men who, crazed with power, have appropriated the right
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: of managing them again coarse and servile slaves of slaves,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: dressed up in various dazzling attires, varieties of generals wishing
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: to distinguish themselves or to earn the right to add
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: one more little star, fingle fangle or scrap of ribbon
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: to their idiotic, glaring get up or else from stupidity
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: or carelessness. Again, these miserable men have destroyed, amid dreadful sufferings,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: thousands of those honorable, kind, hard working laborers who feed them.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: And again, this iniquity not only does not cause those
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: responsible for it to reflect and repent, but one hears
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: and reads only about its being necessary as speedily as possible,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: to mutilate and slaughter a greater number of men, and
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: to ruin still more families, both Russian and Japanese. More
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: than this, to prepare men for fresh iniquities of this kind.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: The perpetrators of these crimes far from recognizing what is
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: evident to all, viz. That for the Russians, this event,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: even from their patriotic military point of view, was a
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: scandalous defeat endeavored to assure credulous people that these unfortunate
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: Russian laboring men lured into a trap like cattle, into
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: a slaughter house, of whom several thousands have been killed
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: and maimed, merely because one general did not understand what
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: another general had said, have performed an act of heroism,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: because those who could not run away were killed, and
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: those who did run away remained alive. As to the
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: fact that one of those immoral and cruel men distinguished
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: by the titles of generals admirals drowned a quantity of
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: peace useful Japanese. This is also described as a great
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: and glorious act of heroism, which must gladden the hearts
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: of Russians, and in all the papers are reprinted this
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: awful appeal to murder quote. Let the two thousand Russian
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: soldiers killed on the Yarlu, together with the maimed Retvisan
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: and her sister ships, with our lost torpedo boats. Teach
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: our cruisers with what devastation they must break in upon
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: the shores of base Japan. She has sent her soldiers
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: to shed Russian blood, and no quarter should be afforded her.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: Now one cannot, it is sinful be sentimental. We must fight.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: We must direct such heavy blows that the memory of
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: them shall freeze the treacherous hearts of the Japanese. Now
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: is the time for the cruisers to go out to sea,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: to reduce to ashes the towns of Japan, flying as
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: a dreadful calamity along its shores. No more sent mentality
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: the frightful work commenced is continued. Lute violence, murder, hypocrisy, theft,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: and above all, the most fearful fraud. The distortion of
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: religious teachings, both Christian and Buddhistic continue. The Czar, the
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: chief responsible person, continues to review the troops, to thank,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: reward and encourage them. He issues an edict for the
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: calling out of the reserves. His faithful subjects again and
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: again lay down their property and lives at the feet
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: of him. They call only with their lips their adored monarch,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, desiring to distinguish themselves before each
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: other in deeds and not in words only. They tear
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: away the fathers and the breadwinners from their orphaned families,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: preparing them for slaughter. The worse the position of Russia,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: the more reckless do the journalists lie, transforming shameful defeats
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: into victories, knowing that no one will contradict them, and
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: they quietly collect money from subscriptions and sales. The more
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: money and labor of the people is devoted to the war,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: the more is grabbed by various authorities and speculators, who
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: know that no one will convict them because everyone is
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: doing the same. The military trained for murder, having passed
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: years in a school of inhumanity, coarseness, and idleness, rejoice
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: poor men, because, besides an increase of their salary, the
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: slaughter of superiors opens vacancies for their promotion. Christian pastors
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: continue to invite men to the greatest of crimes, continue
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: to commit sacrilege, praying God to help the work of war,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: and instead of condemning, they justify and praise that pastor who,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: with the cross in his hands on the very sea
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: of murder, encouraged men to the crime. The same thing
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: is going on in Japan, the benighted Japanese go in
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: for murder with yet greater fervor. Owing to their victories,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: the Mikado also reviews and rewards his troops. Various generals
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: boast of their bravery, imagining that having learned to kill,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: they have acquired enlightenment. So too grown the unfortunate working people,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: torn from useful labour and from their families. So their
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: journalists also lie and rejoice over their gains. Also, probably,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: for where murder is elevated into virtue, every kind of
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: vice is bound to flourish. Also, probably all kinds of
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: commanders and speculators earn money. And Japanese theologians and religious teachers,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: no less than the masters in the techniques of armament,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: do not remain behind the Europeans in the techniques of
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: religious dedas, deceit and sacrilege, but distort the great Buddhistic
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: teaching by not only permitting but justifying that murder which
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: Buddha forbade. The Buddhistic scientist Soyen Shaku, ruling over eight
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: hundred monasteries, explains that although Buddha forbade manslaughter, he also
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: said he could never be at peace until all beings
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: are united in the infinitely loving heart of all things,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: and that therefore, in order to bring into harmony that
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: which is discordant, it is necessary to fight and to
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: kill men. It is as if there had never existed
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: the Christian and Buddhistic teaching about the unity of the
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: human spirit, the brotherhood of men, love, compassion, the sacredness
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: of human life. Men, both Japanese and Russians, already enlightened
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: by the truth, yet like wild animals, nay worse than
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: wild animals, throw themselves upon each other with the sole
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: desire to destroy as many lives as possible. Thousands of
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: unfortunates groan and writhe in cruel sufferings and die in
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: agony in Japanese and Russian field hospitals, asking themselves in bewilderment,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: why this fearful thing was done with them, While other
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: thousands are already rotting in the earth, or on the earth,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: or floating in the sea in swollen decomposition, and scores
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: of thousands of wives, fathers, mothers, children are bemoaning their
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: bread winners, uselessly destroyed. New and newer victims are being prepared.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: The chief concern of the Russian organizers of slaughter is
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: that on the Russian side the stream of food for
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: cannon three thousand men per day doomed to destruction, should
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: not be interrupted for one minute. The Japanese are preoccupied
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: with the same thing. The locusts are incessantly being driven
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: down into the river in order that the rose behind
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: may pass over the bodies. When will this cease? And
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: the deceived people at last recover themselves and say, well,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: go you yourselves, you heartless czars, mikados, ministers, bishops, priests, generals, editors, speculators,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: or whoever you may be called, Go you yourselves under
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: these shells and bullets. But we do not wish to go,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: and we will not go. Leave us in peace to
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: plow and sow and build, and also to feed you.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: It would be so natural to say this now when
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: amongst us in Russia resounds the weeping and wailing of
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of mothers, wives and children, from whom
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: are being snatched away their bread earners, the so called reserve.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: These same men, the majority of the reserve, are able
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: to read. They know what the Far East is, They
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: know that war is going on, not for anything which
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: is in the least necessary to Russia, but for some
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: dealings in strange land, least lands, as they themselves call them,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: on which it seemed advantageous to some corrupt speculators to
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: build railways and so gain profit. Also they know or
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: might know, that they will be killed like sheep in
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: a slaughter house, since the Japanese possess the latest improvements
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: in tools of murder, which we do not, as the
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: Russian authorities who are sending these people to death had
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: not thought in time of furnishing themselves with the same
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: weapons as the Japanese. Knowing all this, it would indeed
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: be so natural to say, go you, those who have
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: brought on this work, or you to whom war is
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: necessary and who justify it, go you and face the
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: Japanese bullets and mines. But we will not go, because
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: we not only do not need to do this, but
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: we cannot understand how it can be necessary to anyone.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: But no, they do not say this. They go, and
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: they will continue to go. They cannot but go as
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: long as they fear that which ruins the body, and
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: not that which ruins both the body and the soul.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: Whether we shall be killed, they argue or maimed in
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: these chinnampos or whatever they're called. Whither we are driven.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: We do not know it. Yet may happen that we
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: shall get through safely and moreover with rewards and glory,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: like those sailors who are now being feasted all over
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: Russia because the Japanese bombs and bullets did not hit them,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: but somebody else Whereas should we refuse, we should be
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: certainly sent to prison, starved, beaten, exiled to the province
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: of Yakutsk, perhaps even killed immediately. So with despair in
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: their hearts, leaving behind a good, rational life, leaving their
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: wives and their children, they go. Yesterday I met a
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: reservist soldier accompanied by his mother and wife. All three
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: were riding in a cart. He had had a drop
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: too much. His wife's face was swollen with tears. He
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: turned to me, goodbye to thee Levnikolaivitch off to the
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: far east. Well art thou going to fight? Well, someone
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: has to fight. No one need fight, he reflected for
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: a moment. But what is one to do? Where can
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: one escape? I saw that he had understood me, had
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: understood that the work to which he was being sent
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: was an evil work. Where can one escape? That is
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: the precise expression of that mental condition, which in the
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: official and journalistic world is translated into the words for
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: the faith, the Tsar and the fatherland. Those who abandoning
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: their hungry families go to suffering to death say as
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: they feel, where can one escape? Whereas those who sit
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: in safety in their luxurious palaces say that all Russian
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: men are ready to sacrifice their lives for their adored
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: monarch and for the glory and greatness of Russia. Yesterday,
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: from a peasant I know I received two letters, one
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: after the other. This is the first, Dear Levnikolayevitch. Well
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: to day I have received the official announcement of my
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: call to the service. To morrow I must present myself
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: at the headquarters, that is all, and after that to
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: the far East to meet the Japanese bullets. About my
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: own and my household's grief, I will not tell you
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: it is not you who will fail to understand all
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: the horror of my position and the horrors of war.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: All this you have long ago painfully realized, and you
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: understand it all. How I have longed to visit you,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: to have a talk with you. I had written to
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: you a long letter in which I described the torments
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: of my soul, but I had not had time to
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: copy it when I received my summons. What is my
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: wife to do now with her four children? As an
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: old man, of course, you cannot do anything yourself for
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: my folks, but you might ask some of your friends,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: in their leisure to visit my orphaned family. I beg
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: you earnestly that if my wife proves unable to bear
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: the agony of her helplessness with her burden of children,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: and makes up her mind to go to you for
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: help and counsel, you will receive and console her. Although
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: she does not know you personally, she believes in your word,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: and that means much. I was not able to resist
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: the summons, but I say beforehand that through me, not
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: one Japanese family shall be orphaned. My God, how dreadful
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: is all this, How distressing and painful to abandon all
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: by which one lives and in which one is concerned.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: The second letter is as follows, kindness, lev Nikolaivitch. Only
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: one day of actual service has passed, and I have
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: already lived through an eternity of most desperate torments. From
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: eight o'clock in the morning till nine in the evening.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: We have been crowded and knocked about to and fro
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: in the barrack yard like a herd of cattle. The
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: comedy of medical examination was three times repeated, and those
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: who had reported themselves ill did not receive even ten
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: minutes attention before they were marked satisfactory. When we those
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: two thousand satisfactory individuals were driven from the military commander
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: to the barracks along the road spread out for almost
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: averse first stood a crowd of relatives, mothers and wives
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: with infants in arms. And if you had only heard
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: and seen how they clasped their fathers, husbands, sons, and
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: hanging around their necks, wailed hopelessly. Generally, I behave in
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: a reserved way and can restrain my feelings, but I
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: could not hold out, and I also wept. In journalistic language,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: the same is expressed. Thus, the upheaval of patriotic feeling
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: is immense. Where is the standard that can measure all
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: this immensity of woe now spreading itself over almost one
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: third of the world. And we we are now that
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: food for cannon, which in the near future will be
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: offered as sacrifice to the God of vengeance and horror.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: I cannot manage to establish my inner balance. Oh, how
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: I execrate myself for this double mindedness which prevents my
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: serving one Master and God. This man does not yet
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: sufficiently believe that what destroys the body is not dreadful,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: but that which destroys both the body and the soul.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: Therefore he cannot refuse to go. Yet while leaving his
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: own family, he promises beforehand that through him not one
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Japanese family shall be orphaned. He believes in the chief
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: law of God, the law of all religions, to act
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: toward others as one wishes others to act toward oneself.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: Of such men more or less consciously recognizing this law,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: there are in our time, not in the Christian world alone,
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: but in the Buddhistic Mahommedan, Confucian and Brahminic world, not
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: only thousands, but millions. There exist true heroes. Not those
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: who are now being fated because having wished to kill
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: others they were not killed themselves, but true heroes who
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: are now confined in prisons and in the province of
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: Yakutsk for having categorically refused to enter the ranks of murderers,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: and who have preferred martyrdom to this departure from the
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: law of Jesus. There are also such as he who
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: writes to me, who go but who will not kill.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: But also that majority which goes without thinking and endeavors
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: not to think of what it is doing, still, in
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: the depth of its soul, does now already feel that
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: it is doing an evil deed by obeying authorities who
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: tear men from labor and from their families and send
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: them to needless slaughter of men repugnant to their soul
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: and their faith. And they go only because they are
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: so entangled on all sides, where can one escape. Meanwhile,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: those who remain at home not only feel this, but
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: know and express it. Yesterday in the high road I
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: met some peasants returning from Tulla. One of them was
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: reading a leaflet as he walked by the side of
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: his cart. I asked, what is that a telegram? This
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: is yesterday's, but here is one of to day. He
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: took another out of his pocket. We stopped. I read it.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: You should have seen what took place yesterday at the station.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: He said. It was dreadful wives, children, more than a
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: thousand of them weeping. They surrounded the train, but were
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: allowed no further strangers wept looking on. One woman from
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: Tula gasped and fell down dead. Five children. They have
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: since been placed in various institutions, but the father was
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: driven away all the same. What do we want with
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: this Manchuria or whatever it is called. There is sufficient
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: land here, and what a lot of people and of
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: property has been destroyed. Yes, the relation of men to
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: war is now quite different from that which formerly existed,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: even so lately as the year seventy seven. That which
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: is now taking place never took place before. The papers
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: set forth that during the receptions of the Czar, who
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: is traveling about Russia for the purpose of hypnotizing the
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: men who were being sent to murder, indescribable enthusiasm is
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: manifested amongst the people. As a matter of fact, something
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: quite different is being manifested from all sides. One hears
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: reports that in one place three reservists have hanged themselves
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: in another spot, two more in yet another about a
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: woman whose husband had been taken away, bringing her children
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: to the conscription committee room and leaving them there, while
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: another hanged herself in the yard of the military commander.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: All are dissatisfied, gloomy, exasperated. The words for the faith,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: the King and the fatherland. The national anthem and shouts
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: of Hurrah no longer act upon people as they once did.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: Another warfare of a different kind. The struggling consciousness of
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: the deceit and sinfulness of the work to which people
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: are being called is more and more taking possession of
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: the people. Yes, the great strife of our time is
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: not that now taking place between the Japanese and the Russians,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: nor that which may blaze up between the white and
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: yellow races. Not that strife which is carried on by mines, bombs, bullets,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: but that spiritual strife which, without ceasing has gone on
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: and is now going on, between the enlightened consciousness of
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: mankind now waiting for manifestation, and that darkness and that
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: burden which surrounds and oppresses mankind. In his own time,
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: Jesus yearned in expectation and said, I came to cast
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: fire upon the earth, And how I wish that it
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: were already kindled Luke Chapter twelve, verse forty nine. That
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: which Jesus longed for is being accomplished. The fire is
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: being kindled, then do not let us check it, but
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: let us spread and serve it. Thirteenth of May nineteen
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: o four. I should never finish this paper if I
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: were to continue to add to it all that corroborates
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: its essential idea. Yesterday the news came in of the
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: sinking of the Japanese ironclads. And in the so called
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: higher circles of Russian fashionable, rich, intellectual society, they are
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: without the slightest conscientious scruples, rejoicing at the destruction of
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: a thousand human lives. Yet to day I have received
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: from a simple seaman, a man standing on the lowest
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: plane of society, the following letter, much respected, Levnikolaivitch. I
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: greet you with a low bow with love. Much respected, Levnikolaivitch.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: I have read your book. It was very pleasant reading
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: for me. I have been a great lover of reading
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: your works. Well, Levnikolaivitch, we are now in a state
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: of war. Please write to me whether it is agreeable
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: to God or not that our commanders compel us to kill.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: I beg you, Levnikolaivitch, Write to me, please, whether or
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: not the truth now exists on earth. Tell me Levnikolaivitch.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: In church here a prayer is being read. The priest
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: mentions the Christ loving army. Is it true or not
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: that God loves war? I pray you, Levnikolaivitch. Have you
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: got any books from which I could say whether truth
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: exists on earth or not? Send me such books what
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: they cost I will pay. I beg you, Levnikolaivitch, do
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: not neglect my request. If there are no books, then
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: send me a letter. I will be very glad when
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: I receive a letter from you. I will await your
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: letter with impatience. Goodbye for the present. I remain alive
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: and well, and wish the same to you from the
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: Lord God, good health and good success in your work.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter twelve and end of Bethink Yourselves by
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: Leo Tolstoy, translated by v. Chertkoff, read for LibriVox dot
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: org by David Barnes