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Title: To God or Mammon Author: Leo Tolstoy Date: 1896 Language: en Topics: religion Source: Original text from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=10506, 2021.
"No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and
love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon."—Luke xvi. 13.
"He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathers not for me
scatters abroad."—Matthew xii. 30.
Enormous tracts of the very best lands by which millions of now
poverty-stricken families might be supported are devoted to tobacco,
vineyards, barley, hemp, and especially rye and potatoes, employed in
the production of intoxicating beverages: wine, beer, and mainly brandy.
Millions of laborers who might be making things useful for men are
occupied in the production of these things. In England it is estimated
that one-tenth of all the laboring men are occupied in the manufacture
of brandy and beer.[1]
What are the consequences of the manufacture and consumption of tobacco,
wine, vodka, beer?
There is a terrible story about a monk who laid a wager with the devil
that he would not admit him into his cell; if he let him in, he agreed
to do whatever the devil should order him to do. The story tells how the
devil took the form of a wounded raven with its bloody ​wing trailing,
and hopped about pitifully at the door of the monk's cell. The monk had
compassion on the raven and took him into his cell; and then the devil,
having obtained entrance, gave the monk a choice among three crimes:
murder, fornication, or drunkenness. The monk chose drunkenness,
thinking that if he got intoxicated he would harm only himself. But when
the liquor had overcome him, he lost control of his reason, he went to
the village and there, yielding to temptation of a woman, he committed
adultery with her, and then murder by defending himself from the
husband, who returned and attacked him.
Thus are pictured the consequences of drunkenness in the old story, and
nowise different in real life are the consequences of the use of
intoxicating beverages. It is an unusual burglar or murderer who
perpetrates his crime while sober. According to the reports of courts it
is seen that nine-tenths of misdemeanors are accomplished when people
are tipsy. The most convincing proof that the large number of
misdemeanors are traceable to liquor is afforded by the fact that in
certain states of America, where wine and the manufacture and sale of
intoxicating liquors are prohibited, crimes have almost ceased. There
are no robberies, or thefts, or murders, and the jails are empty.
Such is one consequence of the use of intoxicating drinks.
Another consequence is the harmful influence produced by intoxicating
beverages on the health of the people. Besides the fact that from the
use of intoxicating drinks arise various painful illnesses peculiar to
drunkards, many of whom die of them, it is to be noted that men who
drink recuperate from ordinary diseases with greater difficulty than
others, so that in life insurance, the insurance companies always prefer
the risks on those that do not make use of intoxicating drinks.
This is the second consequence of the use of intoxicating beverages.
The third and most horrible consequence of intoxicating beverages is
that liquor darkens the intellect and ​conscience of men; from the use of
liquor men grow coarser, stupider, and wickeder.
What advantage is there from the use of intoxicating drinks?
None!
The advocates of vodka, wine, beer, assure us in advance that these
drinks enhance the health and strength, that they warm and cheer. But
now it is indisputably proved that this is not true. Intoxicating
beverages do not improve the health, because they contain a violent
poison,—alcohol,—and the use of a poison cannot fail to be injurious.
That wine does not increase a man's strength has been proved many times,
and by the fact that when the work of a drinking mechanic and of a
mechanic who does not drink are compared, during the course of months
and years, it is always proved that the non-drinking man does more work
and better work than the drinker; and by the fact that in those
companies of soldiers which on campaigns use vodka there are always more
incapacitated and more stragglers than in those where vodka is not used.
In exactly the same way it has been proved that liquor does not warm,
and that the heat felt after drinking liquor does not hold out long, and
that the man, after the brief increase in temperature, soon grows colder
than ever, so that a drinking man always finds it much harder to endure
prolonged cold than a nondrinker. People who freeze to death every year
are frozen, for the most part, because they warm themselves with liquor.
It is not necessary to prove also that the gaiety that comes from wine
is not real and not a joyous gaiety. Every one knows what sort of thing
this drunken gaiety is. All that it requires is to take a look at what
is done in cities on holidays, at the drinking-places, and in the rural
districts; at what is done on holidays or at weddings and christenings.
This drunken gaiety always ends with insulting words, fights, injured
members, all kinds of crimes, and the loss of human dignity.
​Wine does not conduce to the health or the strength, or the warmth or
the gaiety, but only brings great injury to men. And therefore it would
seem to be the wise course for every reasonable and decent man, not only
not to use intoxicating drinks himself and not to set them before
others, but also to try with all his might to stop the common use of
this unprofitable and injurious poison.
But unfortunately this is not at all the case. Men are so wedded to old
habits and customs, and find it so difficult to do away with them, that
there are in our day very many good, kind, and reasonable men who not
only do not forswear the use of intoxicating beverages and the
regalement of others with them, but even defend it with all their
ability. "Wine," they say, "is not to blame, but drunkenness is to be
condemned. King David said, 'Wine cheers the heart of man.' Christ in
Cana of Galilee sanctified wine. If it were not for the drinking habit
government would be deprived of its chief revenue. It is impossible to
celebrate a holiday, to hold a wedding, or a christening, without wine.
One must drink something at the conclusion of a bargain or a sale, or at
the meeting with a dear friend."
"In our poverty and in our labor we must drink," says the poor laboring
man.
"If we drink only occasionally and temperately, we do no harm to any
one," say well-to-do people.
"The gaiety of Russia is in drinking," said Prince Vladimir.
"By our drinking we do no harm to any one but ourselves. And if we harm
only ourselves then that is our affair; we don't want to teach any one
and we don't want to be taught by any one; we did not begin this and it
is not for us to put an end to it," say frivolous people.
Thus talk drinking men of various conditions and ages, trying to justify
themselves. But these justifications, which availed some decades of
years ago, now no longer avail. It was well enough to say this when all
men thought that the use of intoxicating drinks was a harmless pleasure,
that intoxicating drinks enhanced a ​man's health and strength; when they
did not, as yet, know that wine contained a poison always injurious to
the health of men; when men did not, as yet, realize the terrible
consequences of drunkenness, which are now patent to all eyes.
It was possible to say this when there were not, as yet, these hundreds
and thousands of men prematurely dying in cruel torments simply because
they had learned to drink intoxicating beverages, and could not, as yet,
abstain from the use of them. It was well to say that wine is a harmless
pleasure before we had seen those hundreds and thousands of poor
tormented women and children suffering because their husbands and
fathers had learned to drink wine.
It was well enough to say this before we had witnessed these hundreds
and thousands of criminals filling the jails; the exiles, galley-slaves,
and ruined women, who had fallen into this condition owing to wine.
It was well enough to say this before we knew that hundreds of thousands
of men, who might have lived their lives with delight to themselves and
others, have ruined their energies and their intellects and their souls
simply because intoxicating beverages existed and they were tempted by
them.
And therefore it is no longer possible, in our time, to say that the
drinking or non-drinking of wine is a private affair, that we do not
consider the moderate use of wine injurious to ourselves, and do not
wish to teach any one or be taught by any one, that we did not begin it
and it is not for us to end it. It is impossible to say this now; the
use of wine or abstinence from it is, in our day, not a private matter,
but a public matter.
Now all men—it is all the same whether they wish it or do not wish
it—are divided into two camps: those in the one camp are fighting
against the employment of a useless poison—intoxicating drinks—both by
word and deed, not using wine and not offering it to others; those in
the opposite camp uphold both by word and, more powerfully than all
else, by force of example the use of this poison, and this contest is
going on at the ​present time in all nations, and now for twenty years
with especial violence in Russia.
"As long as you did not know you were without sin," said Christ. But now
we know what we are doing and whom we are serving when we use wine and
offer it to others, and consequently, if we, who know the sin of using
wine, go on drinking or offering it to others, then we have no
justification.
And let not men say that it is impossible to avoid drinking and offering
wine on special occasions—on holidays and at weddings and similar
occasions; that all do this, that our fathers and grandfathers did this,
and therefore it is impossible for us alone to stand out against all the
rest.
This is false; our fathers and grandfathers did away with those evil and
harmful practices, the ill effects of which became manifest to them; in
the same way also we are bound to do away with the evil which has become
manifest in our day. And the fact that wine has become a frightful evil
in our day is beyond all question.
How, then, if I know that the use of intoxicating drinks is an evil,
destroying hundreds of thousands of men, can I offer this evil to my
friends who come to my house for a festival, a christening, or a
wedding?
Not always was everything as it is now, but everything has changed from
worse to better; and the change has come about, not of itself, but by
people fulfilling what has been demanded of them by reason and
conscience. And now our reason and our conscience in the most actual
manner demand of us that we cease drinking wine and offering it to
others.
As a general thing men consider worthy of censure and scorn such
drunkards as go to taverns and drinking-rooms, and get so full that they
lose their reason, and become so addicted to wine that they cannot
control themselves, and drink up all they have. The very men who buy
wine for home use drink every day and in moderation, and offer wine to
their guests in circumstances when it is used—and such men are
considered good and honorable and not as doing any harm. And ​yet these
very people are more worthy of censure than the drunkards. The drunkards
have become drunkards simply because those that were not drunkards,
those that did themselves no harm, taught them to drink wine, tempted
them by their example.
Drunkards never would have become drunkards if they had not seen honored
men, men respected by every one, drinking wine and offering it to
others. A young man who has never taken wine will know the taste and the
effect of wine at festivals, at weddings, at the houses of these honored
people who are not themselves drunkards, but who drink and set it before
their guests on certain occasions.
And so he who drinks wine, no matter how moderately, or offers it in
whatever special circumstances, commits a great sin. He tempts those
whom he is commanded not to tempt, of whom it is said, Woe to him that
tempts one of these little ones.
It is said, "We did not begin it, it is not for us to end it."
It is for us to end it if we only understand that for every one of us
the drinking or non-drinking of wine is not a matter of indifference;
that with every bottle of wine bought, every glass of wine imbibed, we
are serving that terrible devilish deed whereby the best strength of
humanity is wasted; but, on the other hand, by refraining from wine for
ourselves, and by doing away with the senseless custom of using wine at
festivals, weddings, and christenings, we are performing a work of the
utmost importance—our soul's work, God's work. As soon as we have
understood this, then will drunkenness be stopped by us.
And therefore, my reader, whoever you may be—a young man only just
entering upon life, or a grown man who have already established your
life, a master of a house or a mistress of a house, or an aged man,—for
whom now the time is near for accounting for the deeds you have done,
whether you are rich or poor, famous or unknown, whoever you are, it is
impossible for you to stand between these two camps; you must infallibly
​choose one of the two: oppose drunkenness or cooperate with it—serve God
or mammon.
If you are a young man who have never as yet taken liquor, never as yet
been poisoned by the poison of wine, treasure your innocence and freedom
from temptation. If you taste, the temptation will be all the harder for
you to overcome it. And do not believe that wine will increase your
gaiety. At your time of life gaiety is natural, genuine, good gaiety;
and wine only changes your true, innocent gaiety into a drunken,
senseless, vicious gaiety.
Above all beware of wine, because at your time of life it will be harder
for you to resist other temptations; wine weakens in you the force of
reason, which is most needful at your age to help you resist
temptations. After you have imbibed you will do what you would not think
of doing when sober. Why subject yourself to such a terrible risk ? If
you are a grown man who have already got into the habit of using
intoxicating drinks, or who are just beginning to form that habit, make
haste while there is yet time to get out of this awful habit, or else
before you look around it will get control of you, and you may become
like those that are irrevocably drunkards, who have perished by reason
of wine. All of them began just as you have. Even if you have the
ability throughout your life to use intoxicating drinks in moderation,
and may not yourself become a drunkard, yet if you continue to drink
wine and serve it at your table, you may perhaps make your younger
brother, your wife, your children, drunkards, for they may not have the
strength as you have to confine themselves to a moderate use of wine.
And above all understand that on you as a man, who have reached the very
prime of life, as the master of the house, as the controller of the
destiny of others, rests the responsibility of guiding the lives of your
household. And therefore if you know that wine brings no advantage, but
causes great evil to men, then not only are you not obliged slavishly to
do as your fathers and grandfathers used to do,—to use wine, to buy it
and serve it to others,—but, on the ​contrary, you are bound to avoid
this habit and keep it from others.
And be not afraid that the change in the custom of drinking wine at
festivals, christenings, and weddings, will very deeply humiliate or
trouble people. In many places they have already begun to do this,
substituting for the wine appetizing viands and temperance drinks, and
people only at first, and the very stupidest, wonder, but quickly get
used to it and approve.
If you are an old man, at an age when you will very shortly be called
upon to render your account to God, how you have served Him, and instead
of warning the young and inexperienced from wine, the terrible evil of
which you must have seen in the course of your life, you have tempted
your neighbor by your example, drinking wine and offering it to others,
you have been committing a mighty sin.
Woe to the world because of temptations! Temptations must come into the
world, but woe to him through whom they come.
Only let us understand that in the matter of using wine there is no half
way, and we either desire it or do not desire it—we must choose between
two courses—serving God or serving mammon. He that is not with me is
against me, and he that gathers not for me scatters abroad.[2]
1895.
[1] According to the statistics published by the Imperial Bureau, the
consumption of beer in Germany during the year 1897-1898 was
1,383,700,000 gallons, while it was 1,237,000,000 gallons in the United
States, 1,192,000,000 gallons in Great Britain, 463,500,000 gallons in
Austria-Hungary, 279,000,000 gallons in Belgium, 180,000,000 in France,
and a little over 90,000,000 gallons in Russia. The consumption of beer
per head of the population is estimated at 36 gallons in Belgium, 32 in
Great Britain, 25 in Germany, 21 in Denmark, 12 in Switzerland, 10 in
the United States, 9 in Austria-Hungary, 9 in Holland, 5 in France, 3 in
Norway, 2 in Sweden, and 1 in Russia.—Ed.
[2] Matthew xii. 30.