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Title: Letter to N. N. Author: Leo Tolstoy Date: 1883 Language: en Topics: letter Source: Original text from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=10679, 2021.
My Dear N. N.
I address you as " dear," not because this is a customary form, but
because since I received your first letter, and especially since your
second one came, I feel that we are very closely united, and I love you
dearly. In the feeling which I experience, there is much that is
egotistical. You certainly do not think so, but you cannot imagine to
what degree I am alone, to what a degree the actual "I" is scorned by
all surrounding me. I know that he that endures to the end will be
saved: I know that only in trifles is the right given to a man to take
advantage of the fruit of his labor, or even to look on this fruit, but
that in the matter of divine truth which is eternal it cannot be given
to a man to see the fruit of his work, especially in the brief period of
his short life: I know all this, and yet I am often despondent, and
therefore my meeting with you and the hope, almost the certainty, of
finding in you a man who is sincerely going with me in one way, and to
one and the same good, is to me very cheering.
Now, then, I will reply in a systematic way. Your letters to Aksakof,
especially the last one, pleased me. Your arguments are irresistible,
but for him do not exist. Everything he says I knew long ago. This is
all repeated in life, in literature, in conversations; it is always the
same thing and the same thing. And this is precisely what it is: You
say, " I see that this is the truth and this other is false, for this
reason and for that, and that this is good and that is evil, for this
reason and for that."
Aksakof and those like him see that this is the truth; even before you
have told them they know the truth. But they live in falsehood, but for
a man, for any one with a heart which loves right, and hates wrong, and
by reason has one purpose of distinguishing truth from falsehood, for
such a man to be able to live in falsehood and evil, and to serve them,
he must beforehand have shut his eyes to the truth, and continue to do
the wrong which he loves. But all have the same kind of blinders: the
historical perspective, the objective glance, worry about others, and
the setting aside of the question of one's relation to goodness and
truth.
This Aksakof is doing, this Soloviof is doing, this all the theologians
are doing, this all the governmental people, the political economists,
are doing, this is what all who live contrary to truth and goodness and
who must justify themselves in their own hearts are doing.
" And this is tJic judgment, that the light is come into the world, and
men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works zvere
evil. For every one that practices evil hates the light, and comes not
to the light, lest his works should be reproved. But he that practices
the truth comes to the light, that his works may be made manifest that
have been wrought in God." [1]
It is impossible to express this more clearly than it is said here. From
this I draw this conclusion, that it is not necessary to fling pearls to
these people, but that one must elaborate a certain relation to them in
which our forces will not be wasted. Argument with them is not only an
idle business, but injurious to our object. They provoke us by argument
to something superfluous, incorrect; and, forgetting all that is most
important in what you have said, they stick to this one thing. The
relation to them which I try to cultivate in myself, and inculcate in
others, is the same as my relation to a depraved drunken youth who
should try to contaminate my sixteen-year-old son. I am sorry for this
young libertine, but I do not try to reform him, because I know it is
impossible. If I chide him, he will only turn me into ridicule before my
son. I do not even forcibly remove my son from him, because my son will
surely meet him or his like again, if not to-day, then to-morrow. I do
not even try to make my son see his wickedness. My son himself must
discover it. But I strive to fill my son's soul with such instruction
that the young libertine's temptations do not appeal to him; otherwise
our resources, which are so small, are wasted in throwing away the
pearls, and they go on trampling upon and rending, not you and me, N.
N., but what is worse, extinguishing the little light that is dawning
amid the darkness.
And here, by this digression, I come directly to the second and most
important point of your letter. But how to open the eyes of men, to save
them from the blandishments of the libertines, when evidence prevents
this? How bring about the accomplishment of evangelical teaching? Ought
I not to defend people if they ask me for help, even if it came about
that they must be freed by violence, if before my eyes people are beaten
and killed? To defend and free people by violence is not necessary,
because this is impossible, and because to try to do good by violence,
that is by wrong, is stupid.
My dear, please, for the sake of God's truth which you serve, do not
make undue haste, do not lose patience, do not invent proofs of the
justice of your opinion before you have thought over, not what I write
you, but the Gospels, and not the Gospels as the word of Christ or God
and the like, but the Gospels as the clearest, simplest, and most
universally comprehensible and practical teaching of how each one of us
and all men must live.
If before my eyes a mother is cutting her child to pieces, what must I
do? Understand that the question is what ought I to do, that is, what is
right and reasonable, and not what will be my first impulse in regard to
it. My first impulse at a private insult is to avenge it; but the
question comes: Is this reasonable? And exactly the same question arises
whether it is reasonable to employ violence upon the mother who is
cutting up her child. If the mother is murdering her child, what is it
that is painful to me, and I consider wrong? The fact that the child is
suffering, or the fact that the mother is experiencing, not the joy of
love, but the torments of hate? And I think that the evil is in both.
One man cannot do anything evil. Evil is the discord of men, and
therefore, if I wish to act, I can only do so with the aim of putting an
end to the discord, and bringing about concord between the mother and
child.
How must I act? Constrain the mother? I do not destroy her discord the
sin with her child, but I only induce a new sin, a discord between her
and myself. What is possible? One thing to put myself in the child's
place. This will not be unreasonable.
What Dostoyevsky wrote, and is very repugnant to me, is said to me by
ascetic monks and metropolitans, to wit, that it is possible to wage
wars, that this is self-defense to offer your life for your brethren;
and I have always replied, to defend them by your own breast, offering
yourself, is right, but to shoot people with guns is not self-defense,
but murder. Investigate the teaching of the Gospels, and you will see
that the third brief commandment, [2] not to resist evil, that is, not
to return evil for evil, is, I will not say the chief, but is the
keystone of the whole teaching, and the very thing which all
pseudo-Christian commentaries have strenuously avoided and still avoid,
and is the very position, the denial of which serves as the foundation
of all that you so righteously hate.
I am not speaking of the council of Nicaea, which accomplished so much
evil, and was based on this very same understanding of Christ's
teaching, that is, on violence in the name of right and of Christ; in
the apostolic times, in Paul, in the Acts, this idea of violence in the
name of right is begotten, and destroys the meaning of the doctrine.
How often it has happened ludicrously to me in my conversations with
popes and revolutionists, who regarded the evangelical teaching as a
weapon for the attainment of external objects, that men of these two
classes standing at opposite poles, yet with unanimous heat, denied this
special datum of Christ's teaching. For the first, it is impossible not
to lose temper, to choke off dissidents, not to glorify the battlefield
and capital punishments; for the second, it is impossible not to use
violence in destroying the existing, ugly disorder which is called
order. Evidently popes and authorities cannot even imagine the lives of
men without violence. Exactly so it is with the revolutionists.
You know a tree by its fruits; a good tree cannot bring forth the fruits
of violence. Christ's teaching cannot justify the one in choking, or the
other in putting out of the way. And therefore both the one party and
the other, distorting the doctrine, deprive themselves of that true
force which is given by faith in the truth, in the whole truth, and not
in a small fraction of it.
Those that lift the sword shall perish with the sword; this is not a
prediction, but the assertion of a fact known to all. The lamp of the
body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall
be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full
of darkness. If therefore the ligJit that is in thee be darkness, Jiow
great is the darkness!
If thy light is darkness, if what you consider good is evil, the work
also of thy life will be evil. It is impossible to serve God a little,
the devil also a little. And the Gospel is not such a stupid book as the
popes make it out for us. And each proposition is laid down in it, not
idly, but so that it is organically connected with the whole teaching;
thus the command as to nonresistance of evil runs through the whole of
the Gospels, and without it the teaching of the Gospel, for me at least,
wholly falls to the ground.
Moreover, it is expressed another time so clearly and directly that it
is impossible to escape it; moreover, the whole account of Christ's life
and actions is an application of this commandment; moreover in John,
Caiaphas is represented as not comprehending this truth, and the
consequence of not understanding this truth, under the pretext of the
advantage of the people, ruining Christ's life, there directly points to
the fact that resistance of evil is the most terrible and dangerous
temptation, and that not only Christ's disciples yielded, but the Master
himself almost did.
But, moreover, it now seems to me that even if Christ and his teaching
had not existed, I myself should have discovered this truth, so simple
and clear it seems to me now, and I am persuaded will seem equally clear
to you. It is now so clear to me that, if I allow myself the slightest
violence under the pretext of correcting the greatest evil, then another
on the same pretext will allow himself to commit the smallest act of
violence, and a third and a fourth and millions of trifling acts of
violence will compose the awful evil which now reigns in the world and
crushes us.
Now if you have heeded my request and have read calmly, refraining from
the proofs of the confirmation of your opinion, but have followed my
exposition, then I hope you have agreed that these are powerful proofs
of the opinion which you oppose, and I hope still further that you will
agree with me when you have read my short exposition [3] and my
translation of the four Gospels which I send you.
As far as I can imagine, you are now in such a position; your reason
tells you that I am right, but your heart revolts against such a
position in regard to the nonresistance of evil. You say to yourself:
" Whatever here is wrong, whatever mistakes in judgment are here, I will
find it and I will prove it, because it cannot be that Christ's
teaching, the teaching of love to your brother, should lead a man to sit
down and fold his arms while looking on at the evil that is taking place
in the world.
" It is all very well," you say, " for him, a worn-out old man, to
indulge in idle chatter and try to persuade every one that evil must be
endured. It is very well for him, he is fat and contented, he has
everything he needs, and only a little while to live. All the warmth of
his life has been used up, while I feel without argument that love for
goodness and truth is not lodged in me, and hatred of evil and
falsehood, without some purpose. I cannot help expressing it, I cannot
live in its name, and every step of my life is a battle with evil. And I
am bound to fight, and I shall fight it with such means as have already
been opened up to me, or will present themselves in the future.
Propagandism is necessary among the people, connection with the
dissidents, action on the government, and the like."
The feeling that suggests this is a good feeling, and I love you for it;
but this same feeling incited Peter to draw his knife and cut off the
servant's ear. Imagine to yourself what would have happened if Jesus had
not restrained them: a riot would have taken place, Jesus' followers
would have fled, and then they would have captured Jerusalem. They would
have cut men down and they would have been cut down. What would have
been the Christian teaching? It would not have been, and there would
have been nothing for us to boast about; we should have been worse than
the Aksakof s and Soloviofs.
In order that you may more freely express my thought, I will tell you
what I think, in what I consider Christ's teaching consists a teaching
not misty and metaphysical, but a clear and vital teaching.
All say that the significance of Christianity lies in loving God and
your neighbor as yourself. But what is this God? What is it to love? How
can one love anything incomprehensible God? What is one's neighbor? What
am I myself?
These words have for me this meaning: to love God means to love truth;
to love one's neighbor as one's self means to acknowledge the unity of
the essence of one's soul and life with every other human life with
eternal truth God.
Thus it is for me.
But it is clear to me that these words, which really define nothing, may
be understood otherwise, and that the majority cannot even understand
them as I do. The principal thing is that these words neither for me nor
for any one else entail any obligation or define anything. What can be
the love of a God whom every one understands in his own way, and whom
others do not recognize at all, and what can be the love for a neighbor
as for oneself, when I am filled with a self-love which never for an
instant leaves me, and often with a constant hatred to others?
This is all so obscure and impracticable that it remains an empty
phrase. My opinion is that this position is metaphysical, very important
as such, but when this position is accepted as a rule of life, as a law,
then it is simply stupid. And unfortunately it is frequently so
understood. I say all this so as to explain that the significance of
Christianity, as of every other religion, is not found in metaphysical
principles, metaphysical principles exist in all humanity: Buddha,
Confucius, Socrates, have always been and will always be the same, but
in the application of them to life, in the vital production of that
happiness of every man and of all humanity which is attained by the
application of these principles to life, to explaining the possibility
of the application of them and to the definition of the rules whereby it
is attained.
Even in Deuteronomy it says: Love God and your neighbor as yourself; but
the application of this principle, according to Deuteronomy, consisted
in circumcision, the Sabbath, and the criminal law.
The significance of Christianity consists in proving the possibility and
the blessedness of fulfilling the law of love. Christ, in the Sermon on
the Mount, very clearly defined how it was necessary and possible for
one's own happiness and that of all men to fulfill this law. In the
Sermon on the Mount without which there would have been no teaching of
Christ, what all agree in is that which Christ says, not to the wise,
but to the illiterate, the clownish, in this sermon, which is provided
with an introduction in regard to the person who shall break one of the
least of the commandments (Matthew v. 17-20), and with an exordium to
the effect that it is not necessary to speak but to fulfill (Matthew
vii. 21-27), in this sermon the whole thing is said, and five commands
are given as to the way of fulfilling the teaching.
In the Sermon on the Mount, the simplest, easiest, most comprehensible
rules are laid down for love to God and one's neighbor, and for living
without recognizing and fulfilling these commands it is idle to speak of
Christianity. And strange as it may seem to say this after eighteen
hundred years, it was brought to me to expound these rules as something
new. And only when I understood these rules did I understand the
significance of Christ's teaching. These rules so wonderfully embrace
the whole life of every man and of all humanity, that only let a man
proceed to fulfill these rules on earth and we should have on earth the
reign of righteousness!
And then analyze all of these rules separately, applying them to
yourself, and you will see that this unimaginably blessed and enormous
result will be derived from the fulfillment of these most simple and
natural, and not only easy, but also pleasant rules.
Do you imagine that it would be necessary for anything to be added to
these rules in order for the kingdom of righteousness to exist? Nothing
is necessary.
Do you imagine that anything could be taken from these rules without the
kingdom of righteousness being infringed? Impossible!
If I knew nothing of Christ's teaching except these five rules, I should
be just as much a Christian as I am now:
I. Be not angry. II. Do not commit fornication.
III. Take no oaths.
IV. Judge not; and V. Do not go to war.
For me this constitutes the essence of Christ's teaching. And this clear
expression of Christ's teaching has been hidden from men, and
consequently humanity has constantly wandered away from it in two
opposite directions. Some, seeing in Christ's teaching the teaching of
saving their souls for the sake of an eternal life, coarsely presented
to them, were estranged from the world, striving only to do what they
could to perfect themselves in solitude; this would have been ridiculous
if it had not been so pitiful. And terrible efforts were put forth by
these people, and there have been many of them, on an impossible and
stupid thing, to do good to themselves in solitude, away from men.
Others, on the contrary, not believing in a future life, have lived the
best of them only for others, but did not know and did not care to know
what was necessary for themselves, or why they wanted to do good to
others and what this good was.
It seems to me that the one is impossible without the other: a man
cannot do good to himself, to his soul, without doing for others and
with others, as religious ascetics, and the best of them, have done; and
a man cannot do good to men if he does not know what is necessary for
him, and why he is acting, as has been done and is done by social
workers without any faith.
I like men of the first kind, but with all the strength of my soul I
hate their doctrine; and I like very much men of the second kind, and I
hate their doctrine. There is truth only in that teaching which demands
activity a life which satisfies the demands of the soul, and at the same
time is a constant activity for the good of others. Such was Christ's
teaching. It is at once far from the quietism of the monk and from the
anxiety about the soul and from the ardor of the revolutionist
governmental, priestly activity is revolutionary who wishes to load
others with benefits, and yet at the same time does not know what the
true indubitable blessing is.
The Christian's life is such that it is impossible to do good to men
otherwise than by doing good to himself, to his reasonable soul, and not
to do good to himself otherwise than by doing good to his brethren. The
Christian life is at once far removed from quietism and from agitation.
Young people even of your turn of thought are inclined to confuse the
true Christian teaching with the quietism of the superstitious, and it
seems to them that to renounce the resistance of evil by violence is
very easy and convenient, and that from this the Christian movement
grows feeble and is deprived of force. This is not true. You understand
that the Christian renounces violence, not because he does not love what
you desire, not because he does not see that violence is the first
impulse that seizes a man at the sight of evil, but because he sees that
violence shuts him off from his goal, and does not bring him near it,
that it is not reasonable, as it is not reasonable for a man desiring to
reach the water of a fountain to strike with his cane the earth which
separates him from the spring; and for the man abstaining from violence
it is no easier on the contrary; just as it is no easier to take a spade
and dig, than it is to pound the ground with a stake.
It is easier for him only because he assuredly knows that by not
opposing evil with violence, but by meeting it with goodness and truth,
he is doing what he can to fulfill the will of the Father, according to
Christ's expression. It is impossible to quench fire with fire, to dry
water with water, by evil to annihilate evil. This has been tried, tried
since the world began, and now we are brought to that condition in which
we now live. It would seem to be time to put aside the old way and
undertake a new one, especially as it is more reasonable. If there is
any advance, then it is only due to those that repay good for evil. Oh,
if only one-millionth of those efforts which are employed by men to
overcome evil by violence were employed in enduring evil, not taking
part in it, and shining by the light that is given to every man!
Though simple from the customary point of view nothing has been attained
by this; then why not try the other, the more that it is so clear,
manifest, and joyous? Here is a particular example; let us remember
Russia during the last twenty years. How much genuine desire for
righteousness, how much readiness for sacrifices, has been wasted by our
intelligent classes by establishing right, in doing good to men? And
what has been done? Nothing, worse than nothing! There has been a
terrible waste of spiritual energies! They have broken the stake and
they have beaten down the earth worse than before, which does not save
the spade. Instead of these terrible sacrifices which are endured by the
young, instead of the gunshots, explosions, printing-offices, what if
these people should believe in Christ's teaching, that is, should come
to the conclusion that the Christian life is the only reasonable life,
that if instead of this terrible expenditure of force, one, two, a
dozen, a hundred men, when called to military service, should say: " We
cannot serve murderers, because we believe in Christ's teaching, which
we preach. This is forbidden by His law."
They would say the same thing in relation to taking the oath, they would
say the same thing in relation to courts, they would say the same thing
and put it into practice in regard to the violence which supports
private property; what would be the outcome of this I do not know, but I
know that it would help the matter along, and that this is one way of
fruitful activity not to act contrary to Christ's teaching, and boldly
and openly to confirm it and not merely for the attainment of external
aims, but for one's inner satisfaction, which consists in not doing evil
to others while one is not yet strong enough to do them good.
This is my answer to your questions as to what is necessary to attain.
It is necessary to attain this the fulfillment of Christ's laws, and
making plain to men the light and pleasure of fulfilling them.
All this, however, is better said in Matthew v. 13-16. I anticipate one
further objection. You will say: " It is not clear how to fulfill these
rules and to what they will lead us. How according to these rules to act
toward private property, toward the authorities, toward international
relations? "
Do not imagine that in Christ there was any lack of clearness. All is
clear as day. The relation toward the authorities is told in the story
of the penny. Money private property is not a Christian matter. It comes
from the authorities; give it back to the authorities. But your free
soul is from the God of truth, and therefore give not your actions, your
freedom of reason, to any one, except to God. They may kill you, but
they cannot compel you to kill and to do an unchristian act.
As to private property, there, is no private property according to the
Gospels, and woe to those that have it; that is to say, it is bad for
them, and so in whatever position a Christian finds himself, he cannot
do anything in relation to the private property of any one else than not
take part in the violence perpetrated in the name of private property;
and he must assure others that private property is a myth, there is no
private property, but there is a certain customary use of force in
relation to the advantage of things which men call private property, and
which is bad. For the man who shall give away his cloak when they want
to deprive him of his shirt there can be no talk of private property.
Neither can there be any question of international relations. All men
are brothers of the same sort. And if a Zulu should come to murder my
children, the only thing I can do is to try to persuade the Zulu that
this is not to his advantage and not good to persuade him, submitting to
him by violence, the more so as there is no certainty in fighting with
the Zulu. Either he gets the better of me, and, still more, murders my
children, or I get the advantage, and my children the next day will be
taken down with some illness, and suffer more, and die of it. There is
no certainty, because if I submit I probably do better, while if I enter
into a contest with him, it is a question whether I do any better.
This, then, is my answer: the very best thing that we can do is to
fulfill all of Christ's teaching. But in order to fulfill it we must be
convinced that it is true, both for all humanity and for each one of us.
Have you this faith?
I think it best to print your article, though with some abbreviation.
There are still two objections or questions which I raise; you will make
them to me. The first is: What if, by submitting, as I say, to the Zulu
and to the policeman, and by giving up to the evil man all that he
wishes to take from me, if by not taking part in governmental
institutions of courts, educational institutions, universities, by not
recognizing private property, you fall to the lowest degree of the
social scale, you are trodden down and abused, you become a tramp a
beggar, and the light which is in you is wasted, no one sees it; and
therefore is it not better to keep one's self at a certain degree of
independence of need, and the possibility of refinement and intercourse
with the great majority of the people? It really seems so. And it seems
so because so dear to us are the amenities of life, our refinement, and
all those so-called pleasures which it provides us, and we act against
our conscience saying so. It is unjust because on whatever low plane he
may stand he will always be with men, and therefore in a condition to do
them good. But whether the professors of a university are better,
whether the inmates of a cheap lodginghouse are more important, for the
Christian profession, is a question which no one can decide. My own
feeling and Christ's example plead for the indigent; only the indigent
can preach, that is, teach the reasonable life.
I may argue beautifully and be sincere, but no one will ever have faith
in me as long as it is seen that I am living in a palace and with my
family wasting every day the cost of a whole year's food for a poor
family. But as regards our so-called culture, surely it would seem to be
time to cease speaking of it as of a blessing. In spoiling a man, it
spoils altogether ninety-nine out of a hundred, but it can never add
anything to a man.
You probably know about Siutayef. Here we have an unlettered muzhik, but
his influence on men, on our intelligence, is greater and more important
than all the Russian savants and writers, including all the Pushkins and
Byelinskys, from Tretyakovsky down to our time. [4] So in losing you
lose nothing. And if any one leaves father and mother and brethren and
wife and children, he will find a hundred times more here in this world,
and houses and fathers and the eternal life besides. "Many tJiat are
first shall be last." [5]
Now the second question, directly, involuntarily proceeding from the
first: "Now here are you, Lyof Nikolayevitch, preaching and preaching,
but how do you fulfill what you preach? "
This question is most natural, and I am all the time asked it, and they
always close my mouth triumphantly.
You preach, but how do you live?
And I reply that I do not preach and I cannot preach, though I
passionately desire to. I can preach by deed, but my deeds are vile.
What I say is not preaching, but is only a refutation of a false
conception of the Christian doctrine, and an explanation of its actual
significance. Its significance is not the reconstruction of society, in
its name, by violent means; its significance is in finding the meaning
of life in this world. The fulfillment of the five commandments gives
this meaning. If you wish to be a Christian, then you must fulfill these
commandments, but if you do not wish to fulfill them, then do not prate
about Christianity outside of the fulfillment of these commandments.
But, they say to me, if you find that outside of the fulfillment of the
Christian teaching there is no reasonable life, and you love this
reasonable life, why do you not fulfill the commandments?
I reply that I am to blame, and vile, and worthy of scorn because I do
not fulfill them, but in this respect not so much in the way of
exculpation, as in explanation of my inconsistency, I say: " Look at my
former life and look at my life now, and you will see that I am trying
to fulfill them. I have not fulfilled one ten thousandth part, it is
true, and I am to blame; but I have not fulfilled them, not because I
have not wanted to, but because I could not. Teach me how to disentangle
myself from the net of temptations in which I am caught; help me, and I
will fulfill them; but even without help I wish and hope to fulfill
them. Blame me! I myself do that, but blame me, and not the road by
which I go, and which I point out to those that ask me where, in my
opinion, the road is. If I know the road home, and go along it
intoxicated, staggering from side to side, does that make it any the
less the true way by which I go? If it is not the right way, show me
another; if I go astray and stagger, help me, keep me on the real way,
as I am ready to keep you; but do not beat me off, do not rejoice
because I have lost my way, do not cry out in enthusiasm: " There he is!
He says he is going home, but he is sprawling in the slough." No, do not
rejoice in this, but help me, hold me!
For you see you are not devils of the slough, but likewise people going
home. For I am alone, and I do not wish to fall into the slough. Help
me! help me! my heart is bursting with despair, that we are all
blundering; and when I am struggling with all my powers, you, every time
we go astray, instead of feeling sorry for yourself and myself, cry with
enthusiasm, "Lo, here we all are in the slough!"
This, then, is my relation to the teaching and its fulfillment. With all
my might I am striving to fulfill it, and at every failure I not only
confess it, but I beg for help so as to be in a condition to fulfill it,
and I meet joyously every one who is seeking the way, even as I am, and
heed him.
If you read what I am sending, the substance of this letter will be
clearer to you.
Write me. I am very glad to correspond with you, and I shall await your
reply with impatience.
[1] John iii. 19-21.
[2] You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth; but I say unto you, Resist not evil; but whoever smites you on
the right cheek turn to him the other also. MATTHEW x. 38, 39.
[3] Vol. xvii. p. 281, "The Gospel in Brief."
[4] Aleksandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin, Russia's greatest lyric poet, born
June 7, 1799, died Feb. 8, 1837; Vissarion Grigoryevitch Byelinsky, a
famous Russian critic, born 1810, died 1848; Vasili Kirillovitch
Tretyakovsky, translator, poetaster, scientist, born 1703, died 1769.
[5] Matthew x. 29.