He read to me the words of Jesus, and for the first time I heard them without theological arrogance or ecclesiastical intonation. He read them, not with the tenderness one associates with the speech of Jesus, but as Moses might have read them from the tablets of stone, or John the Baptist might have preached them before he met Jesus by the Jordan. As a dictator might read the law, so he read the Beatitudes and he laid the same stress upon “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor,” as filled his commanding voice when he read those words of Jesus: “But I say unto you love your enemies.”
Very decidedly he pressed upon me the necessity of changing my whole attitude towards life, and it was not difficult in that atmosphere to persuade myself that I had changed it. I soon discovered, however, that for me, at least, this was no “once for all” task, but a continual struggle. I found the world always with me, my temper strong, and my passions stronger still; yet I am sure that my view-point had been modified at least, if not changed. I certainly felt my transgressions keenly, my repentance sincere and my conscience more sensitive.
I have tried since under different conditions to work for a permanent change, to reach some high level in which obedience might come without struggle; but that exalted plane I have never reached. The best I can say for myself is, that I left Tolstoy with less faith in the materialistic philosophy with which I had become inoculated, that I trusted less the things which can be demonstrated by touch or sight and that I felt a faint touch of the power of the spiritual.
This early acquaintance with Tolstoy helped me to understand rationally the doctrine of the New Birth which I have so often heard expounded since.
While Tolstoy’s rationalism forbade him to speak of his experience in terms of mysticism, the change which had taken place in him was fundamental, and Lyoff Tolstoy, the follower of the Man of Nazareth, was a totally different man from Count Tolstoy; nobleman, soldier, courtier and author.
I coveted the experience which brings about such results and I believe that it is not only rational but essential to an entrance into true discipleship with the Master. I know something of the pangs and pains of this new birth, this attempt to like the unlike, to love the unlovely, to regard wealth, place, honour, of no import, and to believe that the purpose of life is to do God’s will.
This conscious substitution of the “Alter” for the “Ego” is no light achievement, and but few men win victory in the struggle as calmly and serenely as did my host and teacher. Yet I am sure that the most valuable lesson I learned then and have since relearned from the same teacher is, that national and racial divisions are much more superficial than my professors in the university led me to believe.
“Alles ist Rasse” was the note which dominated the teaching of History in all its multitudinous divisions. I sometimes think that the opposite is true and that there is nothing in race; for I have experienced oneness with all sorts of people, both in the lower and the higher spheres of our nature.
This latter theory Tolstoy dogmatically affirmed. “You are a Jew, you say,” and he would grasp my arm so tightly that I could feel the pulsing blood in his sensitive hands. “I am a Russian; yet I feel no difference in the touch of your hands, in the look of your eyes, and hear none as you speak to me. There are differences in the colour of the skin, the shape of the nose and eyes, but beneath the surface we are all alike.”
So far as I know, Tolstoy has not changed these views, but I doubt that even the man who alters his view-point often has changed in that one fundamental belief.