Imbued with the hopes and dreams that flourished all around him, he began, at a ripe age and in full possession of his faculties, to express his philosophy in poetic and alluring parables, the hostility of the government having only served to fire his enthusiasms and embitter his individual opinions. After first declaring that the masters of men are their equals, he taught later on that they are their persecutors, and finally, in old age, arrived at the conclusion that all who rule or direct others are simply criminals!
"You are not at all obliged to fulfil your duties," he wrote, in the Life and Death of Drojine, 1895, dedicated to a Tolstoyan martyr. "You could, if you wished, find another occupation, so that you would no longer have to tyrannise over men. . . . You men of power, emperors and kings, you are not Christians, and it is time you renounced the name as well as the moral code upon which you depend in order to dominate others."
It would be difficult to give a complete list either of the beliefs of the Tolstoyans, or of their colonies, in many of which members of the highest aristocracy were to be found.
"We have in Russia tens of thousands of men who have refused to swear allegiance to the new Tsar," wrote Tolstoi, a couple of years before his death, "and who consider military service merely a school for murder."
We have no right to doubt his word—but did Tolstoi know all his followers? Like all who have scattered seed, he was not in a position to count it. But however that may be, he transformed the highest aspirations of man's soul into a noble philosophy of human progress, and attracted the uneducated as well as the cultured classes by his genuine desire for equality and justice.
Early in June, 1895, several hundreds of verigintzi (members of a sect named after Veregine, their leader) came from the south of Russia to the Karsk district. The government's suspicions were aroused, and at Karsk the pilgrims were stopped, and punished for having attempted to emigrate without special permission. Inquiries showed that all were Tolstoyans, who practised the doctrine of non-resistance to evil on a large scale. For their co-religionists in Elisabethpol suddenly refused to bear arms, and nine soldiers also belonging to the sect repeated without ceasing that "our heavenly Father has forbidden us to kill our fellowmen." Those who were in the reserve sent in their papers, saying that they wished to have nothing more to do with the army.
One section of the verigintzi especially distinguished themselves by the zeal with which they practised the Tolstoyan doctrines. They reverenced their leader under the name of "General Tolstoi," gave up sugar as well as meat, drank only tea and ate only bread. They were called "the fasters," and their gentleness became proverbial. In the village of Orlovka they were exposed to most cruel outrages, the inhabitants having been stirred up against them by the priests and officials. They were spat upon, flogged, and generally ill-treated, but never ceased to pray, "O God, help us to bear our misery." Their meekness at last melted the hearts of their persecutors, who, becoming infected by their religious ardour, went down on their knees before those whom they had struck with whips a few minutes before.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANS
The Slavonic atmosphere exhales an intense longing for the ideal and for heaven. Often a kind of religious ecstasy seems to sweep over the whole length and breadth of the Russian territories, and Tolstoi's celebrated doctrines reflected the dreamy soul of the moujik and the teachings of many Russian martyrs. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that it is only the peasants buried in the depths of the country who provide favourable soil for the culture of the religious bacillus. It is the same with all classes—merchants, peasants, labourers and aristocrats.