By Count Lyof N. Tolstoi. Published by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York.

      Few writers of this generation have made a greater temporary sensation in the literary world than the author of this book. Whether his writings have had a tendency to good or to evil, has been so much disputed that many discreet persons have avoided reading them on the general principle that we can not afford to spend time with books the moral effects of which are in doubt. Of the volume before us, some men might say that it is filled with the spirit of love and forbearance: and it certainly speaks with sufficient emphasis in favor of those virtues; but whether its teaching is such as to promote the virtues which it extols, is doubtful, to say the least. It is doubtful whether any writing which gives a one-sided [191] representation to the teachings of Christ on any subject, in place of his own well-balanced utterances on all the phases of an upright life, can be really beneficial to its readers. But while this is doubtful, I can not concede that there is any doubt that a book which systematically misrepresents utterances of Jesus and facts in his life, can be other than pernicious to readers who accept it as an authority. That this book does this, I shall presently show.

      Count Tolstoi says in the preface to his book that he was not won to Christianity till he was fifty years old. He says of himself at that period, "Having questioned myself, and having questioned the reputed philosophers whom I knew, as to what I am and as to the purport of my life, and, after getting the reply that I was a fortuitous concatenation of atoms, and that my life was void of purport, and that life itself is evil, I became desperate, and wished to put an end to my life." Under these circumstances he embarked upon the study of Christianity. If he had then enjoyed the instruction of a good teacher, he might- probably have been brought to the light. But the light itself was darkness to his benighted understanding, as is proved by what he found the gospel narratives to be. He says:

      The source of the Christian teaching is the Gospels, and there I found the explanation of the Spirit which animates the life of all who really live. But along with the flow of that pure, life-giving water I perceived much mire and slime unlawfully, unrightfully mingled therewith; and this had prevented me, thus far, from seeing the real, pure water. He goes on to illustrate what he found in the Gospels by a sack of refuse which a man had raked together, and in which he found a few pearls (Preface, pp. 8, 9).

      On another page he says that "the canonical Gospels contain nearly as many faulty passages as those Gospels [192] rejected as apocryphal." With such a conception of the Gospels, and the further conception that they alone, exclusive of the other books of the New Testament, represent Christianity correctly, how is it possible that he could ever arrive at any other than a distorted conception of the gospel, whether in brief or in extenso?

      The Greek Church, which prevails in Russia, is extremely boastful of its orthodoxy, and Tolstoi delights in stabbing it under the fifth rib. He constantly speaks of the opponent of Jesus as "the orthodox;" a priest is always "one of the orthodox priests;" a lawyer, "one of the orthodox professors of the law," etc. His account of the interview with certain Pharisees from Jerusalem begins thus:

      And the orthodox professors of the law asked him: "Why do you live not according to church tradition, but take and eat bread with unwashed hands?" And he answered them: "But in what way do you break God's commandment, following your church tradition?"

      He reports the opening of the interview with Nicodemus thus:

      An orthodox believer, one of the Jewish authorities, named Nicodemus, came to Jesus at night and said: "You do not bid us to keep the sabbath, do not bid us observe cleanliness, do not bid us to make offerings and fast; you would destroy the temple. You say of God, He is a spirit, and you say of the kingdom of God that it is within us. Then, what kind of a kingdom of God is this?" And Jesus answered: "Understand that, if man is conceived from heaven, then in him there must be that which is of heaven."

      Having formed such an opinion of the Gospels, he deals with them accordingly by changing their thoughts and language at will. For example, he represents Joseph as taking Mary to wife because he was a just man and did not wish to disgrace her; whereas he really [193] contemplated a divorce, and was turned from his purpose only by a revelation from God, which Tolstoi conveniently leaves out of the account. He says that the parents of Jesus, when the feast was over and they started home, "forgot about the boy," and that afterward "they recollected, and thought that he had gone off with the children." He says that John the Baptist "fed on bark and herbs," and that he said to the people, "Bethink yourselves, and change your faith. And if you wish to change your faith, let it be seen by your fruits that you have bethought yourselves." He says: "Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be bathed by John; and he bathed, and heard John's preaching." In the account of the temptation of Jesus, where the Scriptures say that the devil spoke to him, Tolstoi has it in every instance, "The voice of his flesh said to him." When he comes to the last temptation, however, he does not represent Jesus as saying, "Get thee hence, flesh;" nor does he say, "Then his flesh leaveth him, and angels came and ministered to him." He conveniently leaves this out. It would have spoiled the interpretation. He makes the account of the temptation close thus: "Then the temptation ceased, and Jesus knew the power of the spirit. And when he had known the power of the spirit, Jesus went out of the wild places, and went again to John, and stayed with him." In this way throughout the book the writer distorts the narrative to stilt his own wayward fancy. To such lengths do men go when once they begin to tamper with the Scriptures.

      One of the most strangely distorted passages in this strange book is its version of the Lord's Prayer:

      "Our Father, without beginning and without end, like heaven!
      "May thy being only be holy. [194]
      "May power be only thine, so that thy will be done, without beginning and without end, on earth.
      "Give me food of life in the present.
      "Smoothe out my former mistakes, and wipe them away; even as I do with all the mistakes of my brothers, that I may not fall into temptation, and may be saved from evil.
      "Because thine is the power and might, and thine the judgment."

      His rendering of the story of the rich man and Lazarus reads almost like a joke. It begins thus:

      There was a rich man. He dressed well, led an idle and amusing life every day. And there was a vagrant, Lazarus, covered with sores. And Lazarus came to the yard of the rich man, and thought there would be leavings from the rich man's table, but Lazarus did not get even the leavings; the rich man's dogs ate up everything, and even licked Lazarus' sores.

      This reminds me of the answer made by a good sister when told that Bob Ingersoll charged the Bible with saying that the rich man was sent to hell just because he was rich, for he had done nothing mean. She replied with warmth. "I know better; he did do something mean. Didn't he sic the dogs on poor Lazarus?"

      Our author makes the "Gospel in Brief" end with the death of Jesus. There is nothing in the book about his resurrection, or about the words which he spoke afterward to his disciples. I am not informed as to his belief on this subject, for I have not been drawn toward the man sufficiently to read any of his previous religious (?) books; but if the true "Gospel in Brief" ends with the death of our Lord, then I am ready to say with Paul, "We are of all men most miserable."

      After glancing through this book, and reading some portions of it with care, I am more than ever convinced of two things: First, that a man who starts out to change the New Testament will always make a sorry mess of it; [195] and, second, that if a man with some originality and daring has the hardihood to do such a thing, he will be applauded by the same kind of rabble that cried out against Jesus and the apostles.

[SEBC 191-196]