The Kingdom of God Is Within You - Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (best non fiction books of all time txt) 📗

have caught all the

world in his net of faith, but the greater fishes broke the net

and escaped out of it, and all the rest have slipped through

the holes made by the greater fishes, so that the net has

remained quite empty. The greater fishes who broke the net are

the rulers, emperors, popes, kings, who have not renounced

power, and instead of true Christianity have put on what is

simply a mask of it.”

 

Helchitsky teaches precisely what has been and is taught in these

days by the non-resistant Mennonites and Quakers, and in former

tunes by the Bogomilites, Paulicians, and many others. He teaches

that Christianity, expecting from its adherents gentleness,

meekness, peaceableness, forgiveness of injuries, turning the

other cheek when one is struck, and love for enemies, is

inconsistent with the use of force, which is an indispensable

condition of authority.

 

The Christian, according to Helchitsky’s reasoning, not only

cannot be a ruler or a soldier; he cannot take any part in

government nor in trade, or even be a landowner; he can only be an

artisan or a husbandman.

 

This book is one of the few works attacking official Christianity

which has escaped being burned. All such so-called heretical

works were burned at the stake, together with their authors, so

that there are few ancient works exposing the errors of official

Christianity. The book has a special interest for this reason

alone. But apart from its interest from every point of view, it

is one of the most remarkable products of thought for its depth of

aim, for the astounding strength and beauty of the national

language in which it is written, and for its antiquity. And yet

for more than four centuries it has remained unprinted, and is

still unknown, except to a few learned specialists.

 

One would have thought that all such works, whether of the

Quakers, of Garrison, of Ballou, or of Helchitsky, asserting and

proving as they do, on the principles of the Gospel, that our

modern world takes a false view of Christ’s teaching, would have

awakened interest, excitement, talk, and discussion among

spiritual teachers and their flocks alike.

 

Works of this kind, dealing with the very essence of Christian

doctrine, ought, one would have thought, to have been examined and

accepted as true, or refuted and rejected. But nothing of the

kind has occurred, and the same fate has been repeated with all

those works. Men of the most diverse views, believers, and, what

is surprising, unbelieving liberals also, as though by agreement,

all preserve the same persistent silence about them, and all that

has been done by people to explain the true meaning of Christ’s

doctrine remains either ignored or forgotten.

 

But it is still more astonishing that two other books, of

which I heard on the appearance of my book, should be so little

known, I mean Dymond’s book “On War,” published for the first time

in London in 1824, and Daniel Musser’s book on “Nonresistance,”

written in 1864. It is particularly astonishing that these books

should be unknown, because, apart from their intrinsic merits,

both books treat not so much of the theory as of the practical

application of the theory to life, of the attitude of Christianity

to military service, which is especially important and interesting

now in these clays of universal conscription.

 

People will ask, perhaps: How ought a subject to behave who

believes that war is inconsistent with his religion while the

government demands from him that he should enter military service?

 

This question is, I think, a most vital one, and the answer to it

is specially important in these days of universal conscription.

All—or at least the great majority of the people—are Christians,

and all men are called upon for military service. How ought a

man, as a Christian, to meet this demand? This is the gist of

Dymond’s answer:

 

“His duty is humbly but steadfastly to refuse to serve.”

 

There are some people, who, without any definite reasoning about

it, conclude straightway that the responsibility of government

measures rests entirely on those who resolve on them, or that the

governments and sovereigns decide the question of what is good or

bad for their subjects, and the duty of the subjects is merely to

obey. I think that arguments of this kind only obscure men’s

conscience. I cannot take part in the councils of government, and

therefore I am not responsible for its misdeeds.. Indeed, but we

are responsible for our own misdeeds. And the misdeeds of our

rulers become our own, if we, knowing that they are misdeeds,

assist in carrying, them out. Those who suppose that they are

bound to obey the government, and that the responsibility for the

misdeeds they commit is transferred from them to their rulers,

deceive themselves. They say: “We give our acts up to the will

of others, and our acts cannot be good or bad; there is no merit

in what is good nor responsibility for what is evil in our

actions, since they are not done of our own will.”

 

It is remarkable that the very same thing is said in the

instructions to soldiers which they make them learn—that is, that

the officer is alone responsible for the consequences of his

command. But this is not right. A man cannot get rid of the

responsibility, for his own actions. And that is clear from the

following example. If your officer commands you to kill your

neighbor’s child, to kill your father or your mother, would you

obey? If you would not obey, the whole argument falls to the

ground, for if you can disobey the governors in one case, where do

you draw the line up to which you can obey them? There is no line

other than that laid down by Christianity, and that line is both

reasonable and practicable.

 

And therefore we consider it the duty of every man who thinks war

inconsistent with Christianity, meekly but firmly to refuse to

serve in the army. And let those whose lot it is to act thus,

remember that the fulfillment of a great duty rests with them.

The destiny of humanity in the world depends, so far as it depends

on men at all, on their fidelity to their religion. Let them

confess their conviction, and stand up for it, and not in words

alone, but in sufferings too, if need be. If you believe that

Christ forbade murder, pay no heed to the arguments nor to the

commands of those who call on you to bear a hand in it. By such a

steadfast refusal to make use of force, you call down on

yourselves the blessing promised to those “who hear these sayings

and do them,” and the time will come when the world will recognize

you as having aided in the reformation of mankind.

 

Musser’s book is called “Nonresistance Asserted,” or “Kingdom of

Christ and Kingdoms of this World Separated.” This book is

devoted to the same question, and was written when the American

Government was exacting military service from its citizens at the

time of the Civil War. And it has, too, a value for all time,

dealing with the question how, in such circumstances, people

should and can refuse to eater military service. Here is the tenor

of the author’s introductory remarks:

 

“It is well known that there are many persons in the United

States who refuse to fight on grounds of conscience. They are

called the ‘defenseless,’ or ‘non-resistant’ Christians. These

Christians refuse to defend their country, to bear arms, or at

the call of government to make war on its enemies. Till lately

this religious scruple seemed a valid excuse to the government,

and those who urged it were let off service. But at the

beginning of our Civil War public opinion was agitated on this

subject. It was natural that persons who considered it their

duty to bear all the hardships and dangers of war in defense of

their country should feel resentment against those persons who

had for long shared with them the advantages of the protection

of government, and who now in time of need and danger would not

share in bearing the labors and dangers of its defense. It was

even natural that they should declare the attitude of such men

monstrous, irrational, and suspicious.”

 

A host of orators and writers, our author tells us, arose to

oppose this attitude, and tried to prove the sinfulness of nonresistance, both from Scripture and on common-sense grounds. And

this was perfectly natural, and in many cases the authors were

right—right, that is, in regard to persons who did not renounce

the benefits they received from the government and tried to avoid

the hardships of military service, but not right in regard to the

principle of nonresistance itself. Above all, our author proves

the binding nature of the rule of nonresistance for a Christian,

pointing out that this command is perfectly clear, and is enjoined

upon every Christian by Christ without possibility of

misinterpretation. “Bethink yourselves whether it is righteous to

obey man more than God,” said Peter and John. And this is

precisely what ought to be the attitude to every man who wishes to

be Christian to the claim on him for military service, when Christ

has said, “Resist not evil by force.” As for the question of the

principle itself, the author regards that as decided. As to the

second question, whether people have the right to refuse to serve

in the army who have not refused the benefits conferred by a

government resting on force, the author considers it in detail,

and arrives at the conclusion that a Christian following the law

of Christ, since he does not go to war, ought not either to take

advantage of any institutions of government, courts of law, or

elections, and that in his private concerns he must not have

recourse to the authorities, the police, or the law. Further on

in the book he treats of the relation of the Old Testament to the

New, the value of government for those who are Christians, and

makes some observations on the doctrine of nonresistance and the

attacks made on it. The author concludes his book by saying:

“Christians do not need government, and therefore they cannot

either obey it in what is contrary to Christ’s teaching nor, still

less, take part in it.” Christ took his disciples out of the

world, he says. They do not expect worldly blessings and worldly

happiness, but they expect eternal life. The Spirit in whom they

live makes them contented and happy in every position. If the

world tolerates them, they are always happy. If the world will

not leave them in peace, they will go elsewhere, since they are

pilgrims on the earth and they have no fixed place of habitation.

They believe that “the dead may bury their dead.” One thing only

is needful for them, “to follow their Master.”

 

Even putting aside the question as to the principle laid down in

these two books as to the Christian’s duty in his attitude to war,

one cannot help perceiving the practical importance and the urgent

need of deciding the question.

 

There are people, hundreds of thousands of Quakers, Mennonites,

all our Douhobortsi, Molokani, and others who do not belong to any

definite sect, who consider that the use of force—and,

consequently, military service—is inconsistent with Christianity.

Consequently there are every year among us in Russia some men

called upon for military service who refuse to serve on the ground

of their religious convictions. Does the government let them off

then? No. Does it compel them to go, and in case of disobedience

punish them? No. This was how the government treated them in

1818. Here is an extract from the diary of Nicholas Myravyov of