it is easier to go all together? Why yes, to dig or to mow. But one can
only draw near to God in isolation . . . I picture the world to myself
as a vast temple, in which the light falls from above in the very
centre. To meet together all must go towards the light. There we shall
find ourselves, gathered from many quarters, united with men we did not
expect to see; therein is joy."

The humility which had so completely supplanted his youthful arrogance,
and which made him shrink from impelling others to follow in his steps,
endued him also with the teachableness of a child towards those whom
he accepted as his spiritual mentors. It was a peasant nonconformist
writer, Soutaev, who by conversing with him on the revelations of the
Gospels helped him to regain his childhood's faith, and incidentally
brought him into closer relations with religious, but otherwise
untaught, men of the people. He saw how instead of railing against fate
after the manner of their social superiors, they endured sickness and
misfortune with a calm confidence that all was by the will of God, as it
must be and should be. From his peasant teachers he drew the watchwords
Faith, Love, and Labour, and by their light he established that concord
in his own life without which the concord of the universe remains
impossible to realise. The process of inward struggle--told with
unsparing truth in "Confession"--is finely painted in "Father Serge,"
whose life story points to the conclusion at which Tolstoy ultimately
arrived, namely, that not in withdrawal from the common trials and
temptations of men, but in sharing them, lies our best fulfilment of our
duty towards mankind and towards God. Tolstoy gave practical effect to
this principle, and to this long-felt desire to be of use to the poor of
the country, by editing and publishing, aided by his friend Chertkov,*
modern literature has awakened so universal a sense of sympathy and
admiration, perhaps because none has been so entirely a labour of love.