Religion of future will be largely Tolstoyan.
The religion of Russia of the future will be largely that which Tolstoy lived and taught, and it will be the religion of a large part of the rest of the world. Time’s sifting process will eliminate whatever is untenable in his system of moral and social and economic philosophy, which sprang more from a flaming heart than from a cool, calculating mind. He had neither the time nor the inclination to work out a synthetic philosophy. He wrote as the spirit moved him, and whenever it moved him, the keynote of all his writing having been, as he said to me, “the hastening of the day when men will dwell together in the bonds of love, and sin and suffering will be no more.”
There are in the Tolstoyan system of religion the elements of the long-dreamed of universal creed. It will take time for the rooting of it. Mormonism and Dowieism spring up, like Jonah’s gourd, and pass away as speedily as they came. A system as rational and radical as that of Tolstoy requires an age for germination. But, once it takes root, it takes root forever; once it blossoms, it blossoms for eternity.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See his book “My Confession.”
[2] See his essay “Church and State.”
[3] See his essays “Man and Woman, Their Respective Functions;” and “The Mother,” and his book “What To Do?”
[4] See also his book “What To Do?” and his essay “The Russian Revolution.”
[5] See his book “What To Do?” and his essay “Money.”
[6] “The Slavery of Our Times.”
[7] “Cossacks.” “Christ’s Christianity.”
[8] See his books “My Confession,” “My Religion,” and Aylmer Maude’s The Life of Tolstoy.
