The life of Tolstoy Author:Aylmer Maude Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THEOLOGY AND THE GOSPELS The Church and Religion. A Criticism of Dogmatic Theology. How to Read the Gospels. A Summary of Tolstoy'e view of reli... more »gion. Christ's Five Commandments. Tolstoy's interpretation. Darwinism prevalent. Tolstoy and the Ethical Movement. Old Testament Scriptures. Paul's Epistles. The Gospels. Future life. Spiritualism. Miracles. Feeding the Five Thousand. Faith-cures. Oaths. Individualist (--.' Nationalist perception. Objection to Tolstoy's view. The value of definiteness. The ethical basis of the existing order. The value of Tolstoy's protest. The Four Gospelt. Jesus and his teaching. Method of interpretation. Demagnetising the Gospels. Changing view of Christ. Manual labour and the Sermon on the Mount. Church and State. The Gospel in Brief. What do I Believe t Sexnal fidelity. Patriotism. Tolstoy's superstitions. His moral indictment. Walter Bagehot. Prayer. The problem before Tolstoy was that of separating what is true from what is false in the teachings of the Church and in the Bible. He had learnt by experience that man needs guidance, and requires a chart of life to enable him to steer his course; but he was too sincere to adopt a creed merely because he needed one, or to accept anything he saw no sufficient reason to believe. Other men have felt the need for religion as keenly as he, and not a few have shared his courage and truthfulness; but he alone, in our time, combined this profoundly religious spirit and fearless truthfulness, with a genius for literary expression which secured for what he had to say the attention of the world.Owing moreover to the personal risk he (in Russia) ran, his words became heroic deeds, causing the blood of those who heard them to flow faster in their veins. He first carefully examined the dogmas...« less