THE KINGDOM OF GOD
IS WITHIN YOU
——
CHRISTIANITY
AND PATRIOTISM
——
MISCELLANIES

By COUNT LEV N. TOLSTÓY

Translated from the Original Russian and Edited by

LEO WIENER

Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

BOSTON—DANA ESTES &
COMPANY—PUBLISHERS

EDITION DE LUXE

Limited to One Thousand Copies,
of which this is
No. ___

Copyright, 1905
By Dana Estes & Company
———
Entered at Stationers' Hall

Colonial Press: Electrotyped and Printed by
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, Mass., U. S. A.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS
WITHIN YOU

Or, Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but
as a New Concept of Life

1893

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS
WITHIN YOU

Or, Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but
as a New Concept of Life

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John viii. 23).

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt. x. 28).

Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men (1. Cor. vii. 23).

In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title, My Religion. In this book I really expounded what my religion is.

In expounding my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help but express the reason why I do not believe in the ecclesiastic faith, which is generally called Christianity, and why I consider it to be a delusion.

Among the many deviations of this teaching of Christ, I pointed out the chief deviation, namely, the failure to acknowledge the commandment of non-resistance to evil, which more obviously than any other shows the distortion of Christ's teaching in the church doctrine.

I knew very little, like the rest of us, as to what had been done and preached and written in former days on this subject of non-resistance to evil. I knew what had been said on this subject by the fathers of the church, Origen, Tertullian, and others, and I knew also that there have existed certain so-called sects of the Mennonites, Herrnhuters, Quakers, who do not admit for a Christian the use of weapons and who do not enter military service, but what had been done by these so-called sects for the solution of this question was quite unknown to me.

My book, as I expected, was held back by the Russian censor, but, partly in consequence of my reputation as a writer, partly because it interested people, this book was disseminated in manuscripts and lithographic reprints in Russia and in translations abroad, and called forth, on the one hand, on the part of men who shared my views, a series of references to works written on the subject, and, on the other, a series of criticisms on the thoughts expressed in that book itself.

Both, together with the historical phenomena of recent times, have made many things