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 III HOW TOLSTOY TRIED TO LIVE THE TRUTH "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God!" "And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." Unlike many other philosophers and writers, Tolstoy not only sought the truth and wrote extensively upon his findings, but he felt that he must strive with his whole being to live the truth, as he saw it. He was more than a philosopher, or writer, or preacher; he was a crusader with the aims of a savior. And he knew that his writings would not make one Christian unless he himself put into daily practice the moral principles he advocated. "Now I have become convinced," he wrote his wife, "that only one's life can show the path; only the example of one's life . . . it alone gives a real impulse. Example is the proof of the possibility of Christian . . . life under all possible conditions." (1) With great earnestness and in all sincerity, Tolstoy endeavored during the last years of his life to follow two difficult Christian precepts—To love your neighbor as yourself; and to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." This meant, of course, that he must change not only his own life, but also that of his family and throw everything into confusion. He felt that he must give up his luxurious habits, produce his bread by the sweat of his own brow, and live the life common to the poorest of his peasantry. Undaunted and without faltering, he put his axe to everything that held him to hisformer life. Although accustomed to smoke and to drink, he gave up both habits, and although extremely fond of shooting, he abandoned this sport. He ceased riding horses, and even when his family went to Moscow, which was one hundred and ninety-five ver...