the foundation which alone would enable him to resist violence, and those who are in authority over him will never give him the chance of uniting with others.

It has often been said that the invention of the terrible military instruments of murder will put an end to war, and that war will exhaust itself. This is not true. As it is possible to increase the means for killing men, so it is possible to increase the means for subjecting those who hold the social life-conception. Let them be exterminated by thousands and millions, let them be torn to pieces, men will still continue like stupid cattle to go to the slaughter, some because they are driven thither under the lash, others that they may win the decorations and ribbons which fill their hearts with pride.

And it is with material like this that the public leaders conservatives, liberals, socialists, anarchists - discuss the ways and means of organizing an intelligent and moral society, with men who have been so thoroughly confused and bewildered that they will promise to murder their own parents. What kind of intelligence and morality can there be in a society organized from material like this? Just as it is impossible to build a house from bent and rotten timber, however manipulated, so also is it impossible with such materials to organize an intelligent and moral society. They can only be governed like a drove of cattle, by the shouts and lash of the herdsman. And so, indeed, they are governed.

Again, while on the one hand we find men, Christians in name, professing the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, on the other hand we see these same men ready, in the name of liberty, to yield the most abject and slavish obedience; in the name of equality, to approve of the most rigid and senseless subdivision of men into classes; and in the name of fraternity, ready to slay their own brothers.1

1 The fact that some nations, like the English and American, have no general conscription system (although one hears already voices in its favor), but a system of recruiting and hiring soldiers, nowise alters the case as regards the slavery of the citizens under the government. In the former system every man must go himself to kill or be killed; in the latter, he must give the proceeds of his labor to employ and drill murderers.

The contradiction of the moral consciousness, and hence the misery of life, has reached its utmost limit, beyond which it can go no further. Life, based on principles of violence, has culminated in the negation of the basis on which it was founded. The organization, on principles of violence, of a society whose object was to insure the happiness of the individual and the family, and the social welfare of humanity, has brought men to such a pass that these benefits are practically annulled.

The first part of the prophecy in regard to those men and their descendants who adopted this doctrine has been fulfilled, and now their descendants are forced to realize the justice of its second part.

CHAPTER IX

THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN

LIFE-CONCEPTION

DELIVERS MEN FROM THE MISERIES OF OUR PAGAN

LIFE

The external life of Christian nations remains pagan, but they are already penetrated by the Christian life-conception The issue from this contradiction is in the acceptance of the Christian life-conception-In it alone is every man free, and it alone frees him from all human authority-This deliverance is brought about, not by a change of external conditions, but only by a change in the conception of one's life - The Christian life-conception demands the renunciation of violence, and, in delivering the man who accepts it, it frees the world from all external authority-The issue from the present apparently hopeless position consists in every man accepting the Christian life-conception and living accordingly - But men consider this method too slow, and see their salvation in change of the material conditions of life made with the aid of the authority of the State-This method will have no issue, because men themselves cause the evil from which they suffer-This is especially evident in regard to the submissive acceptance of military duty, for it is more advantageous for a man to refuse than accept- Human freedom will be brought about only through the liberation of each individual man, and already there are signs of this liberation, which threatens to destroy State organization-The repudiation of the un-Christian demands of governments undermines their authority and makes men free-Therefore instances of such refusals are feared by governments more than conspiracies or violence Instances, in Russia, of refusals to take the oath of allegiance, to pay taxes, to accept passports or positions in the police, to take part

in courts of law, or to be drafted as soldiers- Similar instances in other countries Governments know not how to dispose of men who refuse to obey their requirements because of the Christian doctrine - These men destroy without a struggle the foundations of governments from the inside-To punish them would mean for governments to deny Christianity themselves, and to contribute to the diffusion of that consciousness from which such refusals spring - Hence the position of governments is a desperate one, and men who preach the uselessness of personal deliverance only arrest the destruction of the existing system of government founded on violence.

THE Christian nations of the present day are in a posi tion no less cruel than that of pagan times. In many respects, especially in the matter of oppression, their position has grown worse.

A contrast like that of modern and ancient times may be seen in the vegetation of the last days of autumn as compared with that of the early days of spring. In the autumn the outward decay and death correspond to the interior process, which is the suspension of life; in the spring the apparent lifelessness is in direct contradiction to the real vitality within, and the approaching transition to new forms of life.

And thus it is as regards the apparent resemblance between pagan life and that of the present day. It exists only in appearance. The inner lives of men in the times of paganism were quite unlike those of the men of our days.

In the former the external aspect of cruelty and slavery corresponded with the inner consciousness of men, a conformity which only increased as time went on; in the latter the external condition of cruelty and slavery is in utter contradiction to the Christian consciousness of men, a contradiction which grows more and more striking every year.

The misery and suffering resulting therefrom seem so useless. It is like prolonged suffering in child-labor. Everything is ready for the coming life, and yet no life appears.

Apparently the situation is without deliverance. It would indeed be so were it not that to men, and therefore to the world, there has been vouchsafed the capac

Г

ity for a loftier conception of life, which has the power to set free, and at once, from all fetters, however firmly riveted.

And this is the Christian life-conception presented to men 1800 years ago.

A man has but to assimilate this life-conception and he will be set free, as a matter of course, from the fetters that now restrain him, and feel free as a bird who spreads his wings and flies over the wall that has kept him a prisoner.

They talk of setting the Christian Church free from the State, of granting freedom to or withholding it from Christians. Such thoughts and expressions are strangely misleading. Liberty can neither be granted to nor withheld from a Christian or Christians.

But if there is a question of granting or withholding liberty, then evidently it is not the true Christians who are meant, but only men who call themselves by that name. A Christian cannot help being free, because in the pursuit and attainment of his object no one can either hinder or retard him.

A man has but to understand his life as Christianity teaches him to understand it; that is, he must realize that it does not belong to himself, nor to his family, nor to the State, but to Him who sent him into the world; he must therefore know that it is his duty to live, not in accordance with the law of his own personality, nor of that of his family or State, but to fulfil the infinite law of Him who gave him life, in order to feel himself so entirely free from all human authority that he will cease to regard it as a possible obstacle.

A man needs but to realize that the object of his life is the fulfilment of God's law; then the preeminence of that law, claiming as it does his entire allegiance, will of necessity invalidate the authority and restrictions of all human laws.

The Christian who contemplates that law of love implanted in every human soul, and quickened by Christ, the only guide for all mankind, is set free from human authority.

A Christian may suffer from external violence, may be deprived of his personal freedom, may be a slave to his passions, the man who commits sin is the slave of the sin, — but he cannot be controlled or coerced by threats into committing an act contrary to his consciousness. He cannot be forced to this, because the privations and sufferings that are so powerful an influence over men who hold the social life-conception have no influence Lwhatever over him. The privations and sufferings that destroy the material welfare which is the object of the social life-conception produce no effect upon the welfare of the Christian's life, which rests on the consciousness that he is doing God's will-nay, they may even serve to promote that welfare when they are visited upon him for fulfilling that will.

A Christian, therefore, who submits to the inner, the divine law, is not only unable to execute the biddings of the outward law when they are at variance with his consciousness of God's law of love, as in the case of the demands made upon him by the government; but he cannot acknowledge the obligation of obeying any individual whomsoever, cannot acknowledge himself to be what is called a subject. For a Christian to promise to subject himself to any government whatsoever a sub jection which may be considered the foundation of State life is a direct negation of Christianity; since an individual who promises beforehand to obey implicitly every law that men may enact, by that promise utters an emphatic denial of Christianity, whose very essence is obedience in all contingencies, to the law which he feels to be within him - the law of love.

With the pagan life-conception it was possible to promise to obey the will of temporal authorities without violating the laws of God, which were supposed to consist in carrying out such customs as circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, the utterance of prayer at certain periods, abstinence from certain kinds of food, etc. The one did not contradict the other. But Christianity differs from paganism inasmuch as its requirements are not of an external or negative charac