What to Do?/Thoughts Evoked by the Census of Moscow
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THOUGHTS EVOKED BY THE CENSUS OF MOSCOW.
[1884–1885]
And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?
He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise—Luke iii. 10. 11.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?—Matt. vi. 19-25.
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? Or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.—Matt. vi. 31-34.
For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.—Matt. xix. 24; Mark x. 25; Luke xviii. 25.
Footnotes
[edit]{1} The fine, tall members of a regiment, selected and placed together to form a showy squad.
{2} [] Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition printed in Russia, in the set of Count Tolstoi's works.
{3} Reaumur.
{4} A drink made of water, honey, and laurel or salvia leaves, which is drunk as tea, especially by the poorer classes.
{5} [] Omitted by the censor from the authorized edition published in Russia in the set of count Tolstoi's works. The omission is indicated thus . . .
{6} Kalatch, a kind of roll: baranki, cracknels of fine flour.
{11} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{12} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{13} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{14} Omitted by the Censor from the authorized edition.
{15} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{16} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition
{17} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{18} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{19} A very complicated sort of whist.
{20} The whole of this chapter is omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition, and is there represented by the following sentence: "And I felt that in money, in money itself, in the possession of it, there was something immoral; and I asked myself, What is money?"
{21} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{22} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{23} The above passage is omitted in the authorized edition, and the following is added: "I came to the simple and natural conclusion, that, if I pity the tortured horse upon which I am riding, the first thing for me to do is to alight, and to walk on my own feet."
{24} Omitted in the authorized edition.
{25} Omitted in the authorized edition.
{26} "Into a worse state," in the authorized edition.
{27} Omitted in the authorized edition.
{28} Omitted in the authorized edition.
{29} Reaumur.
{30} In the Moscow edition (authorized by the Censor), the concluding paragraph is replaced by the following:—"They say: The action of a single man is but a drop in the sea. A drop in the sea!
"There is an Indian legend relating how a man dropped a pearl into the sea, and in order to recover it he took a bucket, and began to bail out, and to pour the water on the shore. Thus he toiled without intermission, and on the seventh day the spirit of the sea grew alarmed lest the man should dip the sea dry, and so he brought him his pearl. If our social evil of persecuting man were the sea, then that pearl which we have lost is equivalent to devoting our lives to bailing out the sea of that evil. The prince of this world will take fright, he will succumb more promptly than did the spirit of the sea; but this social evil is not the sea, but a foul cesspool, which we assiduously fill with our own uncleanness. All that is required is for us to come to our senses, and to comprehend what we are doing; to fall out of love with our own uncleanness,—in order that that imaginary sea should dry away, and that we should come into possession of that priceless pearl,—fraternal, humane life."
{31} An arshin is twenty-eight inches.
{32} The fast extends from the 5th to the 30th of June, O.S. (June 27 to July 12, N.S.)
{33} A pood is thirty-six pounds.
{34}