RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 89 



and mighty as the host which Ezekiel in his vision 

 saw in the valley of dry bones. 



The religion of Russia of the future will be largely 

 that which Tolstoy lived and taught, and it will be 

 the religion of a large part of the rest of the world. 

 Time's sifting process will eliminate whatever is 

 untenable in his system of moral and social and 

 economic philosophy, which sprang more from a 

 flaming heart than from a cool, calculating mind. He 

 had neither the time nor the inclination to work out a 

 synthetic philosophy. He wrote as the spirit moved 

 him. and whenever it moved him, the keynote of all 

 his writing having been, as he said to me, "the hasten- 

 ing of the day when men will dwell together in the 

 bonds of love, and sin and suffering will be no more." 



There are in the Tolstoyan system of religion the 

 elements of the long dreamed-of universal creed. It 

 will take time for the rooting of it. Mormonism and 

 Dowieism spring up, like Jonah's gourd, and pass away 

 as speedily as they came. A system as rational and 

 radical as that of Tolstoy requires an age for germina- 

 tion. But, once it takes root, it takes root for ever; 

 once it blossoms, it blossoms for eternity. 







The incident which I am about to relate occurred 

 in Russia, on a July evening, 1894. In the course 

 of the evening meal, which I was privileged to share 

 with Count Tolstoy and his family, a peasant entered 

 with the mail and presented it to the Count. With 

 considerable eagerness he freed a newspaper from its 

 wrapper, and, turning its pages, stopped at one of 



