The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-11-21
THE DEATH OF TOLSTOI.

The expected news has come of the
death of Tolstoi He was great man.
His intellect was superb. His purpose
was TO be beneficial TO humanity. He
filled the world with his fame, though
he was diScredited and dstrusted at
home. He was recognized as a great re-
ligious teacher, though excommunicated
by the church of his fathers, and under
the ban of the religion Of his country.
His heart was warm toward all human
ity. but as flint toward his own family
whom he found it impossible to for
give, or TO be reconciled with.
His intellect was a very flame of
light, and yet there seemed TO be some
thing wrong about it all the time; some
thing impractlcablc, as though he had
seized upon such portions of the gospel
as would make the sheep always the vic
TINS Of the wolves, and he held those
portions TO be supreme, There has not
been with him for a long time any idea
that the Just should resist oppression or
the righteous fight off the assault of
the wicked. The weak must always sue
cumb to power. and the helpless must
love those who afflict them. The meek
portions of the gospels seemed to be
Tolstol 5 great reliance, aud from them
he drew the ammunition for his tremep-
dous fulminatiops. But his very meek
ness was the weakness of his cause. If
Heaven itself should cease to resist the
.achilations of He'll, it would no longer
he Heaven. II is never the duty, it is
never the right, of those who are strong
in good workc, and in righteousness. to
allow themselves to be overridden by
evil nor to succumb TO the assaults of
the devil If Tolstoi Is teachings were
pressed to their limit, they would mean
the abolition of all good and the very
destruction Of Heaven, the misery of
the human race for all eternity. The
strong would rob and Cypress the weak.
There would be no resistance. The saw
age would strike down the man of cul
ture, and moral strength, and in due
course of time all good would be butch
cred in the world, Evil and oppression
would he all that could survive were
Tolstol S later doctrines made the rule
of mankind
He had come for so many years to
brood upon the ideal conditions of a
peaceful, happy community that he lost
all actual realization of the forces of
wickedness and of the results that
would follow from his doctrine Of non
resistance, the good giving way to evil
and the righteous suffering destruction
rather than resisting despotic outrage.
In way perhaps. his writings in this
mi ght be an expression of his despair
at the conditions Of rule in Russia which
may have appeared to him as hopeless.
And vet it is difficult to understand
wherefrom he expected regeneration or
through what means he may have had
hope for the bettermnt of Russia or of
humanity through meek non-resistance.
For if there is to be no opposition TO
| tyranny and the ruthless progress of
evil, it is indeed a dark prospect for
humanity and redemption is nowhere in
sight.
| Probably the verdict of the world on
| Tolstoi viii be, that in his later years,
especially. his mind was unbalanced,
and though it's brillianee continued until
the last, it was misleading brilliancy,
whose light for humanity would be fatal
if followed Yet grief for his death
will be rld.wide, and this grief will
be embittered by the thought that an
old man so humanitarian, of such atru
istic and noble ideas, could not bring
himself even upon his deathbed, to
reconciliation and love for those of his
own family. the offspring of his own
blood 1t is pitiable case, illustrating
anew the oftnoted divergence between
preaching and practice. And it is only
asserting anew the weakness Of human
nature to see that Tolstoi was himself a
victim. of this irreconcilable conflict.
The world especially Tolstoi Is admirers
must certainly grieve that he could not
find il in his heart in his last days to
take again to his heart the wife of his
many years and the children of their
union. In his death great light has
gone out, but light not safe for human
guidance.
| Secretary Wilson of the A Agricultural