Page:Tolstoy - Slavery.djvu/26

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20
AUTHOR'S PREFACE

and of this, is the repudiation of violence. That repudiation I learnt, and understood, from the Gospels, where it is most clearly expressed in the words, "It was said to you, An eye for an eye," . . . i.e. you have been taught to oppose violence by violence, but I teach you: turn the other cheek when you are struck; i.e. suffer violence, but do not employ it. I know that the use of those great words—in consequence of the unreflectingly perverted interpretations alike of Liberals and of Churchmen, who on this matter agree—will be a reason for most so-called cultured people not to read this article, or to be biassed against it; but nevertheless I place those words as the epigraph of this work.

I cannot prevent people who consider themselves enlightened, from considering the gospel teaching to be an obsolete guide to life a guide long outlived by humanity. But I can indicate the source from which I drew my consciousness of a truth which people are yet far from recognising, and which alone can save men from their sufferings. And this I do


11th July 1900.