God, and, in consequence, what we must do to fulfil it.
Therefore, I think that the elucidation and verbal expression (which is an unmistakable token of clearness of idea) of all religions truth accessible to him, by every man, however small he may think himself or others may consider him—the least being generally the greatest—are of the most sacred and most essential duties of man.
*****
[A letter written to a friend exiled to a town in the extreme north of Russia for revolutionary activities, and who, being there gradually drawn from rationalistic views of religion back into orthodoxy, endeavoured to influence Tolstoy in the tame direction.]
I have received, and still continue to receive, your innumerable letters, dear ——, and I should like to answer circumstantially the chief points in them.
I deem it unnecessary to reply to your unjust conjectures, firstly, that I am angry with you; secondly, that I believe our life ends here; thirdly, that I might and ought to occupy myself in giving pecuniary help to certain individuals (chosen by you out of millions of similar people who surround me); for all these statements have already
