Personal Reminiscences

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1938, Page 16 (Supplement)

Personal Reminiscences

By - - - Rev. C. W. Chandler

On Religion

•TWKNTV.FI VR years ago I 1 sailed from Tilbury Docks. London, with two suitcases and a cabin trunk.. On each of the packages was plastered a big C. In the luggage, amongst other things, were several suits of clothes, a strong pair of working Hoots, a Rible and a copy of To I stoy s "Resurrection."

I lie " licsiirrcct ion" had been given to me by an Austrian countess—a friend ol I lie family. She handed me the book with ;i "good bye" ami "<!od bless you" as 1 left her home at (loldcr's Green the day before sailing.

As I lay on ft deck chair approaching Teiierilie en route to Onceuslalid. I rend of Prince Nvkhlyinlov trekkinu to Siberia wit li Maslova, through endless vcrsts of snow, in an effort to atone for the evil lie had committed. And then I came to the last words in that book which tell of a. perfectly new life which dawned upon Nckltlytidov, "not beenn e he had entered into new conditions of life, but because everything he did after that night, had a new and quite different meaning for him." His life was changed, and so was mine through rending that book. During tlie two or three years prior to this change Paine, Tngersoll and Meckel had satisfied my purely intellectual needs, but now I had found a greater than those who hud awakened a deeper longing. Some will think that it is a pity that 1 have not said that the Bibbdid the changing so it did, indirectly. It. wn> in the Words of Tolstoy that 1 was to find what for me was a practical interpretation of the Christian message. I had seen enough of poverty and squalor in the grent metropolis to convince me that something more lhan mere belief was wanted by those who longed to help to put the world to rights. Fn the light of 25 years' added experience I must acknowledge that my views have been modified. Hut, I have not gone so far that I cannot prize above all my wordly possessions (and they are few) the 21 volumes which comprise the centenary edition of Tolstoy's works, published by the Oxford University Press for the Tolstoy Society. They are the translations of Ixniise and Aylmer Maude, than which no more faithful rendering of the works of this great Kussian seer and prophet could be found. Aylmer Maude lived with Tolstoy during a part of his 23 years in Russia, and Tolstoy himself acknowledged that ho was more than satisfied with the translations of Maude and his wife.

Hv (lie time the Vessel reached HrisImiiic alter a journey of six weeks and li\c days around the <;i|N\ I had finished rending ami rereading the "Kcsnrred ion." luit not until a quarter of a century later was I to become the happy piiK-i*>-or of this centenary edition. As far back as lU2M, Aylmer Maude wrote and linked me to make known to librarians and others tile projected publication of this edition.

(Jeorge Bernard Shaw has written an introduction to Volume I. which comprises the first .">(1 years, of the life of Tolstoy. I was so struck with the force of the follow'ng conclusion to that introduction. that I wrote to Aylmer Maude expressing my approval of the centenary edition, and of this passage in the introduction in particular: — "If you have a baby who can speak with Czars in the gate, who can make Europe and America stop and listen when he opens his mouth, who ran smite with unerring aim straight at the sorest spots in the world's conscience, who can break through all censorship and all barriers of language, who can thunder at the gates of the most terrible prisons in the world, and place his neck under the keenest, ami bloodiest axes only to find that for him the gates dare not open and the axes dare not fall, then indeed you have a baby that must be nursed and coddled and petted and let go his own way in spite of all the wisdom of governments and schoolmasters.

. . . Yon have to take him whether you like him or not. and take liiui as he in. Mamie's book, which will stand, I think, among the big biographies of our literatures. must be read, no matter what you try to think of its hero."

In reply to this letter of appreciation, Mr. Maude snid: "I share your opinion that the passage in Shaw's introduction about speaking with f'zars in the gate is a fine one." He then goes on to say that lie deplores the fact, that in that same introduction Shaw is inclined to underestimate Tolstoy's capacity in practical matters, ami. after giving one or two instances, of the business acumen of his hero, he concludes by saying that "balancing the one tiling with the other. I do not know whether T am grateful to Shaw for liis introduction or not."

Of the remaining lt> volumes which comprise this complete edition of Tolstoy's works, each volume has an introduction bv one literary notable or another, both in America and Engbrnd.

Amonjjst (In- fr;i I:i xv of letter* there occur li.i nit's ii< .Jolm (ialsworthy, • lane Adam*. (Irnnvilli--Harker. tiillicrt Murray, llml-Ii Walpolc. 11. (i. Wells, lie'ocica \W,-t. Si. .1 > ill ii Krvine. Is. Shaw anil Stephen (.i;iltam. Hecaline of New /calami's | .»•<■ uli a r inti-rt—t in i 111«; 11 Walpolc. I (.lioiiUl like to refer to hin int r«xlii.-( ion to tin- liist. of tlie three volume-. whieli coinpri-e the novel '"War and Peace." of which lie says "there is no novel in the world's literature coiitainiiiL' wit hin it* cover* so many limires hot h individual and uiiivernal a* this."' It is a [lii-t tire painted oil a hu»c canvas \ depict itiir a nillll it Ilile of elm ill it its who I li.i;iired in tin- \a|>oleiiiiic wars. both in Russia and in Frame. Finally, he sa \ s that "it in in the union of all the world*, material ami spiritual—a union won without preach in*.' or any falniticat ion of hiniiii ii nal tin —that 'War and Peace* achicvcis its final »rea t nes-«." In the fact that Tolstoy is concerned witli spiritual matters lies hi* only real claim to jjreat liens. A* a playwright, essayist ami novelist he mijiht have attained greatness, lint an a prophet and seer he has gained pre-eminence. What after all is the filial tent of <|iialitv in any work of art 7 Surely it is. in it true? In it. true for all mankind? Is J it eternally true, or only true for a period of time? Ami so it is that he tided nte over a period of doubt and disappointment over the witness of the t'hurch iu connection with vital world problem*, and he ™aw me the practical import of most of what I had heard in the form of "pretty ntories about -Testm and His love. Whilst I am not willing to po to the

lengths ill the <1 i r<'< •ti« hi of ('lirist ia 11 experiment that several (if his hooks would suggest. l»v founding a colony of Robinson t'rusocs trying to live outside society ami its problems, as even Maude tired to <|o years in il Tolstoy colony in Kughiml. nevert hclcss I believe that wit li the passing of time, ami with the taming of the a|>e ami tiger in man. that Tolstoy's teaching will become iiiereasin^ly practical ami true for the whole of mankind. | (iillM-rt Murray has written an introduction to Volume -0. Although he limls himself in complete disagreement 'with some of tln* ultimate findings of Tolstoy, lie is yet prepared to agree that "Tolstoy saw more vividly than any writer of his time the immense e«ils of organised gov criuiients. If lie had lived on to see the governments of Kurope, as they now are. with the poison of war still coursing in their veins, lie would not have found much to | alter in his language. Never has there been such n terrilic propaganda of evil doctrine as during the last few years, and the doctrine is precisely that worship of the State which Tolstoy so consistently denounced." To bring this i matter right up to the minute of writj ill «r. we read that upwards of 2.000.000 people are gathering in Nuremberg to glorify the name of Ad<df Hitler, who is himself ail emhodimeiit of the State. "All power corrupts." said Lord Acton, "and alisolute power corrupts absolutely." lie continued. Against all this Moloch-worship Tolstoy raised a hemic protest, but as Gilbert Murray says, "It I is only a protest, and not a solution of the difficulty." While we have millions of people getting in each other's way and thwarting each other's wishes, the difficulty must, remain, and will remain until men learn to love their neighbours as themselves, until they learn that the good of all is inextricably bound up with the welfare of each, and that he who puts one end of a chain around the ankle of a slave puts the other end around himself. When that steamer sailed up the Brisbane Kiver past Pinkeuba, on a siiiuiv September morning during IBIS, and finally tied up at the Bulimha wharf, there stepped ashore an English youth with two suitcases and a cabin trunk. Ihe copy of Tolstoy's "Resurrect ion"' was under his arm. Never since has he escaped the influence of this bearded Russian aristocrat who turned [>easant. nor does he wish to, liecause for him that influence has been a sheet-anchor against the possibility of drifting into apathy.or de.spair over the continued neglect of the Church to emphasise the social implications of the Gospel of her Founder.