However, perhaps science is strong in creating a bright future for mankind by other means? By clarifying the laws by which the universe exists, by discovering the means of influencing the forces laid down in matter, science gives us enormous power over nature. There was a time when man trembled before every formidable phenomenon of nature; now he is its master.

If the people of the ancient world, contemplating the future, could imagine what science is doing now, they would decide that the golden age of which their poets have always dreamed has arrived. But with all these conquests of the mind, the promised land still runs before us like a mirage. The profound ignorance of the masses of the people, the excessive toil, the abject misery, side by side with idleness and extravagance, are no less painfully felt in the age of electricity and steam than in the age of brutal barbarism. "Almshouses and prisons are as common companions of scientific progress," says Henry George, "as are luxurious palaces and splendid shops. In the noisy capitals, on the streets flooded with asphalt and illuminated by electric suns, we, as everywhere, meet exhausted, gloomy, angry faces. Among the greatest accumulation of wealth, people die of hunger and sickly children suck the withered breasts of their mothers. Everywhere the thirst for profit and the worship of wealth indicate the power of the fear of want. The tragedy of the Gospel parable of the rich man and Lazarus has not lost its burning to this day." "What does it profit the Prometheus man that he has procured fire from heaven and made it his servant, that the spirits of earth and air obey him," asks the eminent learned Huxley, "if the kite of hope will forever tear at his entrails and keep him on the brink of utter destruction?" "I am not afraid to express the opinion," he says, "that if there is no hope of a great improvement in the condition of the greater part of the human family; If it be true that the growth of knowledge, which results in the acquisition of greater power over nature, and the riches conferred by power, will in no way alter the intensity of want and its spread, with all the physical and moral degeneration that accompanies it among the masses of the people, I would gladly welcome the approach of some obliging comet which, washing away all this history, would put a desirable end to it." "This union of poverty with progress," remarked Henry George, "is the great mystery of our time. This is the central fact from which arise those industrial, social, and political difficulties which confuse the world, and which statesmen, philanthropists, and educators struggle with in vain. From it rise those clouds which obscure the future of the most progressive and independent nations. This is the riddle that the sphinx of fate has posed to our civilization and not to solve it means to perish. As long as all the growth of wealth, which is called material progress, is spent only on the formation of great fortunes, on the increase of luxury, and on the increasing contrast between the House of Plenty and the House of Need, so long can progress not be considered real and lasting." The reaction must come. It is necessary to renew the driving forces of civilization, to introduce new factors besides knowledge. Science, which promised to independently recreate on earth the kingdom of supreme truth and equality, must be declared bankrupt on this side. Instead of uniting under the command of heaven to fight against the common enemy - the kingdom of darkness and untruth, people with the banner of science in their hands fight for booty. The main motto of life became: "Who can eat whom, gnaws at him." As it is said in the Bible about Ishmael: "Hands of one against all, and of all against one" (Gen. 16:12). Every man for himself and for himself, that is, universal enmity, mutual distrust, irritation, anger, and nowhere is there peace, justice, pity, and love. The enemy falls, so much the better: in the fight the human race improves. Mercy is a crime, because it sacrifices the strong to the weak, and the rich in spirit and body to the lazy and frail, the world is moved, says science, and the world is dominated by the harsh, inexorable law of the struggle for existence. The logical consequence of such a view of life, of the factors of civilization, is Nietzscheanism. Nietzsche is an original, brilliant German thinker, a man of great, versatile talents. He is a critic, a poet, a philologist and, finally, a philosopher. The main theme of his literary philosophical activity is a fierce, open struggle against Christianity. Nietzsche thinks that the evils of modern life, all the calamities of our civilization, stem from the fact that we have submitted to the Gospel demands of love, meekness, and mercy. In his opinion, mankind will only have a brilliant prospect when it is freed from the moral fetters imposed on it by Jesus Christ. Give man full freedom, says Nietzsche; free him from the empty phantoms of conscience and passions, and you will be amazed at the power of the powers he has manifested. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of weak people will perish, will be crushed in the struggle, but on the other hand, the victor, drunk on their sweat and blood, will climb up the corpses, as if on steps, and lay the foundation for a new breed of creatures. It will no longer be just a "man", but a "Uebermensch", a "superman". The philosophy of the beggars is the consummation of Darwin's theory. According to Darwin, the entire long ladder of living beings, starting from the lowest organism and ending with the highest - man, is an uninterrupted chain of transition from one species to another. By means of the struggle for existence, since there are always more mouths than food, organisms are constantly improving: only the strongest specimens, the most adapted to the struggle, survive, and the rest are exterminated or themselves die out for lack of food. Any accidental advantage of the laws of heredity is assigned to the organism. Over the centuries, so many distinctive features have been accumulated in one or another species of animals that a new, more perfect type is formed. The same story repeats itself with him. The natural selection of those who are better adapted to the struggle for life and the law of heredity do not interrupt their work for a moment. In perfecting itself in this way, the organic world has at last worked out the type of man. Such a theory (even if we leave aside the question of the validity or falsity of its main propositions) is unproven. The beggars took the trouble to finish it, to put an end to the i's. If man, by a long chain of extinct species, is connected directly with the ape, descended from it, and the ape, in turn, from other lower organisms, then why do we stop at man? Not now, not tomorrow, not in a hundred years, but someday there must appear a creature even more adapted to life, even more perfect than man. To lead mankind along this path, where in the end the titans and demigods are seen, is such a great task, Nietzsche thinks, for the sake of which one should not be embarrassed by the requirements of religion, morality, conscience, and duty. The more evil is committed, the more strength and energy will be manifested, the sooner the "superman" will appear... "Be firm," Nietzsche bequeathed to his disciples, "do not succumb to pity, compassion, love, crush the weak, climb higher on their corpses; you are children of the highest breed; Your ideal is "superman". Terrible theory! It is not the best who triumph, but the strongest and most predatory. Goodness, love and truth must part and give way to violence, shamelessness and vice. Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, Herod the Great, Nero, Caesar Borgia - these are the exponents of the ideas of Nietzscheanism. Where is the happiness promised by science to all members of the human family, where is the triumph of the higher principles of truth? Where is universal altruism? Why does science with material progress not bring about an improvement in morals; Why doesn't evil uproot it? Alas, this is not her business. The causes of evil are of a moral nature, and science is powerless against moral evil. It can crush a rock, flatten a block of metal, but it is not given to it to soften a hard, callous heart. All her high-profile inventions, the glory of our century, are petty in their inner purpose, insignificant in the purposes they serve. Their service role is reduced to the promotion of exclusively material progress: the increase of man's power over the forces of nature, the accumulation of wealth and the external comforts of life. The apostles and philosophers, preaching the brotherhood of nations and proclaiming the rights of man, successfully fulfilled their high mission even without telegraph and telephone wires; the millions of wires that have covered the entire globe of the earth in our days serve mainly the stock exchange rogues and newspaper chatter about the political game of the moral Lilliputians. Science, for example, invented gunpowder, and the peace-loving Chinese, separated by his wall from the rest of the world, used it for centuries for amusement, making fireworks out of it [1]; and the militant European, who from the height of his culture so despises the backward Chinese, has added guns, cannons, and grenades to gunpowder, spends billions on their manufacture, and, through the inventions of Schwartz, Chapso, Berdan, Mauser, Lebed, Martini, Armstrong, Nordenfelt, Hotchkiss, Maxim, Krupne, and others, to whom the legion is also named, exterminates millions of his brothers. If we compare the amount of gunpowder, dynamite, and pyroxylin expended in sieges and bombardments to destroy peaceful human dwellings with the amount of the same explosives used to improve the means of communication for the peaceful rapprochement of peoples: to dig tunnels, to widen narrow mountain passes, to remove dangerous underwater rocks, stones, and reefs, then, from the point of view of the moral development of mankind, what a sad certificate that cultured Europe will have to issue! Scientific enlightenment alone will only give training of the mind, and if a person is a predatory person by nature, then education only sharpens his teeth, sharpens his claws. The mind serves to prepare and cultivate the soil conquered by other forces. Reason is the executive power, and the legislative power, the guiding power, belongs to the heart. The Gospel of nineteenth centuries ago declared: "Out of the heart proceed evil and good thoughts." The Divine Knower of the Heart, Christ the Saviour, was the first to point out to the world that the only source of social life is the spirit of man, and that the more perfect it is, the more perfect will be everything created by it. If you want the life around you to change, says Christianity, change yourself, educate your heart. Brotherly, loving life, the Kingdom of God on earth are possible; only they must be sought not somewhere around, not in something external, but within oneself, in one's heart. The heart is not the sphere of influence of science, but the realm of religion. It is impossible to breathe strength into the moral nature of man by external mechanical means. Science cannot force a person to change his will. By fear or compulsion it is possible to force him to renounce a bad action, but not from an evil will, which is an internal movement, not subject to external force. The moral renewal of man is conditioned by voluntary submission to a force that has such an attraction that binds the conscience, deeply agitates the feelings and inclinations, calls into action all that is good in them, and makes it possible to triumph over the inferior. Only the religion of the Gospel can be such a force for humanity. The Gospel, speaking to us about God as Perfect Love and Absolute Truth, about His attitude to the world and about our duties to it, fills our soul with reverent worship of the Supreme Being, awakens in us the desire to become worthy of His love, evokes obedience to His commandments as an immutable moral law. Christianity, and it alone, in the name of the Supreme Holiness, which is God Himself, tirelessly urges man to go forward and forward in moral growth. Hence the general conclusion is as follows. The highest universal ideal of all mankind is the ideal indicated by the Gospel: the Kingdom of God. The path to its realization is the moral renewal of the entire spiritual nature of man, the development of a Christian worldview, the education of the will in the spirit of evangelical love and truth. Religion is the driving force on this path. Such a conclusion can in no way be considered humiliating to science, and it has no reason to dispute it. Science has its own special field of activity, also very respectable, each success in which is in its own way also a great blessing for humanity. These two spheres - both the sphere of influence of religion and the sphere of influence of science - with a proper understanding of the matter do not at all contradict each other: they complement each other. And if there are clashes between representatives of religion and representatives of science, this is due to a sad misunderstanding: the inability to understand the boundaries of one's competence, the desire to invade other people's borders. There is a medieval story about two knights who fought to the death in a duel, accusing each other of an obvious lie, as it seemed to them. They argued about the color of the shield: one said that the shield was white; another claimed that the shield was blue. The argument flared up and ended in a duel, and both were right. The shield was painted in different colors on both sides: one blue, the other white.

The dispute between the representatives of science and religion is explained by a similar misunderstanding. Both science and religion deal with one and the same subject: with the huge world organism as a whole, and, in particular, with man, who in the boundless universe is, as it were, a special, separated, closed world in himself. Responding to the needs of our mind and heart, science and religion illuminate the mystery of the world from two different angles. Science determines the eternal, immutable laws according to which the life of the universe proceeds; discovers and subordinates to the human mind more and more new forces of nature, establishes the degree of external, physical dependence of man on his environment; In short, science sets itself the goal of giving the fullest possible answer to the question: how does the world live? Religion has a different task; It answers the question: how can a person live in the world? What relationship should he have to the world and to the One Who is above the world? The lawyer asked Jesus Christ: "Teacher! With the same question, every Christian turns to the religion established by the Saviour, firmly believing that he will not only find the answer he needs in the teaching of the Gospel, but will also acquire in a close, living prayerful union with God the moral strength necessary for the eternal meaning to be hidden in each individual action, feeling, and word. giving the right to live.

Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Luke says: "To what shall I liken the Kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and put into three measures of flour, until everything was soured" (13: 20-21). Speaking in the spirit of this parable, it should be added that the religion of Christ is necessary to mankind, like leaven to flour, and until people are all imbued with the spirit of the Gospel, Christianity cannot be replaced by anything. To this, it may be objected that there are a considerable number of people with higher motives of behavior and a life as pure as crystal, who nevertheless quite openly express their disbelief in religious teachings, fundamentally denying their influence on their lives and behavior. A typical representative of these can be the famous French scientist Littré, "this saint who does not believe in God", as he was aptly described by another French writer - Caro. How, it will be asked, are these facts to be reconciled with our conception of religion as the centre of all the vital forces which move and reconstruct the modern social world? The explanation is very simple. The Christian religion, in the nineteen centuries of its existence, has left a strong and indelible mark on a long series of generations, on their laws and institutions, on their intellectual and moral education, on their way of thinking in general. A large part of the ideas first proclaimed to the world by Christianity have now become common property, and the opponents of Christianity owe everything they are justly proud of entirely to the Gospel, although they do not admit it. But let the clouds cover the sun, the daylight that surrounds us is still not original, but only the result of a luminary hidden from us. When the clouds dissipate, then the sky will brighten, shine in all its glory, the sun will pour streams of warmth and light, and a clear, jubilant day will come. But when will all this be? No one can give an answer.

To the question when this hour will come, the Great Teacher exhorts people to work with all their strength for its speedy arrival. And there can be no other answer. No one can tell people when the day and hour of the Kingdom of God will come, because the coming of this hour does not depend on anyone else but on themselves. "The answer is the same," says a well-known thinker, "as the answer of that sage who, to the question of a passer-by: "How far is it to the city?" answered: "Go." How can we know how far we are from the goal towards which humanity is approaching, when we do not know how humanity will move towards this goal, on which it depends whether to go or not to go, to stop, to moderate its movement or to intensify it? All we can know is what we, the human beings, must do and must not do in order for this kingdom of God to come; And we all know this. The Gospel speaks clearly. And we should stop doing what we shouldn't do; only everyone begins to do what we must do; only for each of us to live with all the light that is in us, so that the promised Kingdom of God, to which the heart of every person is drawn, may immediately come." The attainment of the Kingdom of God is a divine-human deed, a consequence of man's acceptance, assimilation of God's truth, proclaimed to people by Jesus Christ. The closer a person comes to God in his heart, the closer the Kingdom of God will become to a person. The coming of the Kingdom of God, insofar as it depends on man, is therefore conditioned by the Christian education of the will, its education in the spirit of the Gospel love and truth. Kolb. Cultural History, pp. 77-78: "The Chinese were familiar with gunpowder, but never had firearms." Peshel. "Ethnology", p. 372: "the Chinese knew gunpowder before the Europeans, they used it only for fireworks" ^

Part 1

"The Kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21). "The kingdom of God is taken by force, and those who use force take it away." (Matt. 11:12). Man is a highly complex creature. He is born and lives with a multitude of instincts and needs, diverse both in terms of their quality and in terms of the intensity of their manifestation. There are bodily and physiological needs, and there are spiritual needs: mental, aesthetic and moral. The satisfaction of the former creates a vegetative, animal life, a life without spiritual demands, without ideals, without lofty aspirations, in the strict sense not even life, but vegetation. It is a gross, inferior form of life. Satisfaction of mental abilities gives a person the opportunity to orient himself in life. With the help of science, with his inquisitive mind, with each new generation, man gets to know the universe better and better, the arena of his activity; he determines his abilities more correctly and becomes more skilful in controlling the forces of nature. But that's not all. Man is not only a spectator of the world drama taking place before him. He is an actor, a direct participant in it. The question of how he will use the powers he has learned, what role he will choose for himself: the role of a noble hero, a self-sacrificing worker for the common good, an empty vulgar, or a callous egoist, is a serious and fatal question. The consciousness of duty in itself does not yet give the strength to fulfill it. The source of all human actions is his will, and in order for a person to really take the rational, correct path of life that he has realized, it is not enough to recognize the mind, but to have a feat, an inner movement of the will. Properly satisfy the needs of the heart; give the heart such a task that would captivate and enchant it; Set before him an ideal that would conquer the will of man by the sheer charm of its greatness, and you will get life as it should be and can be. The abnormality of the life around us, the gloomy and cheerless background of it, are explained exclusively by neglect of the needs of the heart, are the result of a corrupt, evil will of man. Therefore, it would be thought that the science of the correct education of the will should have the widest application in our country as the basic science of life. Meanwhile, "the most surprising thing," says a French writer, "is that people are aware of the need for teachers and knowledge in everything else; there they make certain efforts; only the science of life they do not study and do not want to study." Look at how parents take care of the physical and mental development of their children and how little they think and how sick their hearts are about their moral education. How much attention, anxiety and care there is in one respect, and what amazing indifference, dispassionate calm in the other! They watch every open window in children's rooms; carefully protect children from the slightest dampness and barely noticeable draft; by the hour, like medicine, they are given food and put to bed, they are alert to barely audible hoarseness and cough in children; A slight increase in temperature in a child is anxiously monitored. Children begin to learn - all kinds of award-winning teaching aids, improved teaching methods are at their service; tutors, governesses, tutors, parents themselves monitor each preparation of the lesson.

With the large number of all kinds of societies and circles for the promotion of physical development and scientific and artistic self-education among the students, do we know of at least a few aesthetic circles aimed at promoting moral self-education? All these are questions to which reality provides answers to depressing bitterness. It is not difficult to explain why it is so. In political economy it is recognized by law that the cultivation of land always begins with less productive, but easier to work plots, and then passes on to more fertile soils, but requiring both more labor and greater expenditure to bring them into a cultivated state. We see the same thing in the field of education. And here they usually begin with the study of the phenomena that are the least complex, the least abundant in important consequences, in the sense of their influence on our actions, and perhaps only in the future will they pass on to the essential, fundamental phenomena, which require more attention and more work, but on the other hand have a more beneficial effect on life. Undoubtedly, it is easier to strengthen the physical organism of a child, to make it strong, enduring, dexterous, to enrich the mind of students with versatile knowledge, to develop in them a taste for the elegant, than to develop an integral moral character from them, to direct their will to the search for eternal truth and spiritual beauty, and this latter is the main thing in man. The Roman sage Epictetus says: "You will render the greatest service to the state if, instead of erecting tall buildings, you will try to elevate the soul of your fellow citizens; for it is much better if people with high souls huddle in small huts than if low souls hide in huge mansions." Swift in his "Gulliver" advises "when choosing persons to occupy government posts, to pay more attention to the moral qualities of these persons than to their abilities and talents." In his opinion, "the highest intellectual gifts cannot replace moral qualities, and therefore it is most dangerous to entrust government posts to gifted persons without moral foundations, since with a good intention, a mistake from ignorance cannot have such fatal consequences for the public good as the activity of a morally depraved person by nature, who, thanks to his talents, has the opportunity to further develop and hide his depravity." Rousseau adds: "Anyone can be a nobleman, but not everyone is capable of being a man." To be a man in the full sense of the word requires tremendous work on oneself, a long stubborn struggle against coarse animal instincts, and a tireless growth of reverence for the Supreme Ideal of life. Here lies the main mistake of our upbringing. People naively think that it is enough to show children what is right and what is wrong, and children will do the right thing. In most cases, we do not yet understand that the moral benefit that can be achieved by education must be the result of the education of the heart and will rather than of the mind. If, instead of admonishing the child, "This is good and that is bad," you make him feel it, if you make him (by your own or someone else's example) love virtue and hate vice, if you strengthen his noble desires and blunt the base ones, if you bring to life a good feeling that has been dormant until then, if you instill in him a sympathetic aspiration, then you really bring up a child, develop a person out of him. The German moralist Hilti says: "It is impossible not to recognize as a great pedagogical mistake the attempt to fill the heads of young children with religious teachings; this frequent occurrence is explained by a completely wrong understanding of the saying of Jesus Christ. We do know that He "embraced them and blessed them," but nowhere do we see Him making any demands of them, expounding His doctrine to them, or wishing them to follow it (cf. Matt. 18:2; Matt. 10:14-16; Luke 18:15-17). Children are in great need of love and good feelings, but very little of religious teaching. For the most part, they are taught too much teaching (which is much easier) and too few examples of love. And when the time comes when children could use religion on their own, for the most part this means has completely lost its power and knowledge for them" [1]. Now look at the consequences of this incorrect arrangement of the education of the generations that are coming to replace us. Both in literature and in society, there is only talk of the absence of high interests among young people, of the impoverishment of ideals, of a complete relaxation of the will; there are no ideological workers; conscience, duty, the common good are forgotten words. But where do high ideals, strong characters, and a strong will come from? Only what is sown there sprouts in the field. Young people become what they are brought up by their family, school, and life itself. An integral, moral character, that is, an indestructible power over oneself, moral self-government, a strengthened predominance in our soul of noble feelings and moral concepts over animal inclinations, are not characteristic of man from birth. Our characters are not developed in the mysterious laboratories of nature by some unknown force, but in the environment of the surrounding life by ourselves. If, in the education of youth, due attention is not paid to the development of character, the mind develops, tastes are refined, and the will is not cultivated, there are no characters, and there will not be until things change. Here I consider it necessary to dwell on the analysis of Schopenhauer's doctrine on the question of interest to us. The famous preacher of pessimism claims that character is born with a person and cannot be changed. Under the changeable shell of his age, his relations, even his knowledge and views, there hides, like a cancer in its shell, completely unchanging, always the same person. The forms of manifestation change, in which at different times and under different circumstances the character reveals itself, but the character itself does not change. With the same degree of anger, one can die on the chopping block, and the other - quietly in the family circle. The same degree of malice in one people can be expressed in coarse traits: murder and cannibalism; the other - in court intrigues, oppression and subtle tricks exquisitely, cautiously and even elegantly. The shape is different; The essence is the same. Water, whether it falls foaming from the cliff; whether it reflects, like a quiet lake, its shores; whether it splashes upwards like a fountain, it still remains water with all its inherent properties. In the same way, human character manifests itself: under different conditions, in different forms, but always the same in essence. It is as impossible to change character itself, says Schopenhauer, as it is to turn gold into diamonds. An egoist cannot be freed from egoism, just as it is impossible to wean a cat from a tendency to mice. Every man, under the most diverse conditions, is what he is, and invariably remains the same. If character could gradually change, improve year after year, then the older would have to be noticeably more virtuous than the younger, but in fact this is not the case. All these arguments do not stand up to proper criticism; They do not prove that characters cannot change, but that they do not usually change, that most people do not make an attempt to rework themselves. We are more willing to follow the beaten, though slippery, road than to carve out for ourselves a new, honest and glorious path. Fearing the struggle and effort necessary to fight with themselves and with others for the higher principles of life, people give up their ideals more easily than the comfort and tranquility of life. If, on the other hand, when entering an independent life, in the years of public service, a person puts an end to all the ideals, over the best dreams of youth, then, of course, in old age he will not become a model of virtue and, according to Schopenhauer, will be faithful to his character all his life. There is no desire to change one's character, no aversion to evil is awakened, no need is felt to make an inner effort to push away evil from oneself and renounce it, the character remains unchanged; But that doesn't mean it can't be changed. Now, if it were possible to prove that all struggle is useless, and that man, with all his desire and perseverance, cannot become anything else, for example, an egoist to rise to self-sacrifice, a robber-murderer to become a merciful Samaritan, a dissolute sensualist a strict ascetic, this would be a really valuable argument, but there is no reason to assert anything of the kind. On the contrary, we know of many examples of how the most inveterate villains, under the influence of special conditions, became ascetics, performed deeds of high nobility. The lives of many saints, the thief of Golgotha, Nekrasov's uncle Vlas are living witnesses of how abruptly the human will can turn. Character, then, is not something immutable; it is the product of what is given to us by nature, and of what the family, school, society, and, most importantly, we ourselves have made of the material given by nature.

"There is no more glorious victory," says St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, "than to conquer oneself." "Whoever holds himself in subjection in such a way that the brute instincts obey reason, reason submits to God in everything, he," adds Thomas of Kempis, "is the true conqueror over himself and the master of the world." I will not hide the fact that this victory is not easy. The Gospel says: "The Kingdom of God is needed by force," it is obtained with difficulty. Moral self-education, the gradual development of the spiritual nature is work that requires persistent and constant observation and exercises on oneself. It is not for nothing that Peter the Great, aware of the passionate dissoluteness and intemperance of his nature, said with bitterness: "I have pacified the streltsy, overpowered Sophia, defeated Charles, but I cannot overcome myself." A morally perfect person is the embodiment of high ideas of love and truth in a living person, and the higher the idea, the more effort it requires for its implementation. In order to fully master it, all our spiritual faculties must be directed to it alone. It is necessary that this idea, by means of a slow and constantly increasing interaction with our other ideas, should gradually expand the circle of its influence, become the guiding center of the whole structure of our inner life. The famous artist Ivanov, before creating his famous painting "The Appearance of the Messiah", worked for more than twenty years to clarify its main idea, thought deeply about the plot, studied everything that concerned it at least somewhat; He made many sketches. When Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravitation, he replied: "Constantly thinking about it"! On another occasion he expressed himself even more explicitly: "I constantly keep in mind the subject of my study and patiently wait until the faint flickering of the morning gradually and little by little turns into a full brilliant light." In a word, every major work of art, outstanding scientific work and original thought of a genius is not born suddenly; they are nurtured for a long time in the mind and heart of the author, mature for years, and require long, persistent, concentrated attention. The same process is inevitable in the development of an integral moral personality. If, for example, we want the ideal of evangelical love and truth to become our inalienable possession, to be transformed into our flesh and blood, we must pay special attention to it. If it only briefly passes through our consciousness, it is as if it does not exist: it will die, it will be forgotten, leaving no trace. It should be dwelt upon with serious, concentrated reflection. Then he will acquire the necessary vitality, with the help of the mysterious magnetic force - the association of ideas, he will attract to himself other fruitful thoughts, powerful feelings; will merge with them into one inseparable whole. This work of consolidating in the soul a sublime idea or developing an ideal feeling can be compared to the artificial formation of crystals. "If we dip a crystal into a chemical solution containing several different bodies in the degree of saturation," says the French psychologist Peyo, "then the particles homogeneous with the crystal under the influence of a mysterious force of attraction will be separated from the liquid and gradually grouped around it. The crystal will grow little by little, and if the solution remains in complete rest for weeks and months, it will be one of those magnificent specimens which, in their beauty and volume, are the joy and pride of chemical laboratories. The same is true in psychology. Take any psychic state, bring it to the fore in your consciousness, hold it for a long time, and imperceptibly, by the same mysterious affinity as the chemical, ideas and psychic movements similar to it will be grouped around it. The result will be an imperious, powerful feeling, to which the will will slavishly obey. In comparison with them, everything else will fade into the background. Even low, shameful feelings, if we succumb to them, can acquire unlimited power over us" [2]. Let us recall at least Pushkin's "The Miserly Knight" in the basement among the illuminated piles of gold. He says: Who knows how many bitter abstinences, Bridled passions, heavy thoughts, Daytime cares, sleepless nights all this cost me? Or will the son say That my heart is overgrown with moss, That I knew no desires, that my conscience never gnawed at me?.. No, first suffer for yourself wealth. In Drill's book "Crime and Criminals" there are a number of personalities in whom instincts of a lower order dominate the whole being and determine their owner to appropriate actions. A certain M., for example, devoted his whole life to the service of the stomach. He traveled through all the parts of France, at least in some way remarkable for the edible part. He diligently studied the physiology of digestion, as well as history and travel, but only from a culinary point of view. He knew perfectly well and liked to tell in what year, under which king, what of the edibles, by whom and from where it was exported. Apart from gastronomy, he did not talk about anything and sincerely respected only gastronomes and cooks. Another similar gentleman, at the age of six, ate up a fortune which alone yielded half a million rubles annually. He had agents in Mexico, China, Canada, etc., who sent him tidbits. Left with a guinea in his pocket, he bought himself a snipe, roasted it according to all the rules of cooking, gave his stomach two hours for pleasant digestion, and, enjoying it for the last time, went and drowned himself. The meaning of life without money to satisfy the demands of an all-powerful stomach was exhausted for him, and he ceased to exist. Gilti. Happiness, 1st ed., p. 94 ^ Peyo. "Education of the Will" ^

Part 2

The Gospel gives us the most perfect ideal of life. The moral image of man, embodied in the Divine Herald of love, breathes with enchanting spiritual beauty. Have this ideal and image always before your eyes, and their characteristic features will be imprinted on your soul. It has been noticed that spouses who have spent many years in close communication, not only in character and habits, but even in face, become similar to each other. Such is the powerful effect on a person of the frequent repetition of the same impressions. Therefore, let the impressions you take away from your acquaintance with the Gospel not be accidental, fragmentary, fleeting. The more often you are in the position of Mary at the feet of Jesus, the more hours you spend in deep meditation on the pages of the Evangelists, the more familiar, and closer, and dearer the image of Christ will become to you, the more vivid and vivid will be its characteristic features in your moral character. Time after time, as if under the blows of the chisel of a brilliant sculptor, the roughness and ugliness of your character will be smoothed out and leveled, until your own inner image, passing from property to quality, from lower to higher, from higher to still better, slowly and gradually transforms itself into the perfect image of Christ. The image of Christ that is being created in us should be the primary task of our life, both personal and social. After all, if the life of our time is still far from moral perfection in its constitution, if it is often overshadowed by crude manifestations of violence, shamelessness and dishonesty, then this explains why there are not enough people among us who would embody the image of Jesus in their character, who would cultivate their will in the service of His words. In our private and public lives, there is a great lack of a reflection of Christ. Everywhere there is a constant, never satisfied demand for the bearers of His ideas. Therefore, to all in whom the spark of God has not been extinguished, in whom the womb has not completely taken over, this is a great holy deed: be imbued with the light of the Gospel, bring the truth of Christ into the world, build your life on the principles proclaimed by the Savior. Let there be darkness in life, you be the light of the world. This or that specialty, this or that kind of service is indifferent here. Each and every one of us, before entering into public affairs, must be a person in the true sense of the word. To be a useful worker, one must be a morally educated person. Moral dignity must be considered the necessary principle of human greatness, in whatever form it may be manifested. In fact, it is not important what kind of business you are engaged in: whether you perform a feat, or carry out modest, everyday, ordinary work; it is important that you always and everywhere be faithful to the Savior's commandment: "Be the salt of the earth, be the light of the world"; It is important that in every place, in every environment, exert a beneficial influence on all those around you, force them by the power of your example to love the good and the truth, teach them to appreciate the moral beauty of life. "Whether you eat, drink, or do anything else, do all to the glory of God," the Apostle exhorts (1 Corinthians 10:31). "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven," said Jesus Christ (Matt. 5:16). Any deviation from this commandment is already a betrayal of duty, weakens our moral energy, and has a corrupting influence on our entire future life. A drop of swamp mud that gets into a clean spring or stream will be invisible to the eye, but, dissolved in crystal streams, it will bring some turbidity into them and can serve as a source of many pathogenic fungi or bacteria. This is a natural law that operates equally in both the physical and spiritual worlds. Therefore, be attentive to yourself even in individual cases. Poison, in whatever doses it is taken, is still poison, and evil is always evil, even if it seems insignificant. The string, weakened during the playing even for a second, immediately gives a false sound and thus spoils the impression of the whole piece. The same should be said about the moral harmony of the human spirit. We are usually accustomed to take our individual petty weaknesses and shortcomings too lightly; however, they are of very serious importance. Just as the Alps and the Himalayas consist of insignificant grains of sand, the boundless oceans are made of tiny droplets, so life is composed of individual trifles. After all, heroes are born for centuries and feats are not performed every hour, and life in the meantime goes on its own track, carrying with it ordinary, everyday needs and worries. It is in his attitude to these everyday trifles that, strictly speaking, a person is most truly known. Here, so to speak, every fluff shows the direction of the wind, an insignificant straw determines the course of the river... "He who is faithful in little," says the Saviour, "is faithful in much, but he who is unfaithful in little is unfaithful also in much" (Luke 16:10). A few years ago, during the excavations of Pompeii, a Roman soldier was unearthed in full armor with a spear in his hand and with a visor lowered over his face. Obviously, standing on the clock, the soldier saw the imminent death approaching him, but, faithful to his duty, he remained motionless at his post, only lowered his visor so as not to see the horrors happening around him, and so, covered with ashes, he stood to this day. Undoubtedly, this is one of the innumerable heroes, unknown to the world, whose deeds, having been performed in a different, more convenient situation, are recorded on the pages of history for the edification of posterity. Had he not perished in Pompeii, his life, if he had not fallen to the lot of performing a resounding feat, would in any case have been the life of a courageous man, faithful to his duty. Therefore, remember that you may not have to do great things in life, but all of you can and must honestly fulfill your purpose: to bring into life that portion of goodness and justice that corresponds to your innate abilities. I repeat, not everyone is given to be a hero, and even those who have the data to do so, not every day there is a need for exploits or an occasion for them, but we can all be good, honest people, bearers of the highest ideals of life, workers in the work of building the Kingdom of God on earth. And if you want to honestly fulfill your purpose in the world, prepare for it, work on yourself, so that you may be worthy of that great goal for the sake of which you have been called from non-existence to existence by the Higher Will. Know that moral strength, as well as physical strength, grows through exercise. In order to rotate pound kettlebells freely, you need to start with exercises with pounds; Without this, you will not suddenly become an athlete. Therefore, work tirelessly on your will, exercise it in striving for goodness and truth; Do not miss a single opportunity to let her show herself from the ideal side. Who knows, maybe a single insignificant incident will touch the best strings in the recesses of your soul, unknown to yourself, and your whole life will be one victorious hymn to love God and people. The Gospel notes several striking cases in this regard. Take, for example, the conversion of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10). Jesus Christ, surrounded by dense crowds of people, was passing through Jericho. Taking advantage of the opportunity, a man named Zacchaeus, the chief of the publicans and a rich man, sought to see Jesus, but did not know how to do it. He did not dare to come close; considered himself unworthy. At the mere memory of the past, a thick flush of shame flooded Zacchaeus's face, and his heart ached painfully. Is there a place for him, a robber of the people, a destroyer of the weak and defenseless, next to the Great Teacher of love and truth? No, Zacchaeus is willing to sink into the earth rather than stand beside this poor Righteous One and see the gaze of His pure eyes, which, they say, penetrate to the depths of the soul and read the innermost things in the heart. And you irresistibly want to see. Zacchaeus had heard so much about the goodness, about the holiness of Jesus, who was now passing through Jericho, that his whole soul yearned for Him. Both in his own life and in the lives of other people, Zacchaeus saw so little truth that he would have given dearly just to look at the One Who Himself was the Truth and taught the truth to others. On Mount Zacchaeus is small in stature and cannot see Jesus behind people from afar. Then he ran forward, climbed up on a fig tree by the wayside, and waited for Jesus to pass by. When Jesus came to this place, he looked and saw Zacchaeus and said to him, "Zacchaeus! Come down quickly, for today I must be in your house." Zacchaeus, not remembering himself, rushed out of the tree and joyfully received Jesus in his home. The few words of the Savior were enough for Zacchaeus' heart to be instantly reborn. The thought that Jesus is the Greatest Righteous Man does not disdain him, a dishonest covetous, like lightning, illuminated his dark soul. Zacchaeus perked up. Although others continue to despise him as an offender, robber and reckless, it became clear to Zacchaeus that not everything had yet perished before God, that some spark of God had been preserved inside him, which was dear to his Great Guest and which would now become a valuable asset for the rest of Zacchaeus' life. Everything for which Zacchaeus had previously so brazenly trampled on the good and the truth, now lost its value in his eyes. One thing is important to him: to retain the favor with which Jesus unexpectedly treated him. And Zacchaeus, as the Gospel says, "stood up and said to the Lord, Lord! I will give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have wronged anyone, I will repay fourfold. Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house" (Luke 19:8-9). Tens of minutes ago, when he climbed a fig tree to see Jesus passing by from a distance, did Zacchaeus think that such a change would happen to him? There is an old Indian legend, how a certain father, having plucked a ripe fruit from a branchy tree, broke it in half and then, showing the middle to his son, asked him what he saw there. "A few small seeds," the son replied quickly. "Take one of them, have a snack and tell me what's in the middle?" "There's nothing in the middle," the boy remarked, perplexed. "My son," his father wisely remarked to him then, "inside the grain, where you see nothing, is hidden the possibility of the life of a mighty tree; its fruits could be enjoyed by hundreds of people, if only the embryo fell on good soil and sprouted. And how many such germs of good perish in any of us only because we frivolously, like children, do not see anything in them, do not attach importance to them! How many holy lofty feelings are deafened because we do not dwell on them with due attention, do not allow them to develop and become stronger in us! And so, over the years, a sensitive, sympathetic heart becomes coarse; Good impulses flare up less often, possible deeds of love and truth are not accomplished, and life is so poor in them, so much in need of them.

III. Moral Degeneration

The Gospel gives us the most perfect ideal of life. The moral image of man, embodied in the Divine Herald of love, breathes with enchanting spiritual beauty. Have this ideal and image always before your eyes, and their characteristic features will be imprinted on your soul. It has been noticed that spouses who have spent many years in close communication, not only in character and habits, but even in face, become similar to each other. Such is the powerful effect on a person of the frequent repetition of the same impressions. Therefore, let the impressions you take away from your acquaintance with the Gospel not be accidental, fragmentary, fleeting. The more often you are in the position of Mary at the feet of Jesus, the more hours you spend in deep meditation on the pages of the Evangelists, the more familiar, and closer, and dearer the image of Christ will become to you, the more vivid and vivid will be its characteristic features in your moral character. Time after time, as if under the blows of the chisel of a brilliant sculptor, the roughness and ugliness of your character will be smoothed out and leveled, until your own inner image, passing from property to quality, from lower to higher, from higher to still better, slowly and gradually transforms itself into the perfect image of Christ. The image of Christ that is being created in us should be the primary task of our life, both personal and social. After all, if the life of our time is still far from moral perfection in its constitution, if it is often overshadowed by crude manifestations of violence, shamelessness and dishonesty, then this explains why there are not enough people among us who would embody the image of Jesus in their character, who would cultivate their will in the service of His words. In our private and public lives, there is a great lack of a reflection of Christ. Everywhere there is a constant, never satisfied demand for the bearers of His ideas. Therefore, to all in whom the spark of God has not been extinguished, in whom the womb has not completely taken over, this is a great holy deed: be imbued with the light of the Gospel, bring the truth of Christ into the world, build your life on the principles proclaimed by the Savior. Let there be darkness in life, you be the light of the world. This or that specialty, this or that kind of service is indifferent here. Each and every one of us, before entering into public affairs, must be a person in the true sense of the word. To be a useful worker, one must be a morally educated person. Moral dignity must be considered the necessary principle of human greatness, in whatever form it may be manifested. In fact, it is not important what kind of business you are engaged in: whether you perform a feat, or carry out modest, everyday, ordinary work; it is important that you always and everywhere be faithful to the Savior's commandment: "Be the salt of the earth, be the light of the world"; It is important that in every place, in every environment, exert a beneficial influence on all those around you, force them by the power of your example to love the good and the truth, teach them to appreciate the moral beauty of life. "Whether you eat, drink, or do anything else, do all to the glory of God," the Apostle exhorts (1 Corinthians 10:31). "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven," said Jesus Christ (Matt. 5:16). Any deviation from this commandment is already a betrayal of duty, weakens our moral energy, and has a corrupting influence on our entire future life. A drop of swamp mud that gets into a clean spring or stream will be invisible to the eye, but, dissolved in crystal streams, it will bring some turbidity into them and can serve as a source of many pathogenic fungi or bacteria. This is a natural law that operates equally in both the physical and spiritual worlds. Therefore, be attentive to yourself even in individual cases. Poison, in whatever doses it is taken, is still poison, and evil is always evil, even if it seems insignificant. The string, weakened during the playing even for a second, immediately gives a false sound and thus spoils the impression of the whole piece. The same should be said about the moral harmony of the human spirit. We are usually accustomed to take our individual petty weaknesses and shortcomings too lightly; however, they are of very serious importance. Just as the Alps and the Himalayas consist of insignificant grains of sand, the boundless oceans are made of tiny droplets, so life is composed of individual trifles. After all, heroes are born for centuries and feats are not performed every hour, and life in the meantime goes on its own track, carrying with it ordinary, everyday needs and worries. It is in his attitude to these everyday trifles that, strictly speaking, a person is most truly known. Here, so to speak, every fluff shows the direction of the wind, an insignificant straw determines the course of the river... "He who is faithful in little," says the Saviour, "is faithful in much, but he who is unfaithful in little is unfaithful also in much" (Luke 16:10). A few years ago, during the excavations of Pompeii, a Roman soldier was unearthed in full armor with a spear in his hand and with a visor lowered over his face. Obviously, standing on the clock, the soldier saw the imminent death approaching him, but, faithful to his duty, he remained motionless at his post, only lowered his visor so as not to see the horrors happening around him, and so, covered with ashes, he stood to this day. Undoubtedly, this is one of the innumerable heroes, unknown to the world, whose deeds, having been performed in a different, more convenient situation, are recorded on the pages of history for the edification of posterity. Had he not perished in Pompeii, his life, if he had not fallen to the lot of performing a resounding feat, would in any case have been the life of a courageous man, faithful to his duty. Therefore, remember that you may not have to do great things in life, but all of you can and must honestly fulfill your purpose: to bring into life that portion of goodness and justice that corresponds to your innate abilities. I repeat, not everyone is given to be a hero, and even those who have the data to do so, not every day there is a need for exploits or an occasion for them, but we can all be good, honest people, bearers of the highest ideals of life, workers in the work of building the Kingdom of God on earth. And if you want to honestly fulfill your purpose in the world, prepare for it, work on yourself, so that you may be worthy of that great goal for the sake of which you have been called from non-existence to existence by the Higher Will. Know that moral strength, as well as physical strength, grows through exercise. In order to rotate pound kettlebells freely, you need to start with exercises with pounds; Without this, you will not suddenly become an athlete. Therefore, work tirelessly on your will, exercise it in striving for goodness and truth; Do not miss a single opportunity to let her show herself from the ideal side. Who knows, maybe a single insignificant incident will touch the best strings in the recesses of your soul, unknown to yourself, and your whole life will be one victorious hymn to love God and people. The Gospel notes several striking cases in this regard. Take, for example, the conversion of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10). Jesus Christ, surrounded by dense crowds of people, was passing through Jericho. Taking advantage of the opportunity, a man named Zacchaeus, the chief of the publicans and a rich man, sought to see Jesus, but did not know how to do it. He did not dare to come close; considered himself unworthy. At the mere memory of the past, a thick flush of shame flooded Zacchaeus's face, and his heart ached painfully. Is there a place for him, a robber of the people, a destroyer of the weak and defenseless, next to the Great Teacher of love and truth? No, Zacchaeus is willing to sink into the earth rather than stand beside this poor Righteous One and see the gaze of His pure eyes, which, they say, penetrate to the depths of the soul and read the innermost things in the heart. And you irresistibly want to see. Zacchaeus had heard so much about the goodness, about the holiness of Jesus, who was now passing through Jericho, that his whole soul yearned for Him. Both in his own life and in the lives of other people, Zacchaeus saw so little truth that he would have given dearly just to look at the One Who Himself was the Truth and taught the truth to others. On Mount Zacchaeus is small in stature and cannot see Jesus behind people from afar. Then he ran forward, climbed up on a fig tree by the wayside, and waited for Jesus to pass by. When Jesus came to this place, he looked and saw Zacchaeus and said to him, "Zacchaeus! Come down quickly, for today I must be in your house." Zacchaeus, not remembering himself, rushed out of the tree and joyfully received Jesus in his home. The few words of the Savior were enough for Zacchaeus' heart to be instantly reborn. The thought that Jesus is the Greatest Righteous Man does not disdain him, a dishonest covetous, like lightning, illuminated his dark soul. Zacchaeus perked up. Although others continue to despise him as an offender, robber and reckless, it became clear to Zacchaeus that not everything had yet perished before God, that some spark of God had been preserved inside him, which was dear to his Great Guest and which would now become a valuable asset for the rest of Zacchaeus' life. Everything for which Zacchaeus had previously so brazenly trampled on the good and the truth, now lost its value in his eyes. One thing is important to him: to retain the favor with which Jesus unexpectedly treated him. And Zacchaeus, as the Gospel says, "stood up and said to the Lord, Lord! I will give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have wronged anyone, I will repay fourfold. Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house" (Luke 19:8-9). Tens of minutes ago, when he climbed a fig tree to see Jesus passing by from a distance, did Zacchaeus think that such a change would happen to him? There is an old Indian legend, how a certain father, having plucked a ripe fruit from a branchy tree, broke it in half and then, showing the middle to his son, asked him what he saw there. "A few small seeds," the son replied quickly. "Take one of them, have a snack and tell me what's in the middle?" "There's nothing in the middle," the boy remarked, perplexed. "My son," his father wisely remarked to him then, "inside the grain, where you see nothing, is hidden the possibility of the life of a mighty tree; its fruits could be enjoyed by hundreds of people, if only the embryo fell on good soil and sprouted. And how many such germs of good perish in any of us only because we frivolously, like children, do not see anything in them, do not attach importance to them! How many holy lofty feelings are deafened because we do not dwell on them with due attention, do not allow them to develop and become stronger in us! And so, over the years, a sensitive, sympathetic heart becomes coarse; Good impulses flare up less often, possible deeds of love and truth are not accomplished, and life is so poor in them, so much in need of them.

Part 1